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- Former President Donald Trump attended game 4 of the World Series in Atlanta on Saturday.
- Trump was seen doing the “tomahawk chop” alongside Braves fans.
- Native American groups have long disapproved of the cheer as degrading and dehumanizing.
Former President Donald Trump attended game four of the World Series in Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday and joined in with Braves fans doing the “tomahawk chop.”
Video shared on social media showed Trump making the motion – which is meant to imitate the chopping of a Native American tomahawk – along with countless others at Truist Park.
-Sam Ann 🐈 (@samannraven) October 31, 2021
-Taylor Budowich (@TayFromCA) October 31, 2021
Atlanta Braves fans have been doing the tomahawk chop at games since 1991 and it’s been controversial pretty much since it started. When the Braves made it to the World Series that year, CBS Sports ran a segment on Native American groups that disapproved of the chop as a “stereotypical and warlike depiction of Native Americans.”
In 2019, St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Ryan Helsley, a member of the Cherokee nation, spoke out against the tomahawk chop after a game when he took the mound while Braves fans did the cheer and swung foam tomahawks.
“I think it’s a misrepresentation of the Cherokee people or Native Americans in general,” Helsley said at the time, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. “Just depicts them in this kind of caveman-type people way who aren’t intellectual. They are a lot more than that.”
The issue was kicked up again this week with the Braves in the World Series.
On Tuesday, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred defended the cheer and touted the Braves’ relationship with a local tribe, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
“The Braves have done a phenomenal job with the Native American community. The Native American community in that region is fully supportive of the Braves’ program, including the chop,” he said, USA Today reported.
But the National Congress of American Indians, the largest Indigenous organization in the US, put out a statement refuting him the following day.
“In our discussions with the Atlanta Braves, we have repeatedly and unequivocally made our position clear – Native people are not mascots, and degrading rituals like the ‘tomahawk chop’ that dehumanize and harm us have no place in American society,” NCAI President Fawn Sharp said.
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