As the National Football League hosts the Super Bowl in Arizona (home to 22 tribal nations), there is one team still openly mocking Indigenous People and bastardizing our culture with the sickening “Arrowhead Chop” and we will be out there to make sure our voices are heard along with other Arizona Native groups/people.

Events: Press Conference in Arizona 1pm-Cahokia Phoenix Social Tech and Art Space 707 N. 3rd Street, Suite 130 Phoenix, Arizona, 85004 (with the local Arizona group “Rally Against Native Mascots”) http://www.nomorenativemascots.org

Imagining the Indian screening: Scottsdale Community College’s Indigenous Cultural Center on February 10, 2023 at 6:30 pm

Protest at Superbowl: Sunday, February 12, 2023 at 2 pm at State FarmStadium. 1 Cardinals Drive, Glendale, Arizona 85305 (North of State Farm Stadium between 95th Ave and Sunrise Blvd). 

Not in Our Honor is a coalition of local Native American leaders and American Indian organizations in the Kansas City metropolitan area who have been speaking out against the use of Native American stereotypes and the misappropriation of Native American culture. Additionally, Not In Our Honor sponsored a resolution adopted by the National Congress of American Indians’ (NCAI) in 2020 to include in NCAI’s decades-long campaign for the Elimination of Race-Based Native Logos, Mascots, Names, Behaviors and Practices. https://notinourhonor.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/pdx-20-042-signed.pdf

The KC football team recently stated they have “now expanded our relationship beyond just the group in the Midwest that we’ve been working with,” regarding the American Indian working group. They do not mention the local, long-standing Kansas City organizations, leaders and community most directly affected by their brand, and are not part of the discussion. 

They also recently stated 31 tribes have participated in their American Indian Heritage “Celebration,” which is a half-truth. Individual Tribal citizens from various tribes have participated, and the number, if any, of official, Tribally-sanctioned participation is much smaller. The National Congress of American Indians, the nation’s oldest, largest, and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native advocacy organization, which has campaigned against stereotypes and mascots in sports since 1968, called the Kansas City team one of the American sports businesses that “continue to profit from harmful stereotypes originated during a time when white superiority and segregation were common place,” and adopted the above-referenced resolution in 2020.

In 2005, the American Psychological Association called for the immediate retirement of all American Indian mascots, symbols, images and personalities by schools, colleges, universities, athletic teams and organizations, stating “Research has shown that the continued use of American Indian mascots, symbols, images and personalities has a negative effect on not only American Indian students but all students…” https://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/indian-mascots https://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/policy/mascots-justif.pdf

17 years after the APA report, the Kansas City Football team states on their website, “The Chiefs are committed to ensuring that our actions as a club honor American Indians.” Their name, imagery and behavior does not and will not honor us and Not In Our Honor Coalition will continue to protest their use of Native American imagery, culture, and heritage until they change their name and imagery to reflect the rhetoric on their helmets that say: “End Racism.”

Not In Our Honor Coalition http://www.NotInOurHonor.com

Rhonda LeValdo, Amanda Blackhorse, Thomas Ed Smith, Jimmy Beason, Shereena Becenti, Carole Cadue-Blackwood, Gaylene Crouser, Kansas City Indian Center.

As the National Football League begins the 2023 Playoffs, there is one team still openly mocking Indigenous People and bastardizing our culture with the sickening “Arrowhead Chop” and we will be out Saturday to make sure our voices are heard! Not In Our Honor will be at Gate 1, off Blue Ridge Parkway at 1pm Saturday January 21, 2023 advocating to stop appropriating our culture and End Racism KC.
Not in Our Honor is a coalition of local Native American leaders and American Indian organizations in the Kansas City metropolitan area who have been speaking out against the use of Native American stereotypes and the misappropriation of Native American culture. Additionally, Not In Our Honor sponsored a resolution adopted by the National Congress of American Indians’ (NCAI) in 2020 to include in NCAI’s decades-long campaign for the Elimination of Race-Based Native Logos, Mascots, Names, Behaviors and Practices. https://notinourhonor.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/pdx-20-042-signed.pdf
The KC football team recently stated they have “now expanded our relationship beyond just the group in the Midwest that we’ve been working with,” regarding the American Indian working group. They do not mention the local, long-standing Kansas City organizations, leaders and community most directly affected by their brand, and are not part of the discussion. They also recently stated 31 tribes have participated in their American Indian Heritage “Celebration,” which is a half-truth. Individual Tribal citizens from various tribes have participated, and the number, if any, of official, Tribally-sanctioned participation is much smaller. The National Congress of American Indians, the nation’s oldest, largest, and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native advocacy organization, which has campaigned against stereotypes and mascots in sports since 1968, called the Kansas City team one of the American sports businesses that “continue to profit from harmful stereotypes originated during a time when white superiority and segregation were common place,” and adopted the above-referenced resolution in 2020.
In 2005, the American Psychological Association called for the immediate retirement of all American Indian mascots, symbols, images and personalities by schools, colleges, universities, athletic teams and organizations, stating “Research has shown that the continued use of American Indian mascots, symbols, images and personalities has a negative effect on not only American Indian students but all students…” https://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/indian-mascots https://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/policy/mascots-justif.pdf
17 years after the APA report, the Kansas City Football team states on their website, “The Chiefs are committed to ensuring that our actions as a club honor American Indians.” Their name, imagery and behavior does not and will not honor us and Not In Our Honor Coalition will continue to protest their use of Native American imagery, culture, and heritage until they change their name and imagery to reflect the rhetoric painted in their endzone, “End Racism.”
Not In Our Honor Coalition http://www.NotInOurHonor.com
Rhonda LeValdo, Amanda Blackhorse, Thomas Ed Smith, Jimmy Beason, Shereena Becenti, Carole Cadue-Blackwood, Gaylene Crouser, Kansas City Indian Center.

As we go into a month that celebrates our People, we still continue to call out the KC Football team to Change the Name and Stop the Chop! Their continued use of stereotypical images and gestures is still Racist. They perpetuate this to people all over the world and we will always be against it. Join us today in our protest! We will meet at 4pm in our usual spot off Blue Ridge Parkway, near Gate 1.

Kansas City’s team name was chosen in 1963 to honor a mayor nicknamed “The Chief” due to his founding of an imaginary Boy Scout Indian tribe. This occurred before the Civil Rights movement and before the American Indian Civil Rights movement in the 1970s. For decades, hundreds of tribes, national Indian organizations, and professional organizations have spoken out on this matter. In 2005, the APA called for the immediate retirement of all American Indian mascots, symbols, images and personalities by schools, colleges, universities, athletic teams and organizations, stating “Research has shown that the continued use of American Indian mascots, symbols, images and personalities has a negative effect on not only American Indian students but all students …”

The attempt to justify the maintenance of racist mascots because a very small number of Native Americans accept it, when a majority of us vehemently oppose them is shocking. A recent study found the more connected the individual Native is with their culture (language, traditions, ceremonies), the stronger their opposition.

With the KC “Inspire Change” and “Kingdom United” program to teach students to learn about “race and inclusion,” why not take a step and inspire a whole race of Native Americans and change the name! Be on the side of racial justice, don’t just talk about it. Currently, our petition asking KC to change the name is over 14,000 signatures.

Not in Our Honor will continue our protest outside the stadium in addition to other signage around the city. (November 6th at 4pm, November 13th 10am, November27th 1pm, December 24th 10am, January 1st at 10am. We ask:

Cease the use of racialized Native American branding by eliminating any and all imagery of or evocative of Native American culture, traditions, and spirituality from their team franchise including the logo. This includes the use of Native terms, drum, arrows, or monikers that assume the presence of Native American culture.

Apply the NFL’s “zero tolerance” for on-field use of racial and homophobic slurs to all races and ethnic groups, especially Native Peoples.

— Not In Our Honor Coalition
Rhonda LeValdo, Amanda Blackhorse, Ed Thomas Smith, Jimmy Beason, Shereena Becenti, Carole Cadue-Blackwood, Gaylene Crouser, Kansas City Indian Center

While we celebrate today, we are also preparing for todays battle! We are still erased in our opinions on the Native Imagery in Sports! How ironic that we have to fight for our voices to be heard on our own day! The KC football team’s message out today on our day is hollow. They have never engaged with us or the KC Indian Center (the main non profit that benefits our Native American people in KC) They continue to bastardize our culture with the use of the chop. They do not honor us! Our voices are stifled! Stand in solidarity as we continue this movement to #ChangeTheName #StopTheChop

#EndRacismKC

This episode’s guest is Rhonda LeValdo, an activist for Native American rights. Rhonda is an Acoma Pueblo tribal member from New Mexico, currently living in Kansas. She’s the host of the “Native Spirit” radio show, one of the founders of the “Not in Our Honor” movement (which advocates against the usage of native imagery in sports) and a professor at Haskell Indian Nations University. https://youtu.be/iAvw4hg5U3E

Join Hosts Robert & Wendy Pilot for Special Guest Antonia Gonzales and Rhonda LeValdo who welcomes a guest from across the pond to discuss the issues of Native Mascots in England and how it relates to Native Imagery here in the US with the NFL KC team with Not In Our Honor. At 13 minutes in https://youtu.be/hOMjL_PyooA

Join us outside the stadium to bring attention to the racism that the team name and cultural appropriation being done by the KC NFL team.

We will be back at the same spot on Sunday 1/30/2022 off Blue Ridge Parkway across the BP gas station at 11:30am, Bring your signs, Let KC know that we want them to #ChangeTheName and #StopTheChop

We suggest carpooling, the main place we park does charge $25-$30 (bring cash) depending on demand. Be a part of our Social Justice movement to tell KC their efforts to be inclusive fall short and do tremendous harm to our Native people all over the country not just in KC!

January 8, 2022

Not In Our Honor is responsible for taking our message “Change the Name, Stop the Chop”  to Denver, CO to protest the continuation of Institutional Racism in the NFL generally and the Kansas City franchise specifically.   We also continue our billboard campaign in the KC metro area and an online petition at www.EndRacismKC.com.   

Not in Our Honor is a coalition of local Native American leaders and American Indian organizations in the Kansas City metropolitan area who have been speaking out against the use of Native American stereotypes and misappropriation of Native American culture. Additionally, Not In Our Honor sponsored a resolution adopted by the National Congress of American Indians’ (NCAI) in 2020 to include in NCAI’s decades-long campaign for the Elimination of Race-Based Native Logos, Mascots, Names, Behaviors and Practices. https://notinourhonor.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/pdx-20-042-signed.pdf

The KC football team recently stated they have “now expanded our relationship beyond just the group in the Midwest that we’ve been working with,” regarding the American Indian working group.  They do not mention the local, long-standing Kansas City organizations, leaders and community most directly affected by their brand, and are not part of the discussion.  They also recently stated 31 tribes have participated in their American Indian Heritage “Celebration,” which is a half-truth.  Individual Tribal citizens from various tribes have participated, and the number, if any, of official, Tribally-sanctioned participation is much smaller.  The National Congress of American Indians, the nation’s oldest, largest, and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native advocacy organization, which has campaigned against stereotypes and mascots in sports since 1968, called the Kansas City team one of the American sports businesses that “continue to profit from harmful stereotypes originated during a time when white superiority and segregation were common place,” and adopted the above-referenced resolution in 2020. 

In 2005, the American Psychological Association called for the immediate retirement of all American Indian mascots, symbols, images and personalities by schools, colleges, universities, athletic teams and organizations, stating “Research has shown that the continued use of American Indian mascots, symbols, images and personalities has a negative effect on not only American Indian students but all students…”  https://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/indian-mascots https://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/policy/mascots-justif.pdf   

Sixteen years after the APA report, the Kansas City Football team states on their website, “The Chiefs are committed to ensuring that our actions as a club honor American Indians.”  Their name, imagery and behavior does not and will not honor us and Not In Our Honor Coalition will continue to protest their use of Native American imagery, culture, and heritage until they change their name and imagery to reflect the rhetoric painted in their endzone, “End Racism.”      

Not In Our Honor Coalition www.NotInOurHonor.com

Rhonda LeValdo, Amanda Blackhorse, Thomas Ed Smith, Jimmy Beason, Shereena Becenti, Carole Cadue-Blackwood, Gaylene Crouser, Kansas City Indian Center, American Indian Council-Region VII

November 1, 2021

A joint resolution by Congress in 1990 led to the passage of Public Law No: 101-343 and the Proclamation of National Native American Heritage Month.  The resolution stated that members of the Senate and House of Representatives believed the proclamation of National Native American Heritage Month could “encourage activities which provide positive benefits of enhanced self-esteem, pride, and self-awareness to young American Indians;” and “provides an opportunity for the people of the United States to consider and reflect on our Nation’s current relationship with our American Indians…”

In 2005, the American Psychological Association called for the immediate retirement of all American Indian mascots, symbols, images and personalities by schools, colleges, universities, athletic teams and organizations, stating “Research has shown that the continued use of American Indian mascots, symbols, images and personalities has a negative effect on not only American Indian students but all students…”  https://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/indian-mascots https://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/policy/mascots-justif.pdf   

It has been 31 years since the first proclamation of National Native American Heritage month and  16 years since the APA report.  The Kansas City Football team states on their webpage in the americanindianheritage portion: “The Chiefs are committed to ensuring that our actions as a club honor American Indians.”  Their name, imagery and behavior does not honor us and is contrary to the spirit and letter of the resolution leading to the proclamation of National Native American Heritage Month.  The stereotypes and racism the team continues to perpetuate are not undone with the bit of staging they do one game per year in “honor” of American Indians.  

In honor of our ancestors and for the sake of our children and the generations to come, Not In Our Honor will continue to protest against the systemic racism Kansas City football continues to perpetuate, not only in this country, but all over the world.  We will continue to remind KC football that we will not move from our stance to Change the Name. There is a right side to be on and a wrong side, and racism is always wrong. 

Not In Our Honor Coalition www.NotInOurHonor.com

Rhonda LeValdo, Amanda Blackhorse, Thomas Ed Smith, Jimmy Beason, Shereena Becenti, Carole Cadue-Blackwood, Gaylene Crouser, Kansas City Indian Center, American Indian Council-Region VII

Not in Our Honor is a coalition of local Native American leaders and American Indian organizations in the Kansas City metropolitan area who have been speaking out against the use of Native American stereotypes and misappropriation of Native American culture. Additionally, Not In Our Honor sponsored a resolution adopted by the National Congress of American Indians’ (NCAI) in 2020 to include in NCAI’s decades-long campaign for the Elimination of Race-Based Native Logos, Mascots, Names, Behaviors and Practices. https://notinourhonor.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/pdx-20-042-signed.pdf