Lily Gladstone: Chiefs’ Name, Tomahawk Chop Insensitive

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Native American actress Lily Gladstone, known for her role in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” has voiced her opposition to the Kansas City Chiefs’ team name as well as its fans’ use of the tomahawk chop, which she finds culturally insensitive, New York Daily News reported.

“Every time,” Gladstone says of hearing the tomahawk chop, “it’s a stark reminder of what Hollywood has done to us, because the tomahawk chop directly ties to the sounds of old Westerns where we were not playing ourselves, or if we were, we were merely backdrop actors.”

Gladstone also extended her critique beyond the Chiefs toward the San Francisco 49ers, who, she tells Variety, are a team “based on the California Gold Rush, which was an incredibly brutal time for California Indians.”