I am afraid this comment might feel like a barb and a bit hard to hear. However. As you know, the two teams in this Sunday’s Super Bowl game are the “49ers” and “Chiefs.”
I’ve a friend who died years ago. He was nothing if not a 49er fan. Didn’t much matter what else was going on, when the 49ers played he was in front of a TV or at the stadium. There are many reasons not to watch football these days, but in deference to the love and memory of my friend, I would watch the 49ers this Sunday.
That is, until the Chiefs made it to the Bowl. Surely, I should have been convinced sooner. However, when the 49ers and Chiefs were lined up side by side, it was apparent this is one straw too many. One injustice too many: Chiefs—a business using its institutional power (and name) to profit on the deaths of our ancestral Indigenous siblings, the Chop—analogous to the Hitler salute—both ignores current era deaths of our indigenous siblings, and is a back run around the on-going deaths of our siblings of color for whom Kaepernick took a knee. One only needs to look at the photo and imagine what the Chop might mean to our indigenous siblings as it drops again and again and again.
Do as you may this Sunday. Yet know, I believe justice calls us to “Take a Knee” and remember our relations who died at “Wounded Knee.” I believe justice calls us to turn off the TV and reduce profiting on the backs of Indigenous and lives of color. I believe we tell our people, no more: Tweet if you’re a tweeter, share on Facebook, be incredibly risky and speak-out/pray-out this Sunday morning, risk a comment with your neighbor. I believe my friend might agree.
Chewing the Cud 