(Note: I have a side job working for 65-Toss Power Trap, a subsidiary of the Kansas City Chiefs. This column reflects my personal opinions and does not, in any way, reflect the opinions or views of the Kansas City Chiefs Football Club or their subsidiaries)
Growing up, I was addicted to late-night sports talk. In the early 1990s, I had a swing-shift job at one of the local casinos and would find myself up late and off before dawn. I loved listening to some of the weirder sports talk shows on my way home through crackly AM or FM signals.
Inevitably, when summer began to fade, before football took control of the national conversation, you’d hear the host say something like:
“Folks, in the 4:00 hour, we’re opening the phone lines. Pete Rose. Is he a Hall of Famer? Your takes after the break.”
You could set your watch by it.
Sports radio even used to have on-air garage sales when there wasn’t enough sports to talk about. And THEN, when that ran dry, they’d throw out Pete Rose.
Why? Because it lit up the phone lines and required almost no effort from the host. Just let people argue for an hour.
We are at that time of year.
The Chiefs have started training camp. The Royals are… well… awful. The World Cup is over. Kansas City, we’ve run out of things to talk about sports-wise.
Which is why our friends at The Kansas City Star featured this argument on their website this week: “Stop the Chop. Should the Chiefs stop the Tomahawk Chop?”
For those of us familiar with how a calendar works—and how some people just want to rile people up—it rang like a dinner bell. The Star was asking for a Mulligan because they were out of important topics to talk about.
It’s not that the issue doesn’t have sides. It’s not that it doesn’t cause strong personal feelings in people and cultures. It’s not woke or anti-woke bias.
It’s that the conversation is lazy.
You don’t really want to have a conversation about Native American cultural appropriation. You don’t really want to talk about the serious challenges facing Native communities. You want to talk about a single trigger issue, one largely adjudicated in the court of public opinion when the NFL’s “Redskins” became the “Commanders.”
You’re looking for a week off.
That isn’t to say there can’t be improvements to the Arrowhead experience or more ways to pay respect to our community. But you’re asking us to argue over the tip of a very complicated iceberg.
Meanwhile, look around sports.
Major League Baseball could very well face a 2027 lockout over its economic structure.
The NFL continues wrestling with domestic violence and CTE.
The WNBA is waging a nightly culture war mirroring larger political battles over gay rights, right-wing politics and the role of women in sports.
But let’s argue about something so tired it actually belittles the larger conversation.
“Stop the Chop” is a callout to people who can’t help but engage with every topic online. Which is the whole point.
Just like those 1990s phone boards lighting up, every Tom, Dick and Harry will offer their two cents on something they have 1% knowledge of.
Rather than taking time to educate or, God forbid, report on the challenges facing Native Americans today, let’s give everybody a BuzzFeed poll and check back after training camp to see how Patrick Mahomes’ knee is doing.
It’s lazy, insulting to the community and, unfortunately, an easy slam dunk for writers who want a week off from a substantive conversation.
(Get more from Chris Kamler at chriskamler.com)
