Going for Two: Wild Card Shoulda Coulda Didn't

It's easy to give Kansas City a pass because their mascot isn't a racial slur and their imagery is significantly more subtle (though still an appropriation) than Washington. I'm also not prone to watching Kansas City or Washington games, so I'm not familiar with their fans' activity, but I suspected that it wasn't good.

Yesterday, I had a unique opportunity to attend the Kansas City at Houston playoff game and had seats in the third row of the "Bull Pen", which was right behind the uprights in the north end zone. And as everyone who reads this blog knows, Alex Smith is my Football Boyfriend, so I made a sign that said "I <3 you Alex Smith" on one side. On the other side, it said, "but not your team Go Texans," with "Change the Name" and "#NotYourMascots" in smaller print.

Well, as my calculation and my benchmarks predicted, Kansas City won the game. Since the still-probably-concussed Hoyer was never taken out of the game, they shut out the Texans, so most Texans fans left the game by the 4th quarter. The few Kansas City fans then moved down closer to the games, and a large contingent of them were down on the KC sideline. With about 6 minutes left, I decided to go down there too so I could again share my feelings with Alex Smith. I held my sign in front of my red Texans shirt, with the Alex Smith side facing forward, and was successfully camouflaged in the 6th row. Yelling "I love you, Alex Smith!" a few times sealed the deal.

This was another unique opportunity, this time to be in one of the most uncomfortable crowds I've ever been in, complete with white people in headdresses and face-paint. As I learned earlier in the game, football crowds often do the "First Down" hand symbol when their team gets one, and that symbol is an awful lot like the "Tomahawk Chop". Down among the crowd of primarily white Kansas City fans, they accompanied that hand gesture with that chant. I grimaced whenever that happened, and hopefully, that grimace made it on to one fan's attempt to get a video of the whole affair.

I contemplated telling people how racist all of this was. I contemplated moving the paper with "Change the Name" and "#NotYourMascots" from the Texans side of my sign to the Alex Smith side (it was taped on). I even contemplated somehow telling one of the headdress guys that he was being incredibly offensive by wearing the formal clothing of another culture as a costume for entertainment value. I contemplated all of these things, but I did nothing, absolutely nothing.

The fact is that I was too scared to make waves - it was scary to have those messages on the Texans side of my sign while among Texans fans. I'm nervous posting about this so much on this blog too, because I abhor arguments. I end up getting too angry, my heart rate goes up, and my ability to make effective arguments plummets. At the end of the day, however, it's still an important issue. I won't stop talking about it until it's no longer an issue, because I know how this affects real people. Next time I'm in this situation, I hope I will have more courage.