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let's rewind a few years:

as a kid, i hated baseball.

it's a shitty sport. it's boring, slow, uninteresting, takes forever, lacks action, low scoring, too many games in a season — overall, shit.

if you would have told young-me that i *love* baseball now, and went on a two-hour walk just to listen to the world series on the radio from my phone, that would have seemed most implausible.

baseball is awesome, and so are the braves. good game, houston.

it seems one can't mention the braves without mentioning the conflict around their name and the 'tomahawk chop' their fans do.

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is the "braves" name or the tomahawk chop racist?

• was it established by outsiders of the native american culture?
• was it used with malicious intent to demean and make fun of native americans?
• does it actively damage native american communities in atlanta or around the country?

those questions are important, nuanced, and *arguable*.

i haven't read anything so far that makes me answer "yes" to the last question above, which to me is the most important one.

but either way, the origin and current usage of the braves name and tomahawk chop comes from a minority culture, and is worthy of being examined. i commend our evaluation of it as a culture, and i think that *can be* production.

so, i ask now as a latinx person, where is the evaluation of:

• sombreros and piñatas being used for "mexican" themed restaurants, parties, and events
• mexican people (and other latinx cultures) being stereotyped as landscapers and housekeepers
• mexican food being appropriated in american food like "tex-mex" (and i would also ask, to anyone who stands on their social justice high-horse, did you check to see if every owner of a mexican restaurant you've visited was actually mexican, or a white guy?)
• embroidery patterns and techniques being used by fashion houses that directly resemble mexican
• (not mexican-specific, luis fonsi is puerto rican:) pop musicians like justin bieber jumping on spanish-speaking tracks and profiting wildly off of them, among both english and spanish-speaking communities?

if there have been discussions about these things, they have been far and few between.

if you think that's an out-of-left-field (! a baseball pun!) argument, you might be right. but if we're guaging for cultural impact by number of people possibly effected, should be at the top of the minority priority list. we're 60.5 million people in this country. and growing.

• *the braves are getting heat because it's socially profitable to give them heat.**

since there seems to be little social profit to be gained from critiquing appropriation of latinx cultures, i haven't heard much.

that's not to say the examination of the braves name and the tomahawk chop is invalid. it *does* mean that examination is contrived, and the motivations for it, dubious.

...

let's return, then, to the initial question, which many people seem to refuse to discuss:

• is* the braves name and tomahawk chop racist?

it is certainly *racial*, in that it involves race and intersecting cultures. that does not inherently make it harmful, damaging, and maliciously intended.

the answer to that question, i don't know, and i certainly can't know as well as a native american person, so i'll use my own proxy:

my relation to mexican (and more broadly, latinx culture), and it's representation in america:

• the pervasiveness of mexican culture in america is invisible to me. i couldn't care less. i'm glad we're relevant.
• if you (seriously) think we're all landscapers and housekeepers, fuck you.
• if you (as an outsider of the culture) decided to call your baseball team the 'maryland mariachi' or the 'washington güeys' tomorrow, i'd laugh very hard, i'd probably think you're very ignorant of our culture, and i'd wish you good luck building your new shiny stadium without many crews of my people.
• if you want to make a mexican dish with your own spin on it, go for it. i'm not sure why i should give a fuck about that.
• if you want to be inspired by mexican art, music, literature, or language, go for it. fuck yeah. i hope you love our culture, and i hope you're enthusiastic about it, too. don't steal, and don't profit unjustly, but please participate.
• if you make jokes about mexicans being housekeepers and landscapers, i don't care, go for it. it's true, many of us work all of those jobs that just two years ago were deemed the utmost "essential," and i don't think there's much shame in that. if your joke is funny and in good taste, people will laugh, and if it's not, then people won't go to your shows.

that's only me speaking for me, though.

...

it's an interesting issue, this whole braves thing, and it's made me reflect on the ways my own culture is portrayed and used. i can't tell if my opinion on this has softened or hardened — maybe, it's just up in the air, and this is my way of gathering thoughts.

who knows. i am open to any conclusion.

in conclusion:

it was an awesome baseball game. go braves.