Exeter Chiefs rugby union club has ditched its Red Indian mascot to appease anti-racism campaigners, who complained it was offensive to Native Americans.
That would, presumably, be all those members of the Navaho and Arapaho tribes living in Devon.
Er, not exactly. The Big Chief Must Fall campaign is spearheaded by the usual bunch of privileged, white middle-class Lefties who attach themselves to everything from Extinction Rebellion to Black Lives Matter. (Can you still say ‘spearheaded’ without being cancelled?)
After 21 years, Big Chief has been forced to hang up his head-dress. No more will he lead supporters in their traditional tomahawk chop salute and war cry.
Club directors said in a statement that they’d ‘listened to the response of our supporters, the wider rugby community and certain sections from the Native American community’.
Sorry, but methinks white man speak with forked tongue. Where did they find sections of the Native American community to consult?
Is there an Indian reservation tucked away on the Ludwell Valley Park off the A3015? Maybe the Navaho nation pitched their tepees in the Exeter Chiefs’ car park after the illegal travellers’ camp was moved on by the Old Bill.
Perhaps while Border Control was watching the Channel, flotillas of canoes were landing at Budleigh Salterton, containing huddled masses of Cherokee refugees prepared to risk a perilous Atlantic crossing in order to seek asylum from the Trump Terror.
The Big Chief Must Fall campaign is spearheaded by the usual bunch of privileged, white middle-class Lefties who attach themselves to everything from Extinction Rebellion to Black Lives Matter
Whatever the background, the directors of Exeter Chiefs have decided reluctantly to dump the mascot, rather than be accused of cultural insensitivity.
If that’s what they thought, they were wasting their time. The Big Chief Must Fall mob won’t be satisfied until the club changes both its name and logo, which features an Indian Chief.
‘As human beings, we are horrified that we still live in a society where a major sports club can treat indigenous peoples like this.
‘It reflects badly on rugby, Devon, and the UK and we should all be thoroughly ashamed,’ spluttered an outraged spokesman for Exeter Chiefs 4 Change.
(Why do these illiterates always insist on using the number 4, instead of ‘for’?)
This is just another depressing example of the lunatic Left in Britain jumping on the latest bandwagon from America.
Once the Washington Redskins NFL team caved in to demands to change their name, the woke warriors on this side of the pond were always going to seek out similar targets here.
Before you know it, rugby will have gone the way of football and cricket.
Players will be forced to wear Red Lives Matter logos on their shirts and — never mind taking the knee — they’ll have to perform a traditional Apache rain dance before play starts.
It still won’t be enough. The name Exeter Chiefs is doomed to extinction. Although the club claims ‘chiefs’ dates back more than 100 years, it was only adopted in 1999 — as part of a cynical marketing exercise aimed at flogging overpriced merchandise.
It was the same kind of thinking that led to Leeds rugby league club being rebranded ‘Leeds Rhinos’.
That won’t last either, once the animal rights brigade get their act together. After all, rhinos are an endangered species and you don’t find too many of them in West Yorkshire these days.
After 21 years, Big Chief has been forced to hang up his head-dress. No more will he lead supporters in their traditional tomahawk chop salute and war cry. Pictured: The Exeter Chiefs’ mascot
Down the road from Exeter, the Cornish Pirates rugby team will have to change their name, too, so as not to cause offence to Somalis. This Summer of Stupidity all began with the awful killing of George Floyd by a rogue police officer, thousands of miles away in Minneapolis.
Understandably, that sparked unrest in the U.S. But ever since, the revolutionary Left in Britain have been running to catch up.
Any grievance will do. After the Black Lives Matter protests, it’s the turn of Red Lives Matter to make a nuisance of themselves.
Frankly, I doubt a single Native American in the U.S. gives a string of beads about the name of an English rugby club.
That won’t stop the maniacs behind Red Lives Matter. How long before they start picketing supermarkets to stop the sale of redskin potatoes?
Next thing you know they’ll be chucking crimson paint all over the front windows of butchers and restaurants selling tomahawk steaks. The paramilitary wing of RLM will prowl the streets, vandalising Jeep Cherokees.
The Old Bill will want in on the act, too, mark my words. They’ll drop the word ‘chief’ from job titles. No more Chief Constables, or Chief Inspectors.
We look forward to Scotland Yard’s superwoke anti-terror supremo Neil Basu putting out an official statement expressing his solidarity with the Red Lives Matter movement.
Not for the first time, I can’t help wondering where it will all end. America is already ahead of the curve.
And whatever happens there inevitably finds its way across the Atlantic.
Even rock and roll is in the firing line. Never mind the Exeter Chiefs, American bands are having to change their names to avoid causing offence.
I always thought Lady Antebellum was a character from Downton Abbey. Apparently not.
They’re a country music group, from Nashville, who have just changed their name to Lady A — because antebellum is a style of architecture popular in the South before the civil war and is therefore associated with slavery.
Same goes for the Dixie Chicks, who have dropped the ‘Dixie’ bit because of its Confederate origins. With Red Lives Matter on the rampage here, how long do you give Siouxsie Sioux, formerly of the Banshees?
Same goes for the Dixie Chicks, (pictured) who have dropped the ‘Dixie’ bit because of its Confederate origins. With Red Lives Matter on the rampage here, how long do you give Siouxsie Sioux, formerly of the Banshees?
Radio stations will have to scour their playlists for offending lyrics. Has anyone listened to the Rolling Stones’ Brown Sugar lately?
Scarred old slaver knows he’s doin’ all right
Hear him whip the women just around midnight.
Just wait until Red Lives Matter hears Cool For Cats, by Squeeze.
The squaw is with the corporal
She is tied against a tree
She doesn’t mind the language
It’s the beating she don’t need.
And Sweet’s Wig Wam Bam is a definite non-starter.
What’s more, if the Exeter Chiefs are a crime against humanity, where does that leave indie band, the Kaiser Chiefs?
OK, so they were named in honour of the black South African footballer Lucas Radebe, the former Leeds United captain, who started his career with the Johannesburg club Kaizer Chiefs.
But don’t expect that to cut any ice with the self-righteous, statue-toppling woke warriors.
I predict a riot!
If the Spanish holiday fiasco is the Government’s idea of an ‘air bridge’, what chance do you give Boris’s grand plan for a real bridge over the Irish Sea?
Last week I brought you news of a Covid-related sign outside a tennis court in Windsor, Berks, which read:
‘ONLY HANDLE YOUR OWN BALLS.’
This week, Mail reader Lins Hughes spotted this notice on a door at Darent Valley Hospital, Dartford, Kent:
‘All doctors and nurses must be bare below the elbow in this clinic area.’
Let’s hope they read it carefully. I’m reminded of the classic episode of Only Fools And Horses, when Del went to his GP with chronic stomach pains. The doctor tells him to go behind the screen, strip to the waist and lie on the couch.
Let’s hope they read it carefully. I’m reminded of the classic episode of Only Fools And Horses, when Del went to his GP with chronic stomach pains
She goes in to examine him, but emerges quickly with a horrified look on her face.
‘Mr Trotter, when I said “strip to the waist” I meant the top half.’
Meghan Markle complains that Palace staff sneered at her ‘H&M’ necklace.
Somehow, I can’t see her shopping at H&M, can you?