Karma's calling, FSU: Get rid of offensive Tomahawk Chop, Florida State War Chant | Opinion

You know, sometimes relentless setbacks aren’t due to way too much bad luck. They're due to karma that’s just been way overdue.

Which leads me to this question:

Just how many more public humiliations need to be doled out to the Florida State University football program for FSU’s fans, alums and so-called leaders to grasp that karma has finally come calling for continuing to mock Native American culture with the obnoxious War Chant and Tomahawk Chop whenever and wherever the sorry Seminoles play these days?

You know, public humiliations like:

• FSU’s current 1-9 record – which includes losing a game in Ireland, where Seminoles fans couldn’t even be bothered to show enough self-awareness, class and couth to put the dumb chant and chop on hiatus while in another country.

• FSU's head coach Mike Norvell, in a classless act of desperation and blame-shifting, abruptly firing multiple assistant coaches.

• The Seminoles’ entire 2023 season, which saw them win 13 straight games and still get snubbed for a spot in the college football national championship playoffs.

• The Seminoles getting their garnet-and-gold butts spanked to a glowing red hue during a 2023 bowl game appearance – so thoroughly, in fact, that the defeat was among the most lopsided postseason losses in college football history.

• The Seminoles watching helplessly as a stream of top high school recruits back out of commitments to play for FSU in 2025.

And trust me, these examples are only some of the recent indignities experienced by the Seminoles football program – which has also become the target of some pretty masterful trolling.

FSU's bad season can't be coincidence

But I don't believe the Seminoles football program's ongoing misfortune is by accident or coincidence.

Nope, I’m convinced it’s pure, simple, cold-blooded cosmic payback for FSU’s shameful embrace of the stupid Tomahawk Chop and War Chant – both of which continue to perpetuate some of the dumbest stereotypes that exist regarding Native Americans.

And I've grown even more convinced during the year or so I’ve been periodically chatting with Robert Zimmerman, a member of the Little Shell Tribe of Montana who emailed me months ago to express his dismay over seeing “the offensive gestures of Florida State football fans” while watching FSU games on TV.

“What I see is .... no sensitivity to the Indian people's culture,” Zimmerman wrote. “A college should know better. ... Fans are afraid to have their offensive behaviors curtailed, so they have to be made to do so.”

Can you really argue with anything he wrote?

Because let's be clear about this: The Tomahawk Chop and War Chant are offensive behaviors.

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Relationship with the Seminole Tribe of Florida isn't an excuse

Please. Don't even start with the lame excuse FSU apologists love to trot out to justify the chop and chant during Seminoles football games (which, to be blunt, are the main FSU sporting events that most people watch and care about).

You know, the lame excuse that it’s OK to keep using the chop and chant because FSU has such a deep, wonderful relationship with the Seminole Tribe of Florida.

So you're telling me this treasured relationship would suddenly become irreparably damaged if the university told FSU fans they should no longer do a stupid arm-waving gesture while emitting a rhythmic, nonsensical guttural moan?

And that the Seminole Tribe of Florida would be so offended by such a move that it would cut all ties with FSU?

Seriously? Come on.

And let’s be real about something else: The whole “Well, those people don’t seem to mind it” rationale for clinging to sports-related tropes about minorities – and particularly those who are Native American – is collapsing under the weight of its own rank ignorance these days.

In the past, for example, you could get away with conducting some stupid poll to argue that hey, using the nickname “Redskins” for an NFL football team wasn’t all that bad.

But not anymore.

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In the past, and I can attest to this firsthand as a former Cleveland sports columnist, you could always count on a sizable segment of that city's fan base – incapable of noticing the Buffalo wing sauce on their chins and replica jerseys, much less recognizing blatant insensitivity – to shout down anyone who suggested it was tasteless for a baseball team to be called the "Indians” or referred to as the "Tribe."

And to shout over anyone who suggested it was outrageously disrespectful for that same baseball team to proudly display a huge, cartoonish image of a grinning, red-faced Native American – known as “Chief Wahoo” – as its official logo.

But not anymore – on either score.

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So why should FSU continue to get away with allowing the Tomahawk Chop and War Chant?

A victory for enlightenment

The truth is getting rid of both would represent a stirring victory for enlightenment. And couldn’t we all do with a rare triumph for enlightened common sense in Florida these days?

You know, the Florida whose state seal has become the middle finger? The Florida whose state song has become a twanged-out version of CeeLo Green’s notorious hit tune “F--- You”? The Florida now known as the “Stick It Where the Sun (Don’t) Shine” State?

Not long ago – when it became clear that the Seminoles were going to have a horrible, wretched 2024 football season – Zimmerman sent an email that began this way:

“Do you kick a team when they're down? Couldn't happen to a better team. But justice doesn't know silence, right?”

No. It sure doesn’t.

But I have no doubt that in this case it’s karma, not justice, that’s screaming a pretty clear command to all of the dopey, "War on Woke" FSU fans who think the Tomahawk Chop and War Chant are still rituals worth defending:

It's time to stick both of 'em where the sun don’t shine.

Roger Brown is the opinion editor at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, where this column originally appeared. Reach him at roger.brown@heraldtribune.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @RBrown_HTOpin

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Florida State, it's time to end the offensive Tomahawk Chop | Opinion