Former US President Donald Trump on Saturday greeted the Atlanta baseball team by performing the “Tomahawk Chop,” a sports celebration deemed insulting to Native Americans but popular with fans of several sports teams in the United States.
Mr Trump, who was whistled during a World Series game two years ago in Washington, joined thousands of Atlanta Braves fans in faking the strike with his arm. a tomahawk at Truist Park in Atlanta, before their game against the Houston Astros in the Major League Baseball (MLB) Best of Seven Final.
Donald Trump was in a dressing room with his wife Melania by his side, who also echoed this controversial gesture that Native Americans consider insulting to their culture.
They were accompanied by former American football star Herschel Walker, vying for the post of senator from Georgia, a candidacy supported by the former US president.
While at the White House in October 2019, Donald Trump attended an MLB game in Washington, but his image on the stadium’s broadcast screens was greeted with whistles.
He then called for a boycott of MLB games, when the MLB decided to move All-Star Game games from Atlanta to Colorado in protest after the Georgia state assembly passed laws restricting the right to vote.
The racism debate has not spared the sports world in the United States, and MLB in particular. For example, the Cleveland Indians club decided this year to change their name to rename themselves the Guardians, out of respect for the Amerindians.
The “Tomahawk chop” remains popular among fans and supported by the MLB, however, its commissioner Rob Manfred saying this week that the practice had the full support of the Native Americans of Atlanta. “For me, this is the end of the story,” he said.
But the president of the National Native American Council, Fawn Sharp, recalled for his part that his institution had repeatedly explained to the Atlanta Braves that “Native Americans are not mascots and that degrading rituals like the Tomahawk chop, which dehumanize us and hurt us, have no place in American society ”.