It's the Last Dance...

what are they going to use instead?

I can't believe that anyone with a straight face could say that they believe the chief "honors" native americans.

I saw an episode of Chicago Tonite a few years ago that really summed up the whole issue. They had several representatives of local tribes and some UIUC reps. The UIUC reps were saying how no native americans found the Chief offensive and if any did they would immediately drop the mascot. Sitting across the table local tribal leaders say "The Chief offends us and degrades our people and history." UIUC rep "Well we'd stop using the Chief if it was offensive to NA" Tribal leader "I'm offended" UIUC "We'd stop it's use it if was offensive, but no one has complained." Tribal leader "I'm offended and copmplaining now on TV." UIUC "No native americans think its offensive." Tribal leader "I do"

It was totally surreal. THis tradition isn't even a 100 years old. It's about time the stop this travesty.

Whose more annoying? Chief Supporters or Non-Native American Chief Haters? I'm not sure...

Maybe Chief supporters could replace him with an Al Jolsen type character? A white college kid in blackface would surely honor our country's African Americans. Perhaps a nice Asian coolie? Hop Sing? A Mexican with a huge sombrero and bottle of Tequila? An Italian Luigi rallying the crowd with a pizza box? How about "Chief IlliniCEK" he could be inside a circular wall off the field constantly trying to find the corner. How about Colonel Illiniclink a nice bald kid with a monocle and nazi uniform to honor German Americans, oh and the Jews well.....

Don't despair Chief supporters there are plenty of other insulting mascot ideas out there.

It was totally surreal. THis tradition isn't even a 100 years old.

Yeah really, I keep laughing at the sacred "Tradition" *both* of the High Schools I went to had older mascots for christ sake.

http://www.counterpunch.org/wise08102005.html

"What about Notre Dame?" he shot back. "The Fighting Irish. What about that? My ancestors were Irish," he continued (ah yes, one of those Irish Indians), "and it doesn't bother me one bit!"

Of course, the comparison was utterly unconvincing. To begin with, to be called a fighter is not the same as to be called, or typified visually as a "savage." There is a qualitative difference, made all the more evident by the history of this nation: a history in which fighting Indians were slaughtered, and for whom their willingness to fight back at those who sought to exterminate them, provided their murderers with what the latter thought the ultimate justification for the perpetration of a Holocaust. Fighting Irishmen, meanwhile, got to be viewed as perfect candidates for the Union Army, or for your local police force.

In other words, one group of fighters had to be eliminated, the other, assimilated. If we can't discern the yawning chasm between these two things, well, we really should stop drinking, be it at the local brewpub, or anywhere else.

Secondly, indigenous persons, unlike Irish Americans, continue to be marginalized in the United States. A substantial percentage have been geographically ghettoized and isolated on some of the nation's most desolate land, while those off the rez have largely been stripped of the cultures, languages and customs of their forbears by a boarding school policy implemented against their families, which policy's stated purpose from the 1800s through much of the twentieth century was to "Kill the Indian and save the man."

To be Irish American is to be a member of the largest white ethnic group in the nation, and one of the most accepted and celebrated at that. It wasn't always that way, to be sure, but it is now. For Irish folks to be stereotyped as fighters simply doesn't have the same impact-given the power and position of the Irish in this society-as when stereotypes are deployed against subordinated groups. Objectification only works its magic upon those who continue to be vilified. For those on top, it can become a source of amusement, laughter-a good time.

"Yeah," I responded. "But when Notre Dame chose to call themselves the Fightin' Irish, the school was made up overwhelmingly of Irish Catholics. In other words, it was Irish folks choosing that name for themselves. How many Indians do you think were really in on the decision to call themselves 'redskins,' or to be portrayed as screaming warriors on someone else's school clothing?"

Again, silence, and again a changing of the subject.

"Yeah but what really galls me," he continued, "is that a bunch of these schools are just trying to honor Native Americans. They're just trying to pay respect to the spirit of the Indians. It's like nothing we can do is ever enough for those people."

Aside from how calling indigenous folks "those people" jibes with a true desire to honor them (let alone his claim to be one at some remove), this particular nugget-offered by far more than just one drunk guy at a Nashville bar-has always struck me as especially vile.

If schools wanted to honor first nations people, after all, they could do it in any number of more meaningful ways. They could establish Native American studies programs and fund them adequately. They could step up their recruitment of Indian students, staff and faculty, rather than retreating from such efforts in the face of misplaced backlash to affirmative action. They could strip the names off of buildings on their campuses that pay tribute to those who participated in the butchering of Native peoples. Here in Nashville that process could begin by renaming, without delay, any building named after Andrew Jackson, of which there are several.

Perhaps most importantly, we could begin by telling the truth about what was done to the indigenous of this land, rather than trying to paper over that truth, minimize the horror, and, once again, change the subject. You know the kind of people I'm speaking of: the ones who refuse to label the elimination of over ninety-five percent of the native peoples of the Americas "genocide."

Folks like conservative author Dinesh D'Souza, who, in a debate with me at Western Washington University in May, insisted that terming the process genocide was absurd. It was, to him, merely an emotional appeal on my part, devoid of content; calculated to gain applause at the expense of honesty. To Dinesh, genocide was an inappropriate term because most of the Indians who perished died from diseases, not warfare waged by whites.

That Dinesh has never read the definition of genocide, readily available in the United Nation's 1948 Genocide Convention, certainly was no surprise. But had he done so, he would have seen that in order to qualify as genocide, one does not have to directly kill anyone per se. Rather, genocide describes any of the following acts, committed with the intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to bring about the group's destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, or forcibly transferring the children of the group to another.

In fact, each of these categories has been met in the case of American Indians. And had it not been for conquest, those diseases to which Indians had no resistance-and which colonists praised as the "work of God," clearing the land for them-wouldn't have ravaged the native populations as they did. To imply that such deaths were merely accidental or incidental would be like saying the Nazis bore no responsibility for the 1.6 million or so Jews who died of disease and starvation in the camps, rather than having been gassed or shot. But try saying that at your local neighborhood synagogue and see how far you get-with good reason.

Once again I suggested that if Indians thought mascots were a form of flattery and tribute, then surely they would vote that way in an Indian-only plebiscite. So, I repeated, why not just let them vote on it, and keep out of their way? After all, that would be honoring them too: trusting the wisdom of Indian peoples to prevail, one way or the other.

"But this is America," he shot back. "And I've got a right to my opinion too! I shouldn't be disallowed from having my say on it, just because I'm white. That's reverse discrimination."

Ah yes, reverse discrimination. Not being able to turn other people into a cartoon for your own enjoyment is now to be seen as a form of oppression. One wonders, indeed, how white folks can stand such a burden placed upon our shoulders.

But try saying that at your local neighborhood synagogue and see how far you get-with good reason.

You sort of prove the author's point right there even though I agree he's reaching a *bit* look how quick it was attacked vs. how quickly the right to racist mascots is defended.

This is a long-winded post but maybe it'll help some of the "But what about Notre Dame" people who *always* bring it up in this conversation finally get it. Maybe not...

P.S. I will try to inocculate the Indians by means of Blankets that may fall in their hands, taking care however not to get the disease myself. As it is pity to oppose good men against them, I wish we could make use of the Spaniard's Method, and hunt them with English Dogs. Supported by Rangers, and some Light Horse, who would I think effectively extirpate or remove that Vermine.

On July 16 Amherst replied, also in a postscript:

P.S. You will Do well to try to Innoculate the Indians by means of Blanketts, as well as to try Every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race. I should be very glad your Scheme for Hunting them Down by Dogs could take Effect, but England is at too great a Distance to think of that at present.

On July 26 Bouquet wrote back:

I received yesterday your Excellency's letters of 16th with their Inclosures. The signal for Indian Messengers, and all your directions will be observed.