Finally Illinois U Wakes Up

ryan198 wrote:

Miller would you like it if at the next International event when Venezuela is there if they had a team mascot called "the American". The mascot would come out to some rock music like Bushleaguer and be dressed in a corporate business suit and would have a W mask, and would dance around pretending to take money from the minorities in the crowd, and randomly shooting a fake gun at everyone who represented a country other than the U.S. Then other teams would have pep-rally hanging "the American" in effigy, and sing songs about how they were going to kill the American, etc. That's what happens when teams use Native American Mascots to represent them, so it's not a stretch to think that this could happen.

You made "the American" a villain. Mascots represent who the fans cheer for not against. People that love a team usually love their mascot. You explain "the American" as if he were the mascot for the team that's playing against the Iranian Globetrotters... someone that's created/used just to be hated. That's not how it really works. Sure, Buckeyes fans hang the Illini mascot and Illini fans hang the Buckeye, why doesn't anyone care about the nut?

ryan198 wrote:

Besides cowboys being abused by indians, in what other ways are white men invoked in popular culture? Hundreds...Thousands...Millions? Some are good, some are bad, some both, but there are alternatives right? Now how many ways have you ever seen an Indian depicted in popular culture?

I watched Geronimo and sometimes i gamble at the casinos

ryan198 wrote:

tradition and identification are not always "harmless".

I never said they were always harmless. In this case, however, they are. If Chief Illiniwick was scalping people or was turning U of I students into violent anti-Indian racists, then we could have a serious discussion about reconsidering his position.

I mean slavery was tradition for many years, as was preventing women from voting, as well as many other quite harmful things. Besides, if you are looking to make money, no team/school that has changed their mascot ever lost money on that shift.

I don't care about monetary losses or gains associated with mascots. You're talking about moral issues here and balancebook can't be used to justify a morality.

Chief Innikiwik is extremely offensive. They act like the dance he does is authentic. its not authentic. Its a made up dance. No native Americans danced like that.

It is a dance that anger and upsets many Native Americans and rightly so. Imagine if someone made a halftime show where they made fun of Christianity. Do you think a mascot that made fun of Christians would have been tolerated for this long? Hell no.

Native Americans shouldnt be mascots. Plain and simple. They are people. Human beings with feelings, and are not caricatures, or stereotypes or anything else.

What amazes me, is that when the Native American community voiced its opposition long ago to this mascot, the University didnt even raise an eyebrow. One has to understand everything in that part of town has that Native American figure, chief illiniwik on it. Everything, from stores, to clothes etc... And instead of listening to the concerns of these people, the university silenced them.

Illinois U, should be ashamed of itself, it should have heard and listened to the concerns long ago.

At the University of Oregon, a similar situation exists, when a few years ago mass students protested the university, because it was being funded by Nike and Phil Knight, who donates generously to the University. Instead of getting into debates and talking, the University refused to listen to the students concern, after all alot of the Universities funding comes from Phil Knight.

One can imagine, or maybe one cant imagine, the pain, the awful pain, these native Americans must feel, when seeing their culture mocked and stepped on like this, and thats what Chief illiniwik is, its mocking culture. It taunts. The clothes he dresses in are advertised as authentic, and his dance is called authentic, but both are not authentic. They are made up.

Indeed anyone who continues to think the mascot should be used, they are racist and complete idiots. The Native Americans dont like the mascot, that should be enough to warrant this thing from being used again.

Its amazing, how fickle people are. The University is more concerned about revenue, and it doesnt want to lose face and admit that the mascot they use, and the dances and clothes it wears is fake and false. The fans of illinios dont want to have things change. They seem to think if the mascot changes then something awful is occuring.

No one seems to want to listen and understand the Native American perspective.

As I said before, cultures shouldnt be mascots. Native Americans are heros, and important people. We stole their land, killed most of their population, killed off the buffallo, we introduced fire water to them, we introduced small pox to them, we introduced 401 treaties and not one was honored by us, we forced them off their land to live in poverty on reservations, and many continue to rot in jail for crimes they didnt commit an example being Leonard Peltier.

The least we can do is change the mascot.

I am so sick of people acting like their actions have no effect on people. If you mocked the Natives, what the hell did you think would happen?

ryan198 wrote:

The link is all well and good, but if you want to see the filmed reality of it watch the film that I posted. It actually shows what people in the coalition against the use of mascots go through, particularly at the UofI. They show that the Illini tribe was all made up, and that the dress is inauthentic and made up for show as well. Then, there's the spitting, and the threats of sex and violence that end up on their answering machines. If people at the UofI are so reverent towards their mascot, why aren't they so respectful of actual Indians is my question?

i have not seen the film but i have to wonder...how many people were doing these acts? are you going to extrapolate the acts of few (assumed) in the minority to the feelings of the majority? I think that's hardly fair. No one is saying that there isn't tension, but the clear majority (native americans and students / public) of people aren't offended and aren't doing those things.