University of Illinois

[LowerCaseRepublican]

This Thursday the Board of Trustees meets on campus in Urbana. On the agenda is a resolution but on by a Trustee that may remove the logo, dancing, and name of Chief Illiniwek from the University but keep the name 'Fighting Illini'.

 

Anyway, I just wanted to see, since there are a lot of UIUC people on ST and former UIUC people what they thought about this. I personally have my opinion about it but I'll leave it out for now.

[Queen Prawn]

I went to UIC and was on the Alumni Association (which covers all of the state colleges) for a little while. They asked us what our opinions were. I personally thought that it was no big deal. From what I know about the Chief, he is representative of many of the tribes native to what we call Illinois. There is nothing cartoon characterish about him and from what I have been told, his headdress and costume were supposed to have come from that and that the dance is also from one of the tribes.

 

If it had been more cartoon characterish, I probably would have thought differently, but at this time I don't.

[Flash Tizzle]

STOP WHINING!!!!!

 

Thats my opinion towards the people pushing to change the name (etc). Because a few native americans feel "insulted" by the Illini shouldn't mean this topic gets consideration. So what, the Illini mascot dances around with a full head of feathers......does U of I really want to get pushed around by a small group of babies who are trying to hold on to their dying traditions.

 

I currently go to UIC....where we are known as the FLAMMMMEEEEESSS. Its not exactly a name Im proud of but Im not going to b**** about it. There are many that share my views but we realize that tradition resides over any excuse someone can make to change our school name.

 

Im sure U of I has already made a poll of how students stand on the issue. I can guarantee that over 80% support keeping the Illini as the mascot. If Alumni....students.....media all believe that Illini should keep its name then it should stay; regardless of how politcally incorrect it is.

[Flash Tizzle]

I went to UIC and was on the Alumni Association (which covers all of the state colleges) for a little while.

When'd you graduate Fanof14?

[Queen Prawn]

When'd you graduate Fanof14?

December of 2000 from the College of Engineering. Which college are you attending?

[SuperSteve]

Haha, Flames.

 

I would be pissed if State ever wanted to change the Spartan name, because it is to barbaric. I am sorry, but the Indians should be proud. If this is the case, I want the San Diego Padres, New Orleans Saints, Hofstra Flying Dutchmen, San Francisco 49ers, Minnesota Vikings, and many other teams to change their names (I really don't but these arguments just annoy the hell out of me).

[SnB]

Having U of I change it's logo is insane. The only logo that I would really find offensive if i were a native american would be the Cleveland Indians, because.....just look at it. And by the way, I'm hoping to get into U of I for next year, I already sent in the application, now I'm just stalking the mailman......er I mean waiting patiently for my result to come back

[Queen Prawn]

Haha, Flames.

 

I would be pissed if State ever wanted to change the Spartan name, because it is to barbaric. I am sorry, but the Indians should be proud. If this is the case, I want the San Diego Padres, New Orleans Saints, Hofstra Flying Dutchmen, San Francisco 49ers, Minnesota Vikings, and many other teams to change their names (I really don't but these arguments just annoy the hell out of me).

I hate that the 'Flames' is our nickname. Another one that could be on your list is Notre Dame's 'Fighting Irish.'

[cwsox]

The chief should be dropped, pronto.

 

Not going to debate it. Just always interesting to hear peeople say I don't care that someone gets offended when we insult and stereotype their culture.

 

If I said that was a typical redneck comment, there would be people offended by that stereotype. And that is the point.

 

 

 

Last time I was at Illinois for a football game, I walked out on that travesty.

[Queen Prawn]

The chief should be dropped, pronto.

 

Not going to debate it.  Just always interesting to hear peeople say I don't care that someone gets offended when we insult and stereotype their culture.

 

If I said that was a typical redneck comment, there would be people offended by that stereotype.  And that is the point.

 

 

 

Last time I was at Illinois for a football game, I walked out on that travesty.

 

Why is it okay then for Notre Dame to use the term 'Fighting Irish?'

[Spiff]

If it's not meant as an insult, then it shouldn't be changed. Someone's always going to be offended by everything, no reason to be pussies about it.

[LowerCaseRepublican]

I just wonder if the people that are for the Chief would be against, say

 

Tony, the pasta eating mafioso goombah becoming our new mascot or how about Tipsy McStumble the drunken spud eating mick? Or as a speaker here at school a few years ago suggested as an applicable reference: The Fighting Jews and parade out a dancing concentration camp member.

 

They are going to keep the name Fighting Illini but just get rid of Chief Dance-a-lot. And recently down here all the school clothes and stuff have had less and less stuff approved with the Chief logo on them so it's almost been phased out that way. Hell, even on a recent episode of Around the Horn f***ing Max Kellerman agreed that racial mascots have no place at institutions of higher learning.

[LowerCaseRepublican]

 

Why is it okay then for Notre Dame to use the term 'Fighting Irish?'

Nobody ever said it was. But last time I checked we didn't give the Irish smallpox infected blankets so we could slaughter them and steal their land either so we could have our 'manifest destiny.'

[Queen Prawn]

I just wonder if the people that are for the Chief would be against, say

 

Tony, the pasta eating mafioso goombah becoming our new mascot or how about Tipsy McStumble the drunken spud eating mick?  Or as a speaker here at school a few years ago suggested as an applicable reference: The Fighting Jews and parade out a dancing concentration camp member. 

 

They are going to keep the name Fighting Illini but just get rid of Chief Dance-a-lot.  And recently down here all the school clothes and stuff have had less and less stuff approved with the Chief logo on them so it's almost been phased out that way.  Hell, even on a recent episode of Around the Horn f***ing Max Kellerman agreed that racial mascots have no place at institutions of higher learning.

I am Irish and I really don't care that Notre Dame uses 'Fighting Irish' which has its roots in just such a stereotypical view of the Irish. I have more to worry about than what some over-priced school uses as a masot and fight phrase.

 

It's funny that the PC police seem to think that if you are of a white ethnicity (Irish, Polish, Italian) etc. it's okay to use those phrases. It's considered cute not politically incorrect.

[Flash Tizzle]

December of 2000 from the College of Engineering.  Which college are you attending?

Im studying for a degree in criminal justice from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

 

Have only 4 classes (Critical Reading/Thinking, Criminal Justice 101, Math 118, Serbian Culture) and thought I would have a ton of free time. .......I go to school 5 days a week and have to wake up at 5:45 every morning.

[Queen Prawn]

Nobody ever said it was.  But last time I checked we didn't give the Irish smallpox infected blankets so we could slaughter them and steal their land either so we could have our 'manifest destiny.'

Acutally no, around the turn of the century they were denied work and worse.

 

It's funny that you think it is wrong to say Fighting Jews and the Italian stereotype you used, but it is okay to say Fighting Irish.

[FlaSoxxJim]

UIUC graduate, 1989 – sure doesn’t seem like that long ago. I have no PERSONAL resentment of the Chief, but it's not my place to be offended.

 

That said, I’m glad the board is considering complaints and I hope they take them seriously. North American First Peoples have had pretty much everything taken away from them in the last 300 years. For perspective, that is thousands (not hundreds) of years of unique society and culture from 500+ distinct nations wiped out and replaced by alcoholism and the highest ethnic suicide rate in the country.

 

And no, the casinos don’t fix it, or the tax-free cigarette sales, or the tribal fishing rights, etc. If that’s not a s*** sandwich, I don’t know what is.

[LowerCaseRepublican]

Acutally no, around the turn of the century they were denied work and worse.

 

It's funny that you think it is wrong to say Fighting Jews and the Italian stereotype you used, but it is okay to say Fighting Irish.

I never said it was okay to use the Fighting Irish. I think schools that have to have an ethnic mascot are pretty damn uncreative.

 

http://www2.uiuc.edu/ro/lincoln/ Students for Drinkin Lincoln, see people can be creative with mascots

 

The Irish were denied work. I know a lot of the hardships that they went through but America never decimated over half their population with disease on purpose. What the Irish went through was terrible with the xenophobic movements of the Know-Nothing party and the severe anti-Catholic sentiment in America is indeed horrible but it does not compare to the mass slaughtering of a people.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Acutally no, around the turn of the century they were denied work and worse.

 

It's funny that you think it is wrong to say Fighting Jews and the Italian stereotype you used, but it is okay to say Fighting Irish.

The difference is that Notre Dame is rooted in Irish Catholic tradition, although I still don't see the stereotype doing a great service to anyone. If, on the other hand, Oliver Cromwell decided that after the "To Hell or To Conaught" genocide drives it would be cute to have the Irish as a mascot (for I don't know what, a hunt club maybe?) and I was one of the Irish whose lands were seized, i would be pretty resentful.

[Flash Tizzle]

Nobody ever said it was.  But last time I checked we didn't give the Irish smallpox infected blankets so we could slaughter them and steal their land either so we could have our 'manifest destiny.'

Thats great.........but does the Illini dancing make a tear drop down the face of these proud indians. Is hundreds of years of white-man bullying all of the sudden brought back to the surface every step the mascot makes.

 

How about they give a real Illini indian the opportunity to do the whole routine. Would that change anything.....

[Queen Prawn]

I never said it was okay to use the Fighting Irish.  I think schools that have to have an ethnic mascot are pretty damn uncreative.

 

http://www2.uiuc.edu/ro/lincoln/  Students for Drinkin Lincoln, see people can be creative with mascots 

 

The Irish were denied work.  I know a lot of the hardships that they went through but America never decimated over half their population with disease on purpose.  What the Irish went through was terrible with the xenophobic movements of the Know-Nothing party and the severe anti-Catholic sentiment in America is indeed horrible but it does not compare to the mass slaughtering of a people.

Actually at time most were fleeing a mass slaughtering, but I understand what you are saying.

 

The point that confuses me is that the most of the people that are 'offended' by these aren't even Native American or from the Tribes that Chief represents. If the tribes truely are offended, get rid of him. The fact is that the Chief isn't a characture like Chief Wahoo and from what I was told his cloths and the dance that he does is actual clothing and dances from the tribes represented. If this is incorrect info, so be and get rid of him.

[LowerCaseRepublican]

Actually at time most were fleeing a mass slaughtering, but I understand what you are saying. 

 

The point that confuses me is that the most of the people that are 'offended' by these aren't even Native American or from the Tribes that Chief represents.  If the tribes truely are offended, get rid of him.  The fact is that the Chief isn't a characture like Chief Wahoo and from what I was told his cloths and the dance that he does is actual clothing and dances from the tribes represented. If this is incorrect info, so be and get rid of him.

The Anti-Chief movement on the UIUC campus was started by a Native American woman Charlene Teters and then picked up by the Progressive Resource/Action Cooperative. She makes appearances here to assist in the movement too from time to time because she has moved

 

A native of Washington state, Teters moved with her family from Santa Fe. NM, to

Champaign-Urbana, IL, to enroll as a graduate student in the University of Illinois'

Department of Art. In 1988, she took her two children to the school's Fighting Illini

basketball game.

Just as it has been occurring for over 63 years, a student dressed as the team's mascot, the fictitious Chief Illiniwek, leapt and twirled in what was billed at the time as an authentic dance, as fans in mock war paint yelled war chants from the stands. Teters and her children cringed in their seats. "I saw my daughter try to become invisible. My son tried to laugh,".

"Our people paid with their very lives to keep what little we have left.. .and that is what I am protecting. At home, we are taught to respect eagle feathers, respect the Chiefs, respect that paint is sacred, that dance is something sacred to us," Teters explains. "If you've never been taught to respect these things, it might not bother you, but if you've grown up in the community, where those things have meaning, it's going to have that impact on you."

[The Bones]

I have noticed more and more Illinois merchandise with the block I logo rather than the chief, which is a step in the right direction.

 

However, the real issue is Chief Illiniwek himself. Why one of the top university's allows mocking of a sacred ritual and ethnic group is beyond me. This guy is dancing around for the support of an athletic team...please. Those practices were reserved for much more important things than a game. You can't really compare it to anything else. It would be like having someone dress up as a preacher and pray and preach for a win, except they would have to kill off almost all Christians first and force them to live on reservations. Then, we're supposed to feel honored that they named a sports team after us. Ridiculous.

 

My dad graduated from U of I and he feels the same way I do on this topic.

[LowerCaseRepublican]

Here's the official wording of the resolution

 

"Whereas, Chief Illiniwek has been a treasured symbol of the Urbana-Champaign campus since the inception of Chief Illiniwek in 1926;

Whereas, many students have performed well and ably in the role of Chief Illiniwek;

Whereas, Chief Illiniwek has been intended as a representation of the indigenous people who gave their name to this State and its Flagship University;

Whereas, Chief Illiniwek has represented the dignity, strength, intelligence, and grace to which Illinois athletic teams have aspired;

Whereas, The native Illinois people, the Peoria, requested by resolution on April 20, 2000, that the University discontinue the Chief Illiniwek tradition;

Whereas, The continuation of the controversy centering on Chief Illiniwek would undermine the very unity of the Illini family that the symbol fostered so well for so long; and

Whereas, The controversy also diverts critical attention and resources away from the core missions of teaching, research, service, and economic development; now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That Chief Illiniwek be honorably retired at a time and in a manner to be determined by the Urbana-Champaign campus in consultation with faculty, students, staff, alumni, and other members of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign family, and with concurrence of the Board of Trustees;

Resolved, That the University discontinue its use of the graphic image and likewise discourage others' use of that image; and

Resolved, That at the same time we, the Board of Trustees, declare our full support for the name Fighting Illini for the athletic teams at the Urbana-Champaign campus. This is a part of our heritage. We take pride in the association that the University has through this name with the people of Illinois."

[DonkeyKongerko]

At least we named our team after a real tribe, last time I checked the Cleveland Indians were named after what amounts to little more than a racial slur.

 

Also, if it weren't for colleges, would anyone even know what a Seminole or Illini was?

 

EDIT: or a BLACKHAWK for that matter.