Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 34

STUDIES IN SYMBOLIC INTERACTION

STUDIES IN SYMBOLIC INTERACTION Series Editor: Norman K. Denzin Recent Volumes: Volume 1–33:

Studies in Symbolic Interaction

STUDIES IN SYMBOLIC INTERACTION VOLUME 34

STUDIES IN SYMBOLIC INTERACTION EDITED BY

NORMAN K. DENZIN Institute of Communications Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA EDITOR OF DECOLONIAL OPENINGS

C. RICHARD KING Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA MANAGING EDITOR

DONG HAN Institute of Communications Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China

Emerald Group Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2010 Copyright r 2010 Emerald Group Publishing Limited Reprints and permission service Contact: [email protected] No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the text, illustrations or advertisements. The opinions expressed in these chapters are not necessarily those of the Editor or the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-84950-960-2 ISSN: 0163-2396 (Series)

Awarded in recognition of Emerald’s production department’s adherence to quality systems and processes when preparing scholarly journals for print

CONTENTS LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

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PART I: DECOLONIAL OPENINGS: FASHIONING NARRATIVES AND IDENTITIES AGAINST/AFTER CHIEF ILLINIWEK THINKING AGAINST/AFTER CHIEF ILLINIWEK C. Richard King

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EXPLAINING THE NCAA DECISION, AUGUST 9, 2005 Carol Spindel

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MOURNING THE MASCOT’S DEMISE: ON PREHISTORIC ORIGINS AND MODERN AFTERMATH Synthia Sydnor

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‘‘LEUTWILER’S INDIAN’’: CREATING THE ‘‘CHIEF’’ TRADITION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS Jennifer Guiliano

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WHY THE NCAA WAS RIGHT Stephen J. Kaufman

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INVENTING TRADITION: THE GARIPPO REPORT AND THE PARAPHERNALIA OF JURISPRUDENCE Ray Gamache

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DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF CHIEF ILLINIWEK (1926–2007) David Prochaska

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STAGING AN INTERVENTION IN A VIRTUAL DYSTOPIA: THE ONLINE FALLOUT OF THE RACE, POWER AND PRIVILEGE FORUM AND THE REMOVAL OF ‘‘CHIEF ILLINIWEK’’ Cassidy C Browning

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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHIEF ILLINIWEK? CONSUMING ‘‘INDIANNESS’’ IN THE SHADOWS OF MEMORIAL STADIUM Michael D. Giardina

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(NOT) WRITING ABOUT THE CHIEF David Roediger

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ON DEAF EARS: AN ACTIVIST’S COMMENTS TO THE UNIVERSITY’S TRUSTEES Stephen J. Kaufman

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PART II: NEW INTERPRETATIVE WORKS ‘‘BORN TO BE WILD’’ OR A ‘‘TALE OF TWO THEORIES’’: A PERFORMANCE OF BLACK WOMANHOOD IN THE UNITED STATES Amira Millicent Davis

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ROMANCE, NOSTALGIA, AND DANGER: DISPOSING OF THE WHITE MALE GUIDE Richard J. Doherty

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‘‘AND HER DEATH FILLED HER WITH GREAT PLENTITUDE’’: WHITENESS, ERASURE, AND RACIALIZED SCHOOLING Myra Margolin

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STEPPING OUT, SPEAKING UP: RESISTING SEXUAL VIOLENCE THROUGH NARRATIVES Koeli Moitra Goel

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Contents

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THE CHARGELING Cory Holding

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PLAYING WITH OIL: PUTTING PERFORMATIVITY AT THE CENTER OF OIL CIVILIZATION Daniel Lord

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LIFELONG EDUCATION AND DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP John M. Johnson

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Cassidy C Browning

Department of Theatre & Dance, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

Amira Millicent Davis

Independent Scholar

Richard J. Doherty

Institute of Communications Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

Ray Gamache

Department of Communication, Theatre and Art, The College of St. Scholastica, Duluth, MN, USA

Michael D. Giardina

Department of Advertising, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

Koeli Moitra Goel

Institute of Communications Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

Jennifer Guiliano

Department of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

Cory Holding

Department of English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

John M. Johnson

School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

Stephen J. Kaufman

Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA ix

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

C. Richard King

Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA

Daniel Lord

Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

Myra Margolin

Independent Scholar

David Prochaska

Department of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

David Roediger

Department of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

Carol Spindel

Department of English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

Synthia Sydnor

Department of Kinesiology & Community Health, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

PART I DECOLONIAL OPENINGS: FASHIONING NARRATIVES AND IDENTITIES AGAINST/AFTER CHIEF ILLINIWEK

THINKING AGAINST/AFTER CHIEF ILLINIWEK C. Richard King Since its inception in 1926, the tradition of playing Indian at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana (UIUC) has fostered powerful devotion and deep affection, creating powerful spaces of identification and narration for thousands of (largely EuroAmerican) students, fans, and community members. Embodied by Chief Illiniwek, this tradition had proven popular and pleasurable for more than 60 years when a small, but persistent, collection of students and faculty began challenging the prevailing uses and understandings of Indianness at UIUC. At first, these interventions appeared awkward and idiosyncratic as they worked to unsettle established interpretations and preferred practices. Over time, a vital and creative counter-hegemonic movement crystallized, fostering protest, internal efforts at reform, and critical scholarship. In conjunction with a broader, national movement (see King, 2010), these local initiatives culminated in a policy change by the National Collegiate Athletic Association that would eventually prompt UIUC, after initial resistance, to retire Chief Illiniwek. Nevertheless, alumni, fans, and several media outlets not only continued to defend the schools mascot, but went so far as to celebrate it as well. Indeed, almost immediately after Chief Illiniwek performed for the last time, the local paper in Champaign-Urbana released a volume commemorating the mascot and its import (Foreman, 2007). As much of the media and public has mourned for their ‘‘Indian’’ and longed for their lost traditions, they have silenced and

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marginalized local and national network of resistance intent to re/claim dignity, humanity, and community. This thematic section seeks to alter this prevailing pattern through the creation of an archive intent to document local resistance and to craft a polyphonic, counter-narrative unsettling dominant accounts of Chief Illiniwek. At once a corrective to the historical record and a catalyst for future change, it brings together academics and activists, faculty, scholars, and students to offer a rounded assessment of efforts to retire the Chief, the broader historical and cultural context and the lasting significance of the acts in local and national theaters. Chief Illiniwek has fostered deep emotional attachments, intense public interest, urgent institutional action, and powerful opposition. As a consequence, the history and significance of the mascot have anchored a diverse body of critical scholarship. To date, this scholarship has been fairly scattered, either in the form of articles and book chapters (see, for instance, Denzin, 2008; Farnell, 2004; King 1998, 2004, 2008; King & Springwood, 2000, Prochaska, 2001, Rosenstein, 2001), a compelling documentary (Rosenstein) or as a part of larger discussions of Native American mascots (King, 2010; King & Springwood, 2001a, 2001b; Spindel, 2000). Thus, although much is known about Chief Illiniwek, it is fragmented, somewhat dated, and focused on the mascot as a symbol and source of controversy. Here, contributors update, integrate, and broaden understandings of the icon and opposition to it. The chapters brought together in this thematic section took a rather circuitous path to publication. Norman Denzin prompted the project, suggesting he and I pool our resources to produce a counter-memory of Chief Illiniwek. Initially, we submitted a proposal to the University of Illinois Press, seemingly a natural home for a book about the state’s flagship university. Unfortunately, the project was dismissed rather summarily, invoking a familiar refrain that has become quite common in academic publishing: we cannot publish anthologies in the number we once did, if at all. Our efforts made a similar fate with more general publishers, who replied it was too specialized. Finally, we reached out to a publisher with emphases in sport studies and Native American studies. The editors were quite high on the project, and after receiving reviews all but assured us of an advance contract, until following a meeting of the editorial Board, they deferred it and insisted we add two chapters to the project: an objective overview of the movement against the Chief, including its successes and failures, and a dispassionate account of the university’s actions in addressing the mascot and the controversy surround it. At first, we set aside the concerns raised by the requested additions, believing we could manage them. Then, we began to grasp what we were

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giving up: control over the project and our commitment to a particular point of view in opposition. We undertook this project to create a multivocal countertext, which by its very nature was political and as such something other than objective. These concerns left us at a crossroads. One strategy, Norman suggested, was to publish it as a volume in Studies in Symbolic Interaction. Our effort to document thinking against/after Chief Illiniwek moves from general to specific. It moves from theoretical to historical and culminates with memoirs and auto-ethnographies. The initial set of essays takes up mascots generally, offering a context in which to better understand Chief Illiniwek. Carol Spindel provides a brief and penetrating assessment of why Native American mascots matter so much now. In turn, Synthia Sydnor argues for an alternate understanding of the sport mascot that probes the roots and nature of sport, emphasizing deep play and affective exchanges, which at once allows for a novel account of Chief Illiniwek and troubles conjunctural cultural studies of sport circles. C. Richard King underscores the import of the Chief by looking at other contested American-Indian mascots and reactionary movements intent to preserve them. On this foundation, the following essays offer historical accounts. Examining the origins and history of playing Indian at the University of Illinois, Jennifer Guiliano works to complicate and resituate Chief Illiniwek, arguing the tradition only makes sense in the context of nation, empire, and race. A more recent reading of the invented tradition is offered by Ray Gamache, who unpacks the so-called Dialogue, staged at the order of Board of Trustees and moderated by retired Judge Louis B. Garippo, reading it as a strategic maneuvers used to portray pro-Chief supporters as positive and reasonable and anti-Chief supporters as divisive and disruptive. David Prochaska rounds out this set of essays with a multivocal essay that brings together a range of perspectives and teases out the centrality of identity to the ongoing conflict over Chief Illiniwek and its significance. The final essays provide more personal accounts. Drawing on her own experience, Cassidy Browning discusses activism against Chief Illiniwek, dwelling on the place of race and gender to challenge the mascot and more importantly to police opposition to it. Next, Michael Giardina offers a narrative collage rooted in on his experience as student and now faculty at UIUC to offer a series of impressionistic reflections on academe, race and racism, sport, the media, and the meaning of Chief Illiniwek. Then, David Roediger probes the connections between writing, identity, and struggle, exploring his inability to write about the Chief, even as worked with others to oppose it and conducted scholarship on the meaning of whiteness in U.S. history. Finally, the letters of Stephen J. Kaufman, one of the most

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dedicated and persistent opponents of Chief Illiniwek, document key arguments animating the anti-Chief movement, creative strategies of intervention, and a relentless spirit in pursuit of social justice. Although the work of students and faculty at UIUC, as well as the efforts of scholars and indigenous leaders across the country, rightfully inspires those committed to social justice and cultural healing, it offers a hopeful reminder of the import of resistance, if not marking a triumphal turn. That said, witnessing local happening in Urbana-Champaign from afar, the following pronouncement seems most fitting: ‘‘The Chief is dead, long live Chief.’’ More a lament than a celebration, fully aware of the ironies of sovereignty, and signification, it captures the emergent (racial) state of affairs after the so-called Last Dance of Chief Illiniwek in February 2007. Indeed, despite his official disappearance, by all appearance, the Chief will not die. To this day, in this campus, each fall new groups of students buy and wear T-Shirts with the chief logo; this past spring, Native American art work in front of the Native American House was vandalized by anti-chief activists. This mix of progressive hope, audacious resistance, and grounded realism is captured in the words, deeds, and spirits of three indigenous alumni of UIUC, who each in their way were instrumental to the official retirement (quoted in Denzin, 2008, p. 172): Professor Joseph Gone (member Gros Ventre Tribe of Montana, 24 February 2007): Its about time y It’s a relief to learn that at the dawn of the 21st Century damaging racial stereotypes of the sort Chief Illiniwek embodied no longer have a place in public university sporting events. Charlene Teters (Spokane, 27 February 2007): The effort to remove the Chief was never about the mascot, it was and remains to be about racism. Cyd Crue, White Racism/Redface Minstrels What’s At Stake in the Chief Debate? The American Indian of the past is more real, than the Indian of the present; The Euroamerican perspective determines who and what is an authentic Native American representation; This perspective is neo-colonial, masked behind a cultural altruism, that treats all criticism as an instance of political correctness. The neo-colonial perspectives speaks for the greater good, the majority, what is true and correct. The Native American has become more symbolic than real, symbolic of whiteness in relation to the redskin, noble savage. The practice of redface that structures the Chief’s performances perpetuates 19th century racist ideologies.

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REFERENCES Denzin, N. K. (2008). Searching for yellowstone: Race, gender, family, and memory in the postmodern west. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Farnell, B. (2004). The fancy dance of racializing discourse. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 28(1), 30–55. Foreman, J. R. (2007). Chief Illiniwek: A tribute to an Illinois tradition and the chief: The last dance? (Rev. ed.). Champaign, IL: The News-Gazette. King, C. R. (1998). Spectacles, sports, and stereotypes: Dis/playing Chief Illiniwek. In: Colonial discourse, collective memories, and the exhibition of Native American cultures and histories in the contemporary United States (pp. 41–58). New York: Garland Press. King, C. R. (2004). This is not an Indian: Situating claims about Indianness in sporting worlds. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 28(1), 3–10. King, C. R. (2008). Teaching intolerance: Anti-Indian imagery, racial politics, and (anti)racist pedagogy. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 30(5), 420–436. King, C. R. (2010). The Native American mascot controversy: A sourcebook. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. King, C. R., & Springwood, C. F. (2000). Choreographing colonialism: Athletic mascots, (dis)embodied Indians, and EuroAmerican subjectivities. Cultural Studies: A Research Annual, 5, 191–221. King, C. R., & Springwood, C. F. (2001a). Beyond the cheers: Race as spectacle in college sports. Albany: State University of New York Press. King, C. R., & Springwood, C. F. (Eds). (2001b). Team spirits: Essays on the history and significance of native American mascots. Lincoln: University of Nebraska. Prochaska, D. (2001). At home in Illinois: Presence of chief Illiniwek, absence of native Americans. In: C. R. King & C. F. Springwood (Eds), Team spirits: Essays on the history and significance of native American mascots (pp. 157–188). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Rosenstein, J. (2001). ‘‘In whose honor?’’ Mascots, and the media. In: C. R. King & C. F. Springwood (Eds), Team spirits: Essays on the history and significance of native American mascots (pp. 241–256). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Spindel, C. (2000). Dancing at halftime: Sports and the controversy over American Indian mascots. New York: New York University Press.

EXPLAINING THE NCAA DECISION, AUGUST 9, 2005$ Carol Spindel1 Eighteen schools are now on the NCAA’s mascot pariah list. Three are Braves. Six are Indians. Four identify as specific tribes – Seminoles, Utes, Chippewas, and Choctaws. Carthage College calls itself the Redmen. Illinois has created its own tribe, the Fighting Illini. The last school on the list – Southeastern Oklahoma State – does not beat around the bush or go for modifiers. They are the Savages. American Indian leaders and activists have objected to their tribes’ use as sports mascots since the 1970s, but the public has shrugged its shoulders and gone on cheering for its favorite Indians and Redskins, a term one linguist compared to Darkies. It is hard to have a serious public discussion about sports mascots for several reasons. For one, most of us do not know enough history to put the debate into historical context. Native Americans know this history. These are their family stories. American Indian sports mascots exist under a double bubble of mythological padding. One layer is the mythology that surrounds, in this case, college sports and the ‘‘student athlete.’’ The other consists of the deeply planted myths we have absorbed about American Indians. Under all this mythological wrapping, our thinking tends to get fuzzy. Fake Indians do not seem problematic because they are so very normal, just part of our

$

This piece originally appeared online at Inside Higher Ed on August 9, 2005 at http:// www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/08/09/spindel.

Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 34, 9–13 Copyright r 2010 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-2396/doi:10.1108/S0163-2396(2010)0000034004

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‘‘cultural wallpaper,’’ in the words of Jay Rosenstein, who made the documentary film ‘‘In Whose Honor?’’ The mascot debate is actually the latest in a long series of battles over who controls American Indian culture. Since most of us never learned the history of white/Native relations in our country, the issue seems to have sprung out of nowhere. Until I wrote a book about sports mascots, I never knew the history of forced assimilation. But culture was as much a battleground as land. The U.S. government conducted a strenuous campaign to wipe out American Indian cultures, religions, and languages. American Indian children were forcibly taken from their families to boarding schools where they were physically punished if they spoke their tribal languages or tried to maintain their religious observances. In a country that prides itself on religious freedom, the First Americans had none until 1934. Before this, Native people faced sanctions even when trying to conduct ceremonies and dances on their own reservations. One of the few historical incidents many of us do know about, the tragic massacre at Wounded Knee, took place because American Indians were gathering to dance at a religious ceremony that the government was determined to suppress. The leaders that survived were paroled into Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and sent off to Europe to be entertainers. At the same time that we were trying to destroy American Indian cultures, non-Native Americans loved to dress up and play Indian. What could be more American? We have been doing it since the Boston Tea Party. Mascot performances like Chief Illiniwek, a fictional chief who dances at Illinois on the fifty-yard line at halftime or Osceola, who gallops in carrying a burning lance, trace their origins to the Wild West show, traveling big-tent performances that were part of the American circus tradition. This is why mascot performers and Indian profile logos almost always feature feathered headdresses, no matter what tribe they represent. The feathered headdresses are typical of Wild West performers, who were recruited from the Sioux Nation. Buffalo Bill, the best-known Wild West ringmaster, claimed, just like modern universities, that his show was both historically accurate and morally uplifting. Buffalo Bill’s signature acts – the Indian attack on the settler cabin, on the circled wagons, and on the stagecoach – survived after the circus era as film and television cliche´s. Wild West shows were filmed and evolved into westerns. When Americans flocked to Wild West shows, they believed they were seeing the last vestiges of a dying culture. It was true that Native populations were declining. But this idea, that American Indians would disappear like dinosaurs, became so embedded in American

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mythology that even today many non-Native Americans are startled to encounter a flesh and blood Native person. Thrilled by the Wild West performances, college boys and Boy Scouts emulated the showbiz Indians when they created Indian sports mascots, many of which date from the 1920s. The college boys, despite their good intentions, were working under an enormous misperception. They thought they were saving something that would otherwise be lost. But Native American people survived. Their populations rebounded. Having paid dearly to save what is left of their cultures, religions, and languages, they want to control how they are used and passed on. Understandably, they resent how lightly schools appropriate their cultures for entertainment at sports events, and it is particularly hurtful that this happens in higher education. The United States Commission on Civil Rights pointed this out in April 2001 when it urged non-Native schools to retire American Indian imagery and names in sports. Public symbols that use other minority groups have mostly disappeared. They make us all uncomfortable. Can you imagine the Washington Darkies or the Florida State Chicanos? At Sonoma State University, when Jewish groups objected to the Cossacks nickname, teams became the Seawolves within two years. If student theatrical groups were to stage minstrel shows, as they did in the 1930s, the students would be justifiably criticized. But when America discusses race, the terms are usually black and white. Native Americans say they feel invisible. The strong attachment students feel for their mascots or nicknames are not instinctual; they are promoted. Students are indoctrinated into a campus cult of racial stereotyping. Critical thinking on the subject of the mascot must be discouraged and the school has to promote an anti-educational, anti-intellectual reaction. This is even more disturbing because it takes place in a setting of talk about ‘‘honoring’’ Indians. But Indian mascots are fantasy figures, firmly stuck in the past. One parallel symbol is Aunt Jemima, the slave cook who loved the plantation so much she did not want to leave when she was freed. She is a white fantasy that denies and betrays the real history of slavery, just like the mascot Osceola. The real Osceola fought against American expansion into Seminole land and was betrayed when he came in good faith to a peace council with American soldiers. But his mascot reincarnation is happy to welcome Florida State fans. Knowing this history, Native people find it hard to explain to us why mascots are so offensive. We cannot hold up our end of the argument. It is like the modern teenager who looks at the Aunt Jemima syrup bottle, sees a

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positive depiction of a smiling African-American grandmother, and says, ‘‘What’s the problem? It’s so positive.’’ The problem is not this particular logo, but the long pattern of denying the history of slavery that the original Aunt Jemima, with the ads depicting her life history, represents. In addition to slavery, there is another reality we have swept under our historical carpet: how we acquired this land we love so much. When you sweep something that large under the rug, it makes bumps. Mascots are bumps in our historical carpet, something we are trying to rearrange and deny to make it more appealing. In our version of the story, American Indians just disappeared and our mascots commemorate them with respect and honor. But American Indians are not gone and they don’t want to be commemorated with a halftime Wild West show by fans that know nothing of their culture. This proprietary insistence – this is ours and we will keep it no matter what you say – is offensive. When the two sides clash on campuses, the racial hostility gets ugly. Native people want to be in American institutions of higher education, not as mascots and sports souvenirs, but as equals and contemporaries as students, faculty, and staff. They want their history taught truthfully in the classroom, not presented in a false pageant of white longing. The mascot/ nickname/logo issue is about how the majority depicts the minority, so if you go to a reservation and interview people randomly, they may say it is not a concern for them. But listening to Native people who have spent time on the campus at Illinois or at the University of North Dakota, I usually hear strong feelings of frustration and bitterness. In those places, everything Native exists in relation to the mascot or nickname. And because American Indians nearly always oppose the mascot, the hardline students who support the mascot become anti-Indian. Although the mascots are not intended to be hostile or abusive, the campus climate around them certainly can be, especially for Native students. Native leaders and educators, including the American Congress of American Indians, lists mascots and anti-defamation as one of the important issues facing Native people. It is not easy to retire a nickname or mascot. The attachment of fans, their identity as Seminoles or Indians, runs deep. Generations of alumni come out of the woodwork, write letters, threaten to withhold money, bring lawsuits. Education is usually a popular enterprise and educators are not used to dealing with this kind of controversy. The NCAA has given these schools a perfect opportunity to say, ‘‘had to do it, couldn’t hobble the sports program.’’ These changes can go very smoothly when the campus leadership is united and when they hold to their resolve that a new sports identity is

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best for the institution. The NCAA policy will have a ripple effect on high schools, another positive result. Southeast Missouri State (SEMO) avoided the pariah list by changing its nickname this year. In October 2005, I spoke at the ceremony when the Southeast Missouri State Indians were retired to the sounds of Mohican musician Bill Miller’s haunting flute music. Everyone in attendance was positive about the future. Everyone was ready to cheer on the SEMO Redhawks. There is a lot of talk in college sports about respect. I felt it that day.

NOTE 1. She is the author of Dancing at Halftime: Sports and the Controversy over American Indian Mascots (NYU Press).

MOURNING THE MASCOT’S DEMISE: ON PREHISTORIC ORIGINS AND MODERN AFTERMATH Synthia Sydnor In 1993, inspired by Sansone’s (1998) book on the origin of sport, I speculated about sport mascots and cultural performance in an article published in the Journal of Sport & Social Issues (Sydnor-Slowikowski, 1993). It was a tentative piece that combined some of Sansone’s ethological thesis with performativity/performance studies to contemplate contemporary collective/ social authenticity, imperialist nostalgia and to critique racist ideologies linked to sport mascots, such as that of Chief Illiniwek, the University of Illinois’ stereotyped mascot of a mythical Native American. While working on the 1993 mascot project, inspired by reading Sansone, I was secretly fascinated by the idea that present-day mascots may be part of a continuity of human consciousness from prehistoric/Paleolithic times (10,000 or more years ago); I cautiously explored that briefly in the 1993 article, but never pursued it further. I knew that the study of totems and ethology, and the works of those such as Konrad Lorenz, Levi Strauss, and Emile Durkheim on sociobiology, cognitive structure, and function were legitimate, but yet, in the circles within which I academically ran, studying continuities between human prehistoric and postmodern rituals or suggesting

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a kind of biological determinism or psychic humanhood seemed to be taboo. But as the years went by and I came every year to teach Sansone’s idea as part of a graduate seminar on ‘‘The Natures and Origins of Play & Sport,’’ I became convinced that Sansone’s idea about sport had significance with applicability for cultural studies and for cross-cultural study of sport manifestations. Then when the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign finally made their administrative decision to retire Chief Illiniwek and I and the contributors of this anthology witnessed once again the absurd public outcry by the ‘‘Chief’s’’ supporters over this, I decided to use Sansone’s thesis to explore ‘‘what exactly is at stake with this mascot that is so hard to give up?’’. In the past, the magnificent Marching Illini band would end its halftime performance playing the school’s marching songs interspersed with the Chief’s war hymn. The band would form ILLINI in block letters and march down the field. Hidden until then by the ranks of the marching band members, the Chief would suddenly appear and – cheered on by 70,000 – would begin the stylized dance that had started in 1926. y And now the band was going through that time-honored routine, the same music and the same marching routine – without the Chief! From the capacity crowd and especially the student sections, came shouts of ‘‘Chief! Chief!’’ It was an eerie spectacle. Illiniwek without the Chief was a little like Hamlet without the prince. A chill went through my body, and tears came to my eyes. y Yet the sadness was overridden by a joyous affirmation that students and alumni alike were cheering the memory of what had been taken from them. As I watched the Marching Illini’s hollow presentation, I fantasized that this shell of a ritual would be retained y Or will memory fail first, and even what little is left of the ritual disappear? (Novak, 2007)

This above quotation, by noted journalist Robert Novak, is just one example of hundreds of commentaries, blogs, articles, and editorials from a myriad of sources from early 2007 in which writers outwardly reveal their personal sadness, tears, utter hopelessness at the Chief’s forced demise. In addition to such writings, blogs, and radio-talk shows, specific artifacts of the aftermath1 of the Chief performance continue to circulate in UrbanaChampaign and surrounding communities. These souvenirs include thousands of orange t-shirts emblazoned CHIEF; huge Chief-in-headdress magnets enveloping doors of pick-up trucks and vans (replacing the yellowribbon ‘‘pray for our troops’’ magnet fad of a few years back), books about the history of the Chief, calls for and legal actions to reinstate the Chief, and $1,200 marble bench memorials for sale at a local garden store, engraved with chiseled words ‘‘CHIEF FOREVER.’’ Over the past 20 years that I have lived in Illinois, these aftermath performances echo what has amazed and perplexed me (like the other authors within this volume): the emotion and connectedness that the Chief

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mascot evokes in its fans. Precisely what is it that people cling to when they mourn the demise of ‘‘The Chief?’’ As a recent blog posts, ‘‘It’s a mascot. It’s a guy in a costume y; so what’s the big deal about getting a different costume?’’2 Scholars working in cultural studies have given two kinds of answers to this ‘‘what’s the big deal?’’ question about the grip of cultural performances like Illiniwek. First, the dominant reading of sport mascots hinges on the critique of white supremacy in endless variations in ubiquitous cultural spaces. Of those who have exposed and critiqued racial spectacles in this paradigm, I count among my favorite, works by King (2004), Charles Springwood (King & Springwood, 2001), Spindel (2002), Ganguly (2006), Robidoux (2006), Kusz (2007), Farnell (2004), and Rosenstein (1997). Spindel (2002) Dancing at Halftime: Sports and the Controversy Over American Indian Mascots especially set out to answer the ‘‘why the Chief?’’ question too: For many graduates y the halftime moment when Chief Illiniwek poses and they, along with thousands of other people stand and sing, is a serious, even quasi-religious ritual y The appreciation for the beautifully crafted clothing, the dance and the music is genuine. With so much good feeling, can this be racism? (Spindel, 2002, p. 12)

In their quests to understand these racially stereotyping rituals, Spindel and others untangle historical roots of mascots in both modernism and earlier times, including discussion of totemism (e.g., King & Springwood, 2001, p. 55; Ganguly, 2006). So then, for me, totemism, mimesis, alterity, and performative theory count among the second interrelated type of understanding of sport mascots in critical theory; Michael Taussig’s rich provocative Benjaminian works stand foremost. His stories and narratives help us ‘‘get at’’ the mascot on several levels – the power of mimicry, transgression’s role3 in ‘‘icons’’ such as the Chief, and in his more recent work about the role of the archaic in modernity: Nature does not so much disappear as exist in layers of such histories, with each layer written across the one before so that the earlier layers continue to be visible in a smudged-out and sometimes surprising way y testimony to the force of the archaic in modernity, a coming into fullness of a ‘‘second nature’’ in which objects and landscapes, along with indigenous people, acquire radically intensified meaning as the physical melts into virtual reality.4

This essay is in part about the layers of histories, the aftermath of Chief Illiniwek. My work stands on foundations of mascot criticism (much of it previously published by the current authors within this volume) that reads the Chief as a Foucaultian discursive formation (Farnell, 2004,

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pp. 30–55) of playing Indian (Deloria, 1986), that racializes through mimesis, imperialist nostalgia (Rosaldo, 1989),5 and institutionalizes and manufactures consent of dominant White power (King, Leonard, & Kusz, 2007; King, 2007). It goes without saying that we need to continually expose and through our social practices fight to erase such images, identities, practices, and performances. Yet, I deem that we can peel away these criticisms to get to another understanding of the sport mascot that has to do with the roots and nature of sport, for although sport, or at least some version of organized play, seems to be a universal institution of human community, (not unlike other universal human elements such as law, religion, and art), we have done little as cultural-studies-of-sport scholars to reckon with this grand universality of play and sport. In the past 20 to 30 years, we have made great accomplishments exoticizing and critiquing the particular cultural and temporal practices associated with sport; these interpretations most always undergirded by unwritten assumptions that sport originates in one or all of the Enlightenment, the Western industrial revolution, or in Others’ folk traditions; nevertheless these endeavors should not always define the field of study. So here, although it is in a sense taboo for me to forward this in cultural studies of sport circles, something missing from our projects of late has been exploration of the idea that sport and all of its polyphonic, myriad peripherals6 have a deeper, historically distant social function in an ‘‘organicist sense.’’7 I note ‘‘of late’’ for thinkers such as C. L. R. James saw sports not only as metaphors for society and politics but also with a transhistorical function/value.8 James argued for the importance of sport in social history, using the ancient Greeks as beginning point, recognizing the holistic role that sport played within communities: We respond to physical action or vivid representation of it, dead or alive, because we are made that way. For unknown centuries, survival for us, like all other animals, depended upon competent and effective physical activity y the presupposition y by which we recognize significant form in elemental physical action is native to us, a part of the process by which we have become and remain human y they remain part of our human endowment. y [Cricket] cannot express the emotions of an age on the nature of the last judgment or the wiping out of a population by bombing. It must repeat. But what it repeats is the original stuff out of which everything visually or otherwise artistic is quarried. (James, 1963)

The 2007 monograph from film work by Barthes (2007), What is Sport, based on the 1961 film Le Sport et les hommes, includes the correspondence that Hubert Aquin, the director–producer of the film had

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with Barthes: Aquin: ‘‘What concerns us y is sport as a psychosocial phenomenon.’’

Barthes answers in the film and as published in the little monograph: What is sport?. y sport is a great modern spectacle cast in the ancestral forms of spectacle. y At certain periods, in certain societies, the theater has had a major social function: It collected the entire city within a shared experience: the knowledge of its own passions. Today it is sport that in its way performs this function. (Barthes, 2007, pp. 3, 45–47, 57, 59)

All of this is to say that there is a body of thought that can be re-membered that poses a challenge to those today who wonder about sport – about how sport may be an exceptional universal activity with original meaning that perseveres in human society. To continue a bit more with my evidence to substantiate this line of reasoning, we can begin again with Raymond Williams, one of the classic founders of cultural studies. In The Long Revolution, Williams (1961) contends that The evolution of the human brain, and then the particular interpretations carried by particular cultures, give us certain ‘‘‘rules’’ or ‘‘models’’, without which no human being can ‘‘see’’ in the ordinary sense y In each individual, the learning of these rules, through inheritance and culture, is a kind of creation, in that y the ordinary ‘‘reality’’ that his culture defines, forms only as the rules are learned.

And here again, Williams (1977, italics mine) in his landmark words about hegemony and the residual: We have certainly still to speak of the ‘‘dominant’’ and the ‘‘effective,’’ and in these senses of the hegemonic. But. we have also to speak. . .of the ‘‘residual’’ y By ‘‘residual’’ I mean something different than the ‘‘archaic’’ though in practice these are often very difficult to distinguish y I would call ‘‘archaic’’ that which is wholly recognized as an element of the past y What I mean by ‘‘residual’’ is very different. The residual by definition has been effectively formed in the past, but it is still active in the cultural process, not only and often not at all as an element of the past, but as an effective element of the present. Thus certain experiences, meaning and values which cannot be expressed or substantially verified y are nevertheless lived and practised on the basis of the residue – cultural as well as social—of some previous social and cultural institution or formation.

Williams goes on to label ‘‘organized religion’’ and the ‘‘idea of rural community’’ as residual cultural elements. A logic of my present essay is that sport is a residual cultural element, a residue of something that humans forgot, an ‘‘aftermath’’ as used in the sense of Richard Schechner, part of a previous social cultural formation that humans can no longer see in the ordinary sense. Granted, I understand that Williams was referring to images

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and practices that we take for granted as given and matter of fact when in actuality they help further powerful regimes, beliefs, ideals, and norms. But I reason that we can radically theorize Williams’ ideas about the residual in combination with Schechner’s idea of aftermath, to get at deeper, longer lived human residues. Cultural studies is compatible with grand essentializing of origins of huge/ubiquitous/enduring/universal cultural forms such as sport; certainly, ruminations on such vibrate through beautiful works about culture that understand sociobiological ritualization, transitional stages of human culture, and how these might influence modern communicative rituals (like mascot ceremonies) that take place in sports. Hear Schechner (2002): Events that can be designated ‘‘performance’’ occur among all the world’s peoples and date back as far as archaeologists, anthropologists and historians can go y people were performing in caves at least 30,000 years ago y No one knows if these Paleolithic performers were acting out stories, representing past events, experiences, memories, dreams or fantasies. I would like to think they were.

Bateson (1972, p. 130): I am concerned with what important psychic information is in the art object quite apart from what it may ‘‘represent’’. y It is the very rules of transformation that are of interest to me—not the message, but the code.

and David Sansone: There is no essential difference between modern sport and the sport of other and earlier societies. y The ethologist’s definition of ritual is of great value in the understanding of sport. Specifically it enables us, as no other approach can, to account for the persistence of specific sports in contexts in which they appear to be inappropriate.9

My first graduate studies mentor, Alan Ingham, used to regularly proclaim, ‘‘What is this thing we call sport?!’’ urging us to try to figure out the mystery of what made sport so special, of why it seemed unique as a cultural form. Undeniably, more than 30 years ago, in pioneering graduate sociocultural kinesiology courses at the University of Washington, Ingham, along with his colleagues, Stephan Hardy and Jack Berryman, presented the answer to this question in terms of the grand definitional efforts about the origin of play and sport undertaken by Huizinga (1955), Caillois (2001), Suits (1978), Loy (1968), and Guttmann (1978).10 In these readings, reflective of the era’s obsession with finding the core definition and social function of cultural elements like sport, Ingham and the ‘‘University of Washington School’’ worked on Marxist critiques of the ‘‘prison of sport,’’ (Ingham & Loy, 1971; Brohm, 1989) introducing us too to ideas from

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Raymond Williams that helped us to eventually read sport’s performative, hegemonically socially constructed aspects associated with gender, race, nation, and so on. But that these two lines of inquiry into sport – origins and politico-social critique – were rarely melded in sports studies literature has haunted me over the course of my career.11 Thus in this chapter, I want to take the mascot aftermath case study as a way to satiate my curiosity not necessarily about the roots of mascots but about the roots of this larger phenomenon sport, about links that take us from Illinois’ Memorial Stadium to Paleolithic sacrificial ritual. This is risky language in cultural studies, so some important, brief rejoinders from the start. First, the whole strand of my idea – that sport and its peripherals have some foundational, originary, or essential quality – does not in any way preclude the idea that sport also has fluid temporal and cultural contexts: sport spectacles (such as Chief Illiniwek) in modernity do serve the interests of the maintenance and ongoing consent of particular dominant visions of race, state, media, nation, and so on; our theorizing of popular sporting foundations can tell us much about specific conjunctural moments (e.g., King, 2006). Selected thought from Benjamin (1999), Turner (1967), Bateson (1972), Taussig (1993), Schechner (1993), Geertz (1972), Edward Bruner (Turner & Bruner, 1986), Virilio (1997), Girard (1979), Buck-Morss (1993), and Handelman (1998), to name some, show that we can have it ‘‘both’’ ways. Sport may have an originating nature that is at the core of sports’ historical universalism, longevity, and popularity; however, this is not to say that wherever and whenever sport surfaces that there is not an endless variety of culturally and temporally contextual manifestations that are relative to specific conjunctural matters (e.g., Springwood, 1995). A second, crucial rejoinder: when I point to an organicist, foundational, originary, or essential category of sport, here and throughout, I do not imply that sport or racist mascots are actually noble/ignoble-savage primordial images ingrained in humans’ cognitive, sociobiological structures; I am not blind to the colonial/postcolonial mimicry that conjoins sport mascots. Instead, I contend, primarily using Sansone, that the mascots’ roots in humankind have to do with the early communities’ hunting rituals. When I discuss Sansone’s idea or have students read his book, at a cursory glance, Sansone’s thesis is often mistaken for an argument that sport as we know it is a replacement for early hunting, that the origin and nature of sport comes from Paleolithic hunting that gets symbolically replaced when such activity is no longer necessary for survival (Carroll, 2001). Another observation by Sansone’s critics is that the individual today has

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reasons for participating in sport other than as Sansone explains. These are not part of Sansone’s thesis. He specifically states that ‘‘it may well be that an individual participates in sport for reasons that have little or nothing to do with the essence of sport’’ (Sansone, 1988, p. 9). A ‘‘characteristic of ritual’’ is that an action that originated for one purpose may continue ‘‘to be performed for an apparently different purpose’’(Sansone, 1988, p. 27) for which the performer or participant observer are not aware. Sansone (1988, pp. 1–8) begins his book by asking if sport or any universal phenomenon have a single essence. Is there a single explanation for the origin and persistence of sport? What is the nature and essence of sport? According to Sansone, theories of sport must account for three things: the origin of sport, the persistence of individual sports, and the great diversity of activities that comprise sport (mountain climbing, golf, bowling, soccer, sky-surfing, chess, ballet, reading newspaper articles about sport, engaging in Internet fantasy leagues, collecting baseball cards, creating poetry about sports, individual memories of sporting moments, academic careers related to sport, and so on [my examples]). Sansone stands in contrast to sport origin theorists such as Allen Guttmann (who understand sport as we know it today as a novel product of modernity), asserting that there is no difference between modern sport and the sport of other and earlier societies. As he is trained in classics, and because there is an abundance of evidence from antiquity of the West, Sansone uses the evidence of the ancient Greeks and then contemporary ethnographic evidence to substantiate his thesis. In terms of Sansone’s evidence, the ancient Greeks are no different from modern/postmoderns; Sansone, like Nietzsche, Foucault, and Alvin Gouldner, holds the ‘‘Greeks [to be] in a unique mediatory position: they were capable of experiencing what is at the root of human feeling and consciousness and they communicated it to us in terms that are familiar to us’’ (Sansone, 1988, pp. 5–6, 10–19). Especially using Karl Meuli and Walter Burkert, and similar to the path of studies of sacrifice such as by Pierre Vidal-Naquet, The Black Hunter, 1998,12 Sansone (1988, p. 37) uniquely comprehends sport to be ‘‘the ritual sacrifice of physical energy.’’ What kind of symbolic energy is being ritually sacrificed in sport? Sansone’s thesis is that humans have hunted for over 95 percent of their history and that this symbolic surplus energy was13 used by the whole community toward hunting (preparing the hunter’s body to hunt, caring for the tools of the hunt, preparing, cooking and eating the slain animal, appeasing the victim/the slain, observing hunters’ depart for the hunt, etc.;

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all community members were ritually/symbolically involved in some aspect of the hunt, however distant that involvement from the actual slaying of the hunted): The patterns of behavior that developed over a period of more than one hundred thousand years have tended to persist precisely because those were the patterns of behavior that enabled man to develop successfully. Those patterns could not be eradicated in the relatively brief span of time since man has ceased depending upon hunting. Or, rather, there is no need for them to be abandoned, for they could be turned to a different purpose. (Sansone, 1988, p. 47)

Sansone distinguishes ritual from religion and relies on the science of ethology, ‘‘the biology of behavior’’ for definitions of these. From Julian Huxley and Konrad Lorenz, Sansone borrows the concept of ‘‘cultural ritualization’’: A behavior pattern by means of which a species [or] a cultured society y deals with certain environmental conditions, acquires an entirely new function, that of communication. The primary function may still be performed, but it often recedes more and more into the background and may disappear completely so that a typical change of function is achieved. (Lorenze, 1966)14

Cultural ritualization, which functions as a means of communication or display, encourages group cohesion, and ‘‘tends toward exaggeration, stylization and repetition’’ enables us, ‘‘as no other approach can, to account for the persistence of specific sports in contexts in which they appear to be inappropriate’’ (Sansone, 1988, pp. 31–35). For Sansone, through a process of cultural ritualization, by the time of the ancient Greeks (10,000 to BC onward), sport is a kind of exaggerated, communicative, symbolic activity that has replaced the symbols and motifs of Paleolithic hunters. Sansone offers evidence from ancient Greek burials, artifacts and literature, ancient Rome, Native American and Aboriginal ethnography, and our Western modern society to show that the motifs of early human hunting prominently surround sport and sport peripherals in all times and places. For me, this evidence is the most fascinating aspect of Sansone’s theory. For example, Sansone elaborates on the importance of successful hunting and the place of camouflage in this. The hunter had to disguise his body scent and his body and did this by eating special meals or fasting, by standing in front of burning wood before leaving for the hunt, and by covering his body with leaves and branches or other foreign scents to approach the prey. Sansone says that these customs, for which much energy was invested in

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prehistoric communities, become culturally ritualized into sport when hunting is no longer necessary to human livelihood. These camouflage symbols live on that both ancient and modern in the victory vegetation and the Ribbons athletes are handed or adorned with after winning a sports event, and in my observations, an amazing taken-for-granted variety of decorations/motifs on popular culture items (such as the laurel wreaths that decorate Frisbees, award medals, cartoons, athletic t-shits, sports tickets, athletic trophies, and awards). The ‘‘true origin of the crown of vegetation y is nothing other than an element of the primitive hunter’s camouflage’’ (Sansone, 1988, p. 85). Fire purification rituals to mask the hunter’s scent live on in sport bonfire-beforethe-game rituals and ubiquitously in torch-lighting ceremonies before, during, and after athletic events of every ilk and genre. Likewise with abstinence rituals that persevere universally in sport. Although physiologically there is no purpose to saving one’s semen or saliva, Sansone (1988, p. 68) goes to great length to present the evidence that prehistoric, Aboriginal people believed in the mythical strength properties of body fluid and thus sought to preserve their fluid before the hunt. This tradition is culturally ritualized, symbolically performed when athletes are banned (or ban themselves) from having sexual intercourse the day before a game. Sansone (1988, p. 69) also describes the various spitting rituals that live on in sport today – athletes spit on their hands, shoes, and rub oils or water on their bodies before and during competition, habits of the prehistoric hunter who used body fluid rituals for speed and strength that persevere today. Tattooing and ritual scarification as ways to insert into the body properties of strength or speed are also dealt with in Sansone’s theory on the genesis of sport. Cauldrons, tripods, kraters, and lebe¯s used by the ancient Greeks as athletic contest victory trophies, along with trophies and cups awarded to athletes today, are residuals of the cooking vessels used by early hunters. Communities worked to ensure their survival; so, cooking vessels became importantly imbued with insuring successful hunts by careful preparation, cooking, and presentation of the victim: It is tempting to believe that these vessels were the originals of the symbolic prizes frequently awarded even today in athletic competitions. As far as I am aware, no one has troubled himself over the question of why plates, cups and other apparatus of the dining table should be given out as tokens of supremacy in sport (Indeed I am not aware of the existence of any serious study of the history of prizes in sport y (Sansone, 1988, p. 91)

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And the mascot. Based on modern ethnographic evidence, Sansone surmises that the Paleolithic hunter felt a kinship mixed with guilt and emotion for the beasts he/she hunted. Because of these emotions, the hunger tried to kill quickly and painlessly. Ritualized habits developed: hunters apologized with various ceremonies involving the slain; sometimes, the instrument that killed the animal was put on trial; the hide of the slain animal was often stuffed, and in some ceremonies, the animal’s hide was puppeted to move as though still alive to pacify the killed. Sansone believes that the ceremonies involving animal hides were of such symbolic value that when the original action of hunting was no longer the occupation of stratified agrarian societies, the animal hide revivification ceremonies were redirected to embellish things associated with sport. Thus, contemporary sport teams are often named after animals, and athletes (and those engrossed in contemporary sport including also onlookers or readers of sport) wear stylized representations of these animals on their uniforms, helmets, jewelry, and so on.15 Captivatingly, Sansone points out that perhaps revivification practices have undergone ‘‘further ritualization’’ into dance forms such as ballet: Swan Lake and The Firebird are among the most conspicuous modern descendents y if our definition of sport as the ritual sacrifice of physical energy is correct, we may be justified as in regarding ballet as a form of sport; after all, various forms of dancing are now represented at the Olympic Games and are engaged in as competitive sports. (Sansone, 1988, p. 48)

Sansone never mentions modern mascots as descendants of Paleolithic reanimation ceremonies, but it is obvious that the practice of donning the hide of the slained animal and moving with it fits Sansone’s thesis. Sansone also presents evidence from anthropology of societies who wear parts of animals to evoke speed or success in sport (Dakota Indians of Minnesota when playing lacrosse wear the tail of a deer or antelope, one type of Roman gladiator wore a fish symbol on his helmet, and an American football team is represented by dolphins; again, Sansone (1988, pp. 49–51) declares that these practices are striking examples of the symbolic communicative ritualization of prehistoric hunting rituals into sport). In my 1993 paper, I paired Sansone’s idea to abstract the cultural context of the Native American image as sport mascot in the United States, discussing how through mascots, Native Americans were semiotically/performatively depicted as trophies, the hunted, and as noble/ignoble savages.16 The Native American was feared/ appeased/controlled/hunted/honored all at once through mascot signage, both a ritualization, as Sansone understands it, and an example of imperialist nostalgia.

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What then is so at stake with Chief Illiniwek that its supporters weep as ‘‘he’’ dances for the last time? The mascot was long ago (10,000 years) stripped of its original significance, but its nature persisted, ingrained in what it is to be part of human community; sport and its peripherals infinitely manifest in culture because it is a cultural residual imperative inherent in humankind.17 In classical cultural studies of sport, discussion such as I have undertaken about sports’ origins and the nature of sport-related performances/rituals seem in my experience to be taboo. There are several reasons for this – logically, if ‘‘radical contextualism,’’ conjuncturalism, and an unearthing of the social, economic, political, technological matrices of cultural forms such as mascots are key to the epistemology and ontology of cultural studies, then supposedly sport cannot be engaged in as ‘‘a foundational, originary or essential category’’ (Andrews, 2002). This is what David Andrews argues in a landmark 2002 essay about cultural studies and sport. He makes a call for ‘‘boundary maintenance,’’ ‘‘a more rigid and exclusive understanding’’ in sport cultural studies circles, arguing for an approach ‘‘that more closely engages the primary tenets and practices of the broader cultural studies project, while furthering the understanding of contemporary sport culture’’ (Andrews, 2002, pp. 110, 111). Why do I point out Andrews’ 2002 call for a more rigid and exclusive understanding of cultural studies of sport and what does this have to do with Chief Illiniwek? In short, some of our critiques of the Chief are classic cultural studies, as Andrews desires. But what of other critiques of the Chief, such as the one I have forwarded (that can also be labeled ‘‘cultural studies’’), but that Andrews might dismiss as ‘‘cultural humanism’’? (Andrews, 2002, p. 112). That is, if we follow Andrews’ vision, in ‘‘real’’ cultural studies, sport is not allowed as a ‘‘foundational, essential or originary category’’ (Andrews, 2002, p. 116) for this would not be following in the footsteps of cultural studies defined by postwar British intellectuals and would strip sport of its fluid meanings in different temporal and cultural contexts; the uniqueness of the historical moment always matters in the cultural studies that Andrews desires. Yet, what if, indeed, sport and all of its peripherals18 have deeper original meaning? I believe that within our conferences and journals, there has been a bit of policing of the theories of cultural studies of sport – surprisingly, even Norman Denzin agrees with Andrews (2002) call, legitimating ‘‘policing’’ in his 2006 ‘‘conversation’’ with Rich King in the (Denzin) tribute issue of the Journal of Sport & Social Issues: To be sure the task of delineating cultural studies is a daunting one. Cultural studies has never been dominated by a single theoretical or methodological position, rather its

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growth can be described as perpetual ‘‘unity-in-difference’’ (Hall, 1992) characterized by multiple theoretical influences, research methods and sites of analysis. However, its celebrated multiplicity should not preclude definitional efforts. (Andrews, 2002, p. 111, italics mine)19

In the abovementioned excerpt, Denzin applauds us, the University of Illinois sports studies tradition, for our ground-breaking reading of sport as ‘‘a major site for the articulation of issues of agency and capital, race and gender, the media and celebrity.’’20 He outlines four paired themes in which social texts can be analyzed: (a) the ‘‘real’’ and its representation in the text, (b) the text and the author, (c) lived experience and its textual representations, and (d) the subject and his or her intentional meanings. (Denzin, 1997, p. 4)21

I simply add an additional paired theme – ‘‘the text’s universal nature or origin’’ – to his list of the possibilities of how social texts can be analyzed. Within I have outlined theories, ideas, and evidence about the nature of sport that can be used to interpret what is at stake when people cry so at the demise of the Chief. Using Sansone, I forward that the mascot is inherent to human communities because it is one of the images of the expenditure of symbolic energy to which the collective emote of much earlier trappings/ rituals/ceremonies/practices of prehistoric human community devoted/ invested itself. According to Sansone, other specific practices linked to the prehistoric community through which humans continue to ritually symbolically expend human energy in rituals today surrounding and including sport include abstinence-before-a-game (infibulations, chastity, and fasting) rituals/myths, sport trophies, pre-game bonfires, and victory vegetation. Again, I reiterate that I do not see the mascot as a primordial practice re-membered in modernity, as a symbol that replaces things having to do with primitive hunting, nor does Sansone’s idea have the presumption that ‘‘racial phenomena y are natural occurrences’’(Bonilla-Silva, 2003).22 With Sansone, I grasp the contemporary mascot as one of the symbolic ritualizations of much earlier activities in which communities were engaged for purposes of survival; the performativity of the Illiniwek mascot is not exclusively ‘‘a sign without a historical referent, a free-floating signifier in a prairie land wiped clean, erased of Native Americans’’ (Prochaska, 2001). Because early human societies members’ rituals were so engraved in the nature of what it is to be human, those early symbols and rituals had an imperative to continue, to be ritualized long after the original need or meaning to which they responded disappeared. James, Williams, Schechner,

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and Barthes ideas of the elemental, of shared experience, the psycho-social, and the residual can be part of our sociological imagination. By way of responding in this essay to certain recent critiques of sport studies, I have tried to make a case that because sport is a special cultural entity, we need to pay attention to, and refine earlier arguments about the nature and essences of sport, including early ritualization’s special ties to the contemporary human condition and sport forms. At the same time, as I showcased classicist David Sansone’s ‘‘grand’’ theory about the origin of sport and introduced my take on how Sansone’s idea figures in understanding historical continuity, universal components of human existence, and the cultural aftermath of the Chief Illiniwek performance, I also tried to contribute a brief historiography of how the academic community have dealt with mascot studies.

NOTES 1. ‘‘Aftermath’’ from Schechner (2002, pp. 246–249): ‘‘the continuing life of a performance is its aftermath. This phase of the performance process may extend for years or even centuries – in fact the duration of the aftermath is indefinite.’’ 2. Popefelix on February 16, 2007 at 11:21 PM; comments on Garenes (2007). 3. Michael Taussig, Walter Benjamin’s Grave, p. 169: The point to dwell upon with embodied insidedness/outsidedness is not y the triumph of catharsis with eventual bringing to life of hiddenness but rather the performance of hiddenness itself in an eternal and unstable movement with a continuously discharging circuit of taboo and transgression, concealment and revelation.

4. Michael Taussig, Walter Benjamin’s Grave, p. 108. Note that Taussig’s full quotation is about the sea; I deleted ‘‘sea’’ references in my paraphrasing. 5. Also, from Stewart (1993), the mascot as a sort of souvenir is a metonymic substitution of the part for the whole – one ‘‘part’’ of the longed for past stands in for the whole past. 6. By peripherals I mean anything, anyone, and everything connected to sport in any way: mascots, trading cards, fans, coaches, manufacturers, sport history books, spectators’ memories, museum artifacts, hot dog venders, pod-casts, souvenirs, tickets, playground rhymes, etc. See Rinehart (1998). 7. On ‘‘organicist’’ see Scanlon (2002, pp. 336, 366, 409). 8. James’ perspective has been referred to as ‘‘a gesture towards universalism that many argue is James’ weak point’’ See Graves (2005). 9. Sansone, Greek Athletics and the Genesis of Sport, pp. 6, 31. See also reviews of Sansone: (Griffin, 1988, pp. 3–5; Segal, 1988, p. 455; Gold, 1990; Guttmann, 1988, pp. 361–362). 10. I paraphrase some of this narrative from Sydnor (2005, pp. 536–544). 11. Perhaps because I took my Ph.D. in an interdisiplinary program in the humanities, studying ancient Greek sport rituals, then immediately jumped into teaching contemporary sociology of sport courses at Illinois at the start of my career.

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12. Vidal-Naquet (1998); See also (Vernant, 1984; Burkert, 1980; Burkert, 1983). 13. Sansone (1988, pp. 64–66): Sport is primarily a symbolic sacrifice not a competition, the competitive aspects of sport and of other forms of sacrifice are secondary and are not essential to the message that is communicated, which is, in effect, ‘‘I am in possession of a surplus and I am aware that by giving up part or all of my surplus I will ensure the possession of a surplus in the future y Sport becomes competitive as readily as other forms of sacrifice, but competition is epiphenomenal. y If sport is the ritual sacrifice of physical energy, it makes little difference whether I choose to engage personally in the ritual by demonstrating my superiority over a colleague on the tennis course or observe as a deputation of semi-professional athletes displays on my behalf the amount of energy that my country is willing and able to squander at the Olympic Games.

14. As quoted by Sansone (1988, p. 31). 15. Paraphrased from Sydnor-Slowikowski (1993, pp. 25–27). 16. Sydnor-Slowikowski (1993, pp. 24–26). 17. Paraphrased from Sydnor (2005, p. 539). 18. By peripherals I mean anything, anyone, and everything connected to sport in any way: trading cards, fans, coaches, manufacturers, sport history books, spectators’ memories, museum artifacts having to do with sport, hot dog venders, pod-casts, souvenirs, tickets, playground games, and so on. See Rinehart (1998). 19. As quoted in King (2006, p. 391). 20. King (2006, p. 386). 21. As quoted in King (2006, p. 385). 22. As quoted in King et al. (2007, p. 7).

REFERENCES Andrews, D. L. (2002). Coming to terms with cultural studies. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 26(1), pp. 111, 114. Barthes, R. (2007). What is sport? R. Howard, (Trans.). New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of the mind: Collected essays in anthropology, psychiatry, evolution, and epistemology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Benjamin, W. (1999). The arcades project. H. Eiland and K. McLaughlin (Trans.). Cambridge and London: Belknap Press. Bonilla-Silva, E. (2003). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States (p. 28). New York: Rowman and Littlefield. Brohm, J.-M. (1989). Sport: A prison of measured time (I. Fraser, Trans.). London: Pluto Press. Buck-Morss, S. (1993). The dialectics of seeing: Walter Benjamin and the arcades project. Cambridge: MIT Press. Burkert, W. (1980). Structure and history in Greek mythology and ritual. Berkeley: University of California Press. Burkert, W. (1983). Homo necans: The anthropology of ancient Greek sacrificial ritual and myth. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Caillois, R. (2001). Man, play and games (Originally published as Les jeux et les hommes, 1958 by Librairie Gallimard, Paris. English translation 1961 by The Free Press of Glencoe, Inc). M. Barash, (Trans.). Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. Carroll, D. M. (2001). An interdisciplinary study of sport as a symbolic hunt: A theory of the origin and nature of sport based on Paleolithic hunting. Lewistown, NY: Edwin Mellon Press. Deloria, P. J. (1986). Playing Indian. New Haven: Yale University Press. Denzin, N. K. (1997). Interpretive ethnography: Ethnographic practices for the 21st century (p. 4). London: Sage. Farnell, B. (2004). The fancy dance of racializing discourse. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 28(1), 30–55. Ganguly, K. (2006). Of totems and taboos: An Indian’s guide to Indian chiefs and other objects of fan fascination. The South Atlantic Quarterly, 105(2), p. 373. Available at http://saq.dukejournals.org.proxy2.library.uiuc.edu/cgi/reprint/105/2/373. Accessed on 29 December 2007. Garenes, C. D. (2007). Chief Illiniwek’s last dance set for February 21 The News-Gazette.com. Available at http://www.news-gazette.com/news/miscellaneous/2007-02-16/chief-illiniweks-last-dance-set-feb-21.html. Accessed on 29 December 2007. Geertz, C. (1972). Deep play: Notes on the Balinese cockfight. Daedalus, 101(1), 1–37. Girard, R. (1979). Violence and the sacred. P. Gregory, (Trans.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Gold, B. K. (1990). Greek athletics and the genesis of sport (book review). Classical World, 83, 542. Graves, B. (2005). Beyond a boundary: The aesthetics of resistance. Political discourse— Theories of colonialism and postcolonialism. Available at http://www.postcolonialweb. org/poldiscourse/james/james2.html. Accessed on 20 April 2005. Griffin, J. (1988). Playing to win. New York Review of Books, September 29, pp. 3–5. Guttmann, A. (1978). From ritual to record: The nature of modern sports. New York: Columbia University Press. Guttmann, A. (1988). Greek athletics and the genesis of sport (essay review). Journal of Sport History, 5, 361–362. Handelman, D. (1998). Models and mirrors: Toward an anthropology of public events. Oxford and New York: Berghan Books. Huizinga, J. (1955). Homo ludens: A study of the play element in culture. New York: Beacon Press. Ingham, A. G., & Loy, J. W., Jr. (1971). The structure of Ludic action. Paper presented to the Third International Symposium on the Sociology of Sport, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada, 22–28 August (published in International Review of Sport Sociology, Volume 1, No. 9, 1974, pp. 23–62). James, C. L. R. (1963). Beyond a boundary (pp. 203–204). New York: Pantheon Books. King, C. R. (2004). This is not an Indian: Situating claims about Indianness in sporting worlds. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 28(1), 3–10. King, C. R. (2006). Stealing cultural studies: Dialogues with Norman K. Denzin. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 30(4), 391. King, C. R. (2007). Staging the winter white Olympics: Or, why sport matters to white power. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 31(1), 89–94. King, C., Leonard, D. J., & Kusz, K. W. (2007). White power and sport: An introduction. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 31(1), 3–10. King, C., & Springwood, C. F. (2001). Beyond the cheers: Race as spectacle in college sport. Albany: State University of New York Press.

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Kusz, K. (2007). Revolt of the White athlete: Race, media and the emergence of extreme athlete in America. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Lorenze, K. (1966). On aggression (p. 75). New York: Harcourt Brace. Loy, J. (1968). The nature of sport: A definitional effort. Quest, 10(May), 1–10. Novak, R. D. (2007). Oskiwawa! Chief Illiniwek is gone, But not forgotten. The Weekly Standard, October 15, Volume 013, Issue 05. Available at http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/ Public/Articles/000/000/014/203ebmco.asp?pg ¼ 2. Accessed on 29 December. Prochaska, D. (2001). At home in Illinois: Presence of Chief Illiniwek, absence of Native Americans. In: C. R. King & C. F. Springwood (Eds), Team spirits: The Native American mascot controversy (p. 43). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Rinehart, R. (1998). Players all: Performances in contemporary sport. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Robidoux, M. (2006). The nonsense of native American sport imagery: Reclaiming a past that never was. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 41(2), 201–219. Rosaldo, R. (1989). Imperialist nostalgia. Representations, 26(Spring), 107–122. Rosenstein, J. (1997). In whose honor?: American Indian mascots in sport. New Day Films. Sansone, D. (1988). Greek athletics and the genesis of sport. Berkeley: University of California Press. Scanlon, T. F. (2002). Eros and Greek athletics (pp. 336, 366, 409). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schechner, R. (1993). The future of ritual: Writings on culture and performance. London: Routledge. Schechner, R. (2002). Performance studies (p. 221). New York: Routledge. Segal, E. (1988). The sweat offering. Times Literary Supplement, 4, 455. Spindel, C. (2002). Dancing at halftime: Sports and the controversy over American Indian mascots. New York: New York University Press. Springwood, C. F. (1995). From Cooperstown to Dyersville: A geography of baseball nostalgia (p. 173). Boulder: Westview Press. Stewart, S. (1993). On longing: Narratives of the miniature, the gigantic, the souvenir, the collection. Chapel Hill: Duke University Press. Suits, B. (1978). The grasshopper: Games, life and utopia. New York: David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc. Sydnor, S. (2005). Man, play and games: A review essay. Sport in history, 25(3), 536–544. Sydnor-Slowikowski, S. (1993). Cultural performance and sport mascots. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 17(1), 23–33. Taussig, M. (1993). Mimesis and alterity: A particular history of the senses. New York: Routledge. Turner, V. (1967). The forest of symbols: Aspects of Ndembu ritual (pp. 106, 93–111). Ithaca. Turner, V., & Bruner, E. (1986). The anthropology of experience. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. Vernant, J-P. (1984). Origins of Greek thought. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Vidal-Naquet, P. (1998). The black hunter: Forms of thought and forms of society in the Greek world. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Virilio, P. (1997). Open sky. London: Verso. Williams, R. (1961). The long revolution: An analysis of the democratic, industrial, and cultural changes transforming our society (p. 18). New York: Columbia University Press. Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and literature (pp. 121–123). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

‘‘LEUTWILER’S INDIAN’’: CREATING THE ‘‘CHIEF’’ TRADITION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS Jennifer Guiliano On a crisp cerulean Saturday afternoon in October 1926, Lester Leutwiler introduced a new performance to the football field at the University of Illinois: that of ‘‘Chief Illiniwek.’’ Presented at halftime of the University of Pennsylvania–University of Illinois1 football game, Leutwiler’s buckskin clad appearance delighted fans as ‘‘the chief ran from a hiding place north of the Illinois stands and led the band down the field with his frenzied war dance. The band stopped in the center and played ‘Hail Pennsylvania’ while the Indian Chief saluted the Penn fans.’’2 At the completion of both band’s performances, he and George Adams, another Illinois student dressed as ‘‘Benjamin Franklin’’ in a costume provided by UPenn, shared a catlinite pipe and left the field arm and arm (Spindel, 2000, p. 81). These conjoined cultural performances – the performance of an ‘‘Indian’’ leading the band and the use of the pipe exchange – signaled a contemporary articulation of the colonial with the neo-colonial in the form of cultural borrowing: the catlinite pipe certainly served as a signifier of the calumet ceremony that frequently occurred in political negotiations among differing Indian nations and between Indians and European Americans during colonial encounters. As historian Richard White has shown, the calumet

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ceremony ‘‘formed a part of a conscious framework for peace, alliance, exchange and free movement among peoples in the region [of the Great Lakes]. By arresting warriors, the calumet produced a truce during which negotiations took place; when negotiations were successful, the full calumet ceremony ratified the peace and created a fictive kinship relation between the person offering the pipe and the person specifically honored by the calumet. These people became responsible for maintaining that peace’’ (White, 1991, p. 22).3 One seventeenth-century French priest, Louis Hennepin, remarked that the calumet was a ‘‘pass and safe conduct among the allies of the nation who has given it.’’4 Leutwiler as the ‘‘Indian,’’ and ‘‘Penn,’’ who had been enemies in the first half of the football game ceased their conflict, affected kinship ties, and negotiated bonds of responsibility that suggested equal socio-political standing and the safe passage of white Americans.5 The ‘‘Indian’’ and the UPenn mascot then left the stadium together, leaving behind an audience who effectively inherited and represented the success of the colonial encounter. The interplay between Leutwiler and the UPenn mascot can be read as a reenactment of American colonialism that elided actual consequences, namely violence, disorder, and disruption, in favor of a more neutral narrative of equitable relations and white succession. Reading against the calumet ceremony, the entire performance is underlain by different renderings of Indian–white relations. Tropes of Indians as warring peoples, spectacles of entertainment, and vanishing into the colonial frontier are all present in Leutwiler’s performance. His dance was not just a demonstration of his understanding of Indian dance, dress, and political ceremonies; instead, it can be seen as a manifestation of a broader circuit of knowledge about Indians within the context of colonial encounters that was shared between the band, its members, and these competing institutions. In this manifestation, there was no place for the ‘‘Indian’’ and ‘‘William Penn’’ to remain in the stadium. They appeared only to contextualize white inheritance of the field, the stadium, the university, and much more broadly, America. I argue that Leutwiler’s ‘‘Indian’’ performance was not originated within the confines of the sporting arena as previously argued; that the cultural performance, when transferred to the sporting field, relied upon common tropes of racialized performance learned through mascotry, progressive social organizations like the Boy Scouts of America, and popular literature; and finally, that in reintroducing the script of ‘‘Benjamin Franklin’’/ ‘‘William Penn’’ to considerations of the origins of ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ the spectacle is revealed as being part of a fashioning of historical memory that elides colonial conquest and violence to affirm the right of white society to

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prohibit the inclusion of Indians into everyday life. To this end, I examine the first performance of Lester Leutwiler on the sporting field, the ways in which many men learned cultural pedagogies of race and mascotry and finally suggest a rationale why the University of Illinois community has consistently chosen to affirm the memory of ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ as a singular performance divorced from that of the UPenn and ‘‘Leutwiler’s Indian.’’

MAKING ROOM FOR MASCOTS Although Leutwiler’s initiative in taking to the field has been welldocumented by scholars and the University of Illinois alike, the role of the UPenn figure, ‘‘Benjamin Franklin’’ or alternately in Illinois narratives ‘‘William Penn,’’ has received little attention (Spindel, 2001; King & Springwood, 2001). Leutwiler’s adoption of the ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ persona, which will be discussed in-depth later, was not a response to inquiries by the UPenn band who hoped to utilize their articulated personae of ‘‘Benjamin Franklin’’ during a halftime skit as other scholars have suggested. Leutwiler adopted the untitled personae that became the basis for the ‘‘Chief ’’ two years earlier during experiences as a Boy Scout and for performances at his alma mater, Urbana High School.6 Although the University of Pennsylvania solicited the Illinois band and assistant director Raymond Dvorak in particular, to create its own figure to interact with ‘‘Benjamin Franklin’’ in a show of ‘‘good sportsmanship,’’ Lester Leutwiler was already performing as an ‘‘Indian’’ before the supposed 1926 inception.7 In fact, his performance was so well known to his classmates at Urbana High School that the yearbook contained multiple references to Leutwiler’s penchant for dressing as his Indian persona at school events (Urbana High School, 1925). Importantly, then the UPenn invitation can be read as the opening of a new arena for performances of Indianness – the sports field – not as an inciting event in the creation of ‘‘Chief Illiniwek.’’ Focusing on ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ as a sports mascot has eroded the larger cultural context of performances of Indianness that was being undertaken in local and national venues including Urbana High School. To fully recognize the nuances of colonial discourse operating in this inquiry and subsequent performance, it is important to consider the simultaneous revisionism of the UPenn mascot: ‘‘Benjamin Franklin’’ was immediately replaced in Illinois narratives both contemporarily by Leutwiler and in the student paper in favor of the mascot ‘‘William Penn.’’8 Scholars have continued this misidentification and, in doing so, have missed the

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suggestive nature of the replacement of ‘‘Benjamin Franklin’’ with ‘‘William Penn.’’ Why was ‘‘William Penn’’ memorialized and not ‘‘Benjamin Franklin’’ in Illinois narratives? The answer lies in the competing narratives of historical memory of William Penn’s relationship with Indians and the performatively embodied and discursively enacted ‘‘Benjamin Franklin’’ of the nineteenth century. By 1900, William Penn was being used on university memorabilia and in campus promotional literatures at the University of Pennsylvania, yet at the same moment, ‘‘Benjamin Franklin’’ was appearing at sporting matches at the university mascot.9 The conjoined representations of William Penn, as the colonial founder, and Benjamin Franklin, as the University of Pennsylvania founder, suggest an elaborately constructed convergence where UPenn legitimated its existence through historical genealogies of founding of the state (Penn) and educational innovation (Franklin). At the core of Illinois’ alteration of the discursively embodied mascot is the vibrant nature of the historical memory of Pennsylvania’s formation articulated following William Penn’s death. Historian James Merrell has charted English and colonialists’ historical amnesia: ‘‘Beginning shortly after the Founder’s death in 1718, medals struck in England depicted Penn shaking hands with some Indian or, seated beneath a tree on a sunny day, passing the native a peace pipe across a cheerful firey’’ (Merrell, 1999, p. 29). Benjamin West’s 1771 painting William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians visually articulated similar historical amnesia associated with Indian-white relations. ‘‘On an autumn day in 1682, the legend goes, William Penn met leaders of the Lenapes to settle a unique treaty of peace and amity. According to the story told and retold during the subsequent centuries, the Native people quickly lost their initial fear when they met Penn and his unarmed company in the diffuse morning light’’ (Spady, 2004, p. 19; Jennings, 1964). Benjamin West believed that the ‘‘savages [were] brought into harmony and peace by justice and benevolence’’ and ‘‘a conquest that was made over native peoples without sword or dagger’’ (Spady, 2004, p. 18). His painting of Lenape Indians suggested strong classical European influences that elided the actual appearance and exchange between Lenape and William Penn’s treaty party. Historian James O’Neil Spady writes, ‘‘the story of Pennsylvania’s benevolent origins is an allegory of colonialism propagated by Penn and later colonists that has obscured the significance of both the severe disruption of Lenape [Indian] life that Pennsylvania created and the resistance of some Lenapes to that disruption’’ (Spady, 2004, p. 19). In historical memory, the effects of colonialism virtually disappear under the weight of the myth of the founding

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of Pennsylvania as a site of religious freedom with Penn as the icon of the compassionate father. ‘‘These fundamental contradictions in American identity and history – the tension between the ideal of a free and democratic nation and the reality of racial hierarchies, the discrepancy between the myth of peaceful expansion and the history of bloody conquest – reemerge again and again in the cultural imagination. It is, perhaps, for this reason that European Americans have always been obsessed with stories of the nation’s origins, repeatedly retelling and reconfiguring their collective past in self-justifying ways’’ (Huhndorf, 2001, p. 11). It was these mythologized qualities of benevolence and goodwill for the purposes of self-justification that the University of Illinois undoubtedly was attempting to remember with its altered ‘‘Benjamin Franklin’’ mascot. The newly enacted ‘‘William Penn’’ passively greets the ‘‘Indian’’ after watching his war dance, accepts the ‘‘gesture of friendship,’’ and facilitates the exit of the Indian from the stadium.10 He does not suggest the complex, and often violent process of colonial encounters between the Lenape and Pennsylvanians. Nor does the narrative of encounter between colonists and Indians in the state of Illinois come to the fore. Instead, the scripted exchange suggests a benign interplay between Indians and colonists without nuance or elaboration. A secondary motivation to the renaming may underlie the revisionism enacted by the University of Illinois community: Franklin had chastised white Pennsylvanians who, in 1764, massacred Indians indiscriminately because of their race and contested the right of white Americans to forcibly remove Indians. Franklin argued that Pennsylvanians had violated Penn’s original peaceable intentions to form the settlement (Franklin, 1987). In contesting the right of whites to undertake any measures deemed necessary to secure their place in colonial Pennsylvania, Franklin positioned himself contrary to the interests of many Pennsylvanians and to whites who continued the colonial project by moving westward. As such, ‘‘William Penn’’ provided a more pristine representation of white conquest than Franklin for whites anxious about their place in a rapidly changing world. The extension of such historical mythologies to the discursively performed ‘‘William Penn’’ on the sports field is hardly surprising given contact between the University of Pennsylvania and its east coast rivals of Yale University and Harvard University. Although Yale University claims itself as the first college in the United States to have a mascot for its athletic teams with the purchase of a bulldog in 1889 named Handsome Dan, the use of mascots by athletic teams is much more complex.11 The University of Pennsylvania football team posed in 1895 with a live dog and other football

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teams quickly began to appropriate animals as mascots.12 Animals, who were often cherished members of the teams and communities, were primarily good luck charms. Athletes often rubbed their heads prior to games or paraded them alongside the athletic field. Often caricatured in local papers, these animal mascots became symbolic of team and university names and were pitted in cartoon battles with one another to advertise athletic contests (Guiliano, 2010). Individual performances at athletic contests also quickly rose to prominence in the final decades of the twentieth century. A local community figure began appearing as ‘‘John Orangeman’’ at Harvard University football games.13 ‘‘John Orangeman’’ was, in fact, John Lovett, an Irishman who immigrated from County Kerry, Ireland in 1855 and peddled fruit in Harvard Yard (Rodgers, Sullivan & The Cambridge Historical Commission, 1984, cited in http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/mhsdhtml/ harvardbldgs.html#hbft4). Bequeathed with a cart by students, Lovett marketed his wares at Harvard football and baseball games where ‘‘the students decorated him with crimson streamers’’ (New York Times, 1906). Lovett’s attendance, while generating enthusiasm and support for Harvard, was not a constructed spectacle of racialized performance per se. Instead, it would be more appropriate to consider Lovett a preferred fan-entrepreneur versus a mascot. Lovett’s association with mascotry was because of his proximity to the sporting field as well as the approximation of his racial identity to the whiteness of John Harvard, the Harvard founding father. Lovett’s whiteness was an entry to the stadium of an all-white sport and institution. The ‘‘Orangeman’’ who was integrated into the grand stand had to be white because to allow a non-white access to the enclave of the grand stand would be to denigrate the whiteness of Harvard University and its fans. Lovett’s lower-class status, in the eyes of Harvard students and fans, could possibly be mediated by his commercial acumen and work ethic that would likely have appealed to the largely Protestant population who saw value in the myth of ascendancy in America (Weber, 2002). The veneration of founding figures like William Penn and John Harvard rests in uneasy conversation with the use of African-America men as mascots of athletic teams between 1865 and 1920. Adrian Burgos delineates the links between racial discourse, racial segregation, and African-American mascots when discussing major and minor league baseball teams in turn of the nineteenth-century America (Burgos, 2007, p. 91).14 ‘‘Diminutive, oddlooking, and often bearing some physical deformity, black mascots were the physical embodiment of black men as backward, brutes, or dandies.’’15 Chicago’s White Sox baseball team employed Clarence Duval, a vaudeville

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performer, as mascot. ‘‘His grin is broad, his legs limbre and his face as black as the ace of spades,’’ wrote one Chicago newsman, ‘‘whenever anything goes wrong, it is only necessary to rub Clarence’s wooly head to save the situation, and one of his celebrated ‘double shuffles’ to dispel all traces of care, even on the gloomiest occasion (Levine, 1985, pp. 101–102).’’16 Described here as superstitious totem slash performer, Duval’s role is clearly different from that of Jim Lovett, who did not ‘‘perform’’ in the vaudevillian racialized sense. Lovetts’ decorations, while comical at moments, were not embedded with racialized overtones of subservience. Duval’s blackness was openly derided. During a stop in Cairo, Egypt, ‘‘several ballplayers forced [Duval] to wear a catcher’s mask and glove and then paraded [him] about the Cairo railway station, tethered by a rope, ‘as if he was some strange animal let loose from a menagerie’’’ (Levine, 1985, p. 104). The historical record is silent on Duval’s feelings about the performance, yet it would be hard to imagine a lack of a sense of racial exploitation on his part. Locating ‘‘William Penn’s’’ 1926 performance, ‘‘John Orangeman’s’’ 1888 appearance, Clarence Duval’s 1880s employment, and Handsome Dan’s 1885 purchase within a representational framework of sporting mascotry then reveals syllogisms of race where whiteness equates to privilege and acceptability and blackness equals denigration, derision, and animalism. Exploring the narrative of Louis Francis Sockalexis and his relationship to the Cleveland Indians name positions Indians within the hierarchy of racial understanding. Louis Francis Sockalexis was a Penobscot Indian widely recognized as being the first American Indian to integrate baseball. A player for Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Naps beginning in 1897, Sockalexis supposedly served as the inspiration for the moniker ‘‘Cleveland Indians’’ and its ‘‘Chief Wahoo’’ logo (Staurowsky, 1998).17 Stimulated by the transfer of Lajoie to Philadelphia in 1915, the Cleveland name was chosen not through a contest in a local newspaper as most [including sportswriters, the Cleveland club, fans, and contemporary scholars (Powers-Beck, 2001)] have alleged, but through the formation of the ‘‘nomenclature committee,’’ a group of professional writers brought together to select a new name by the Cleveland franchise president.18 In reporting the choice of the Indians’ name in the local paper, Sockalexis received no mention. The Cleveland baseball club and its fans decided later to suggest that Sockalexis was the inspiration to explain their use of the Indians name as well as to reenact a narrative of the past as racially inclusive. The reality of Sockalexis’ involvement with the Cleveland club demonstrates this revisionism. ‘‘Sockalexis was the object of intense racial fascination,’’ historian Jeffrey Powers-Beck writes, ‘‘which Cleveland management happily exploited in ticket sales, and also the object

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of intense racial bigotry.’’ Though he could run, hit, and throw like few who had ever played the game, he was seldom simply described in the press as ‘‘Sockalexis, the great player’’ but, usually, instead, as ‘‘Chief Sockalexis,’’ ‘‘Sockalexis, the Big Medicine Man,’’ ‘‘the Redskin,’’ ‘‘the Indian,’’ or the ‘‘genuine descendent of Sitting Bull’’ (Powers-Beck, 2001, p. 508). Cleveland fans between 1897 and 1899, when he formally left the club, remarked caustically on his supposed alcoholism, laziness, and irresponsible behavior (Staurowsky, 1998, p. 305). This trend continued through Sockalexis’ death in 1904. In Cleveland narratives, Sockalexis was not remembered for his baseball acumen; instead his personal flaws were the dominant popular conception. The revision of Sockalexis by Cleveland fans suggests parallel rehabilitations: (1) the personal redemption of Sockalexis where his alcoholism and athletic demise disappears and (2) the elision of the role of ‘‘professional’’ sportswriters from the naming process in favor of fans who were seemingly more egalitarian and were part of the growing commercial market of professional sports. Returning to the mascotry framework, Indians, while not outrightly subjected to physical abuse like Duval and other black mascots, were obviously positioned as ‘‘other.’’ They were neither white nor black and to understand where Indians fit in Jim Crow America most looked to popular press, literature, and social organizations to educate them about Indians.

CULTURAL PEDAGOGIES OF LEARNING: THE INDIAN ‘‘RACE’’ Jim Crow America was a place fascinated with race and the implications of race. For Natives, who had garnered citizenship in 1924, Jim Crow America continued to offer familiar challenges: housing, jobs, a continual quest support for oneself and one’s family, struggles for education, and political recognition. It is imperative to consider that the Illinois–UPenn spectacle did not occur in an historical vacuum separate from these struggles. In cities like Chicago, with its large Native American community, the struggle for economic freedom and personal satisfaction was shaped by everyday experiences of race and racism. The period was ripe with cultural artifacts and popular representations of Indians. Indians paraded daily through the pages of American newspapers, in dime novels, and as subjects of educational lectures and exhibits as the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth. From reports of the conditions of Indians from Carlisle Boarding

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School in 1890 through the death of Lucy Boston Johnson, the last of the Nipmuck Indians in 1900, men and women learned of Indians in the pages of the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Washington Post (New York Times, 1890, 1900). They saw ‘‘actual’’ Indians at Chicago’s Columbian Exhibition, passed them (often without recognition) on the streets, and visited touring shows like Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show to relive the experience of American victory over Plains Indians.19 By the 1920s, the vast majority of adolescent men and women were also learning of Indians through social organizations founded by progressive reformers. Lester Leutwiler was educated about Indians from one such organization, the Boy Scouts of America: ‘‘I had learned the Sioux Indian war dance when I attended the 1924 Boy Scout Jamboree in Copenhagen, Denmark from our scoutmaster, Ralph HubbardyMy costume which was used at this first performance [of ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ in 1926] was made in 1925 when I attended Camp Ten-Sleep, operated by Ralph Hubbard, in Elbert, Colorado.’’20 By focusing on the ‘‘normal, morally wholesome, and socially respectable’’ young man like Leutwiler, the BSA established itself as the premier organization to educate young men of their role in the growing nation. They ‘‘embodied the diffuse idealism of the Progressive ErayThey relied upon recreational programs to nurture and discipline capacities which they summed up as character (MacLeod, 1983, pp. 3–4).’’ Indians were not external to organizations like the Boy Scouts of America, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), and Seton’s Indians, which often shared both board members and youth members.21 In fact, many Indians participated actively in the success of these programs. Charles Eastman, the famous Santee Sioux product of Carlisle Indian School, Dartmouth, and Boston College, who was a founding member of the Society of American Indians, was himself a de-facto missionary for the YMCA among the Sioux (Lopenzina, 2003). He was noted for his own performance of Indian identity. Historian Drew Lopenzina considers the tension of Eastman’s articulation: ‘‘he might appear in old Dartmouth photographs as the gentleman scholar, hair slicked and combed, staring forcefully into that hallowed distance dignitaries often attempt to pierce with their visionary gazes. And yet he would just as happily parade about in full Sioux regalia for class reunions, in overly elaborate beads and headdresses, playing the role of Indian Chief that was apparently expected of him’’ (Lopenzina, 2003, pp. 728–729). Although speaking of an ‘‘Indian boy’s training,’’ we get a sense of Eastman’s feelings about the necessities of Native life: a ‘‘conception of his own future career becomes a vivid and irresistible force. Whatever there is for him to learn must be

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learned; whatever qualifications are necessary to a truly great man he must seek at any expense of danger and hardship.’’22 The involvement of progressive reformers, including Natives like Eastman, who were deeply invested in issues of race, citizenship, and nationhood, significantly shaped social organizations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Importantly, many of these programs featured a response to increasing urbanization and a nostalgic longing for a rural romantic past in the form of rural camping grounds and Indian programming. Incorporated into the new BSA organization were Seton’s Indians, founded by Ernest Thompson Seaton in 1900 and made widely available to the public in 1903s How to Play Injun, a collection of six articles by Seaton. ‘‘The promotion of interest in out-ofdoor life and woodcraft, the preservation of wildlife and landscape and the promotion of good fellowship among its members,’’ wrote Seaton in 1906s The Birch Bark Roll of Woodcraft Indians. ‘‘The plan aims to give the young people something to do, something to think about, something to enjoy in the woods, with the view always to character building, for manhood not scholarship is the aim of education. y My foundation thought was to discover, preserve, develop and diffuse the culture of the Redman’’ (Morris, 1970). Targeting middle-class heterosexual Protestant adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 by 1920, the Boy Scouts of America had become a vibrant part of young male middle-class American life. In 1925, as Lester Leutwiler was participating in Boy Scout events at home and abroad, sociologist E. S. Martin wrote, ‘‘scouts are volunteers, every one of them, from the slim boy proudly conscious of his khaki uniform to the alert scoutmaster at the head of his troop. And that troop itself could never exist unless some institution, some community, some group of citizens want it and agree to cooperate with the Boy Scout Movement in making the program available to their boys’’ (Martin, 1925). Leutwiler served as a volunteer in the ChampaignUrbana community and often presented his ‘‘Indian’’ dance at community events for the education of those around him. Leutwiler had earned the title of Eagle Scout just before his departure for the Second International Jamboree in Denmark. Ann Leutwiler-Brandenberg, Lester’s daughter wrote of his international travel, ‘‘the experience overseas had a powerful impact on the young man who had recently been elected president of his senior high class.’’23 Amid a sea of boys from 33 nations all camped in ‘‘true scouting fashion, cooking their own meals, and living out of doors’’ was Ralph Hubbard, who taught Indian dance at his Colorado camp and participated in a U.S.-based circuit of educators who taught Indian dance to Boy Scouts.

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Hubbard’s personal history provides an interesting nuance to the story of his involvement with Lester Leutwiler, the first ‘‘Chief Illiniwek.’’ Ralph Hubbard was the son of Elbert Green Hubbard of Bloomington, Illinois, who worked as a farmhand for local farmers in his adolescent years. After intensive schooling with his mother, Bertha, who held a bachelor’s of arts degree and was fluent in French, German, and Latin, Elbert Hubbard enrolled in Harvard University in 1894 just at the time sporting events and campus functions featured its mascot John Orangeman. Like any other Harvard student, Elbert Hubbard almost certainly was aware of Lovett and his role as a fan. His son Ralph, who became Leutwiler’s mentor, spent his formative years participating in his father’s ventures, including the family furniture business, Roycroft which was a center for intellectual life with visits by prominent intellectuals of the day.24 Simultaneously, Ralph surveyed contemporary Indian life while living in proximity to the Seneca Indian Reservation in upstate New York. Hubbard writes of his childhood experiences with the Seneca, ‘‘since we lived in close association with these people, and since Grandfather Hubbard, and Grandmother too, knew so much about them and their customs, even back to pioneer times, Sandy [his sister] and I absorbed all of this as we went along. We grew up with it, and it all seemed right and natural, a part of our livesy’’ (Yost, 1979, p. 35) (proximity – anthropological spectacle not personal contact). Yet it was Ralph’s grandfather, the Illinois farmer, who told him, ‘‘Ralph, if you really want to learn about Indians, go west until you can smell the sagebrush’’ (Yost, 1979, p. 65). After traveling west to experience life among the Crow and to educate himself at the University of Colorado, Hubbard was brought into the Boy Scout movement by Boulder locals who knew that he was experienced in Indian dance and lore. His old family friend Ernest Thompson Seton, a frequent visitor at Roycroft, was the Chief Boy Scout of America and welcomed Hubbard’s involvement. ‘‘I was only hip high to a dustpan when I learned the basic steps of Indian dancing,’’ Hubbard writes, ‘‘I loved to watch them dance, and then I’d go home and practice the steps until I had them memorized. Almost as far back as I can remember, I could watch a dance and then dance it. When I went West, I could watch any new kind of dance, performed by any of the different tribes I met out there, and then dance it myself. For all the basic steps are similar, but each dancer can use his own gestures, showing how he feels about it’’ (Yost, 1979, p. 35). Hubbard’s emotional affinity for Indian dance suggested a level of life-long dedication that was undoubtedly genuine.25 Yet, Hubbard failed to understand the nuance and contextualization associated with these dances. In altering the gestures, the meaning of the performance likely changed.

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Many dances are highly ritualized and to shift the sequence of the performance or the slightest gesture would suggest an entirely different series of meanings. Further, some dances were proscribed for certain community members. To participate without being authorized by the community would have violated cultural norms. Hubbard was appointed by the Boy Scouts to create a display of Indian dancing and crafts for the first World Jamboree (Yost, 1979, p. 106). He gathered teepees and other materials from his Colorado ranch as well as costumes for ninety boys and set off for London. Performing before an audience of 10,000 including the British Royal family, the American display featured a 325-foot long scene of a pass in the Rocky Mountains. ‘‘To the roll of the drums the youth of the world marched over the pass and down its slope to take their places on the great stage. First came the American Scout Orchestra from Denver, followed by a group of American Indians in magnificent war bonnets, and then Scouts from all the rest of the world’’ (Yost, 1979, p. 107). The first Jamboree was considered dramatic and highly successful. From England, Hubbard and his scouts traveled to the 1920 Olympic Games where they performed for sports fans. This moment of convergence between the Boy Scouts pageantry and the Olympic Games suggests an increasing level of spectacle associated with sport. Predating Leutwiler’s performance by a scant six years, it provided a model of appropriation available to each of these scouts. Hubbard wrote of the scouts chosen to attend the international Jamborees, ‘‘all of them had to be progressive, hardworking, ambitious lads’’ (Yost, 1979, p. 109). Leutwiler was just such a lad. In the years between the first Jamboree and the 1924 Denmark event attended by Lester Leutwiler, Hubbard returned to Colorado and his working ranch and overhauled its structure. In its final form, the property held a summer teaching resort and boys’ camp with teepees scattered over the property as well as working cattle ranch. By early 1924, Hubbard was traveling around the United States holding ‘‘City Jamborees.’’ Hubbard stopped in every major Northern and Western city including New York City, Chicago, St. Louis, Seattle, and Phoenix and brought the Indian department to urban and rural scouts alike. With courses lasting four weeks, Hubbard taught boys camp craft, canoeing, teepee, cooking, wilderness survival, and Indian lore and dancing (Yost, 1979, p. 114). In some cities, Boy Scouts could attend Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show and receive behind the scenes tours of the Indians and the spectacle of American expansion (Yost, 1979, p. 119). The City Jamborees, while controlled exclusively by Hubbard, also featured invited guests. Artists, painters, musicians, members of the forestry service,

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and Indians themselves contributed to programs that would dominate many young white boys’ understanding of what being an Indian meant. Even as they contributed, the lives of men like Santa Clara Pueblo Indian Ben Naranjo and Navajo Richard Long have been largely relegated to the margins of history (Yost, 1979, pp. 116–117). Employed first on Hubbard’s Colorado ranch as an assistant, Naranjo became instrumental to the touring productions offered at the City Jamborees. A craftsman, singer, and drummer, Naranjo guided many young men in learning the Indian dancing and drumming while Long drove the Scout truck and participated in the Jamboree programs. Visits by famous Indian athletes including Jim Thorpe and Ben American Horse ‘‘helped us acquaint our boys with the ability and worth of Indians and their culture and greatly furthered our projects’’ (Yost, p. 119). Hubbard’s Jamboree also offered the opportunity for select young Indians to participate in the Boy Scout movement. Remembering their involvement, Hubbard writes, ‘‘scouting was mostly for white boys in those days, but for Indians, too, whenever we had the opportunity to include them. The reason for the government’s reluctance to let us have any Indians was that the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian educational departments refused to recognize that Scouting had no military connections’’ (Yost, 1979, p. 118). The actions and feelings of these Indian boys remain unexplored. Were they willing participants or merely curiosities? The Boy Scout Jamborees and Hubbard’s camp served as loci for the dissemination of ideas about Indians to far-flung areas. Each boy who journeyed to a Jamboree was able to return to his home troop and disseminate information to those who were unable to attend. ‘‘Schools across the nation were soon cooperating,’’ wrote Hubbard, ‘‘following the high standards set by the Scouts in recreation, reading, and other cultural aspects’’ (Yost, 1979, pp. 115–116). Lester Leutwiler likely attended one of the camps available to him in Chicago or St. Louis and, without a doubt, enacted an educational program for his classmates at Urbana High School. An entire verse of the 1925 Class Memorial Poem was devoted to Leutwiler’s Indian antics as a Boy Scout (Urbana High School, 1925). It was this highly nuanced theoretical production that Leutwiler was invested in during the formation of his ‘‘Indian’’ performance.

BECOMING CHIEF ILLINIWEK We must not forget that Leutwiler was not alone as he was dancing his ‘‘frenzied war dance’’ of toe heel movements, low ground kicks, half moon,

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and full moon steps down the Illinois football field expressing his understanding of Indian life and performance – he was accompanied by the sounds of the University of Illinois band.26 In fact, I argue that it was the University of Illinois band that fundamentally altered the relationship between athletics and halftime performance by creating a national model of fandom that included the spectacle of mascotry. This spectacle, moreover, constituted a transformative moment that broadened the dynamics between athletics and fans to encompass social rituals of belonging beyond the discrete boundaries of the game of football. Bands initially provided musical accompaniment to the moments before and after the game as well as during halftime. They were a background performance to the sport itself: there to give fans something to consider while they waited for the athletes to begin, resume, or adjourn from their competition. ‘‘At first, it was sufficient for a marching band to simply march down the field playing a standard march at a modest tempo, countermarch, and then march back again’’ (Righter, 1956 in Haynie, 1971).27 With an emphasis on straightness, precision, and the execution of turns, University bands mimicked regimental martial order. Albert Austin Harding, the band director at Illinois, and his colleagues within the University and Collegiate band network transformed the band from a secondary element of the game to the emotive voice of the action itself. The University of Illinois band provided audio signposts for fans to mark the progress of the game and, with the introduction of loyalty music, created a structure of community feeling that existed beyond the sporting field. Three compositions – ‘‘Illinois Loyalty,’’ ‘‘Oskee-Wow-Wow,’’ and ‘‘Hail to the Orange’’ – were part and parcel of the musical repertoire of Harding’s band by 1910 and were familiar to athletes and fans alike.28 The sounds of the Illinois band were becoming localized to the specific University of Illinois fan community. Thousands heard when singing Thatcher Howland Guild’s ‘‘Illinois Loyalty’’: We’re loyal to you, Illinois We’re Orange and Blue, Illinois We’ll back you to stand ‘Gainst the best in the land, For we know you have sand, Illinois, Rah, Rah. So crack out that ball, Illinois. We’re backing you all, Illinois.

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Our Team is our fame defender, On boys, for we expect a victory From you, Illinois, Che-he, Che-ha, Che-ha-ha-ha Che-he, Che-he, Che-ha-ha-ha Illinois, Illinois, Illinois Fling out that dear old flag of Orange and Blue, Lead on your sons and daughters, fighting for you. Like men of old, on giants, Placing reliance, Shouting defiance, Oskey wow-wow. Amid the broad green fields that nourish our land For honest Labor and for Learning we stand, And unto thee we pledge our heart and hand, Dear Alma Mater, Illinois.29

They recognized, along with student composers Harold Hill and Harold Green, the growing intercollegiate rivalry between colleges, in ‘‘Oskee-wow-wow’’: Old Princeton yells her Tiger, Wisconsin, her Varsity And they give the same old Rah, Rah, Rah, At each University, But the yell that always thrills me And fills my heart with joy, Is the good old Oskee-Wow-Wow, That they yell at Illinois. Os-kee-Wow-Wow, Illinois Our eyes are all on you. Oskee-Wow-Wow, Illinois, Wave your Orange and your Blue, Rah, Rah, When the team trots our before you, Every man stand up and yell, Back the team to victory, Os-kee-Wow-Wow. Illinois.30

The University of Illinois had been using pseudo-Indian words and language since the 1890s. It served to differentiate Illinois, and its

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Midwestern location, from the erudite east coast schools of Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. Illinois celebrated their unique ‘‘Alma Mater’’ with Hill and Green: Hail to the Orange, Hail to the Blue. Hail Alma Mater, Ever So True. We love no other, So let our motto be. Victory, Illinois Varsity.31

Leutwiler’s original Indian performance with the University of Illinois Band in 1926 was a singular event. Harding agreed to let Leutwiler perform on a case by case basis, yet the audience reaction was so overwhelming Harding could not avoid a repeat performance of ‘‘Leutwiler’s Indian.’’32 Moderate in tempo, he danced that October day to the music of ‘‘Illinois Loyalty,’’ ‘‘Oskee-Wow-Wow,’’ and ‘‘Hail to the Orange.’’ Leutwiler had not, in all likelihood, ever performed to this particular combination. Leutwiler’s performances at Urbana High School and with his Boy Scout Troop were more likely accompanied by schoolmates and troop members on the drum playing popular compositions. Who selected the music for Leutwiler’s first University of Illinois performance? Was it Raymond Dvorak, the assistant band director who taught Leutwiler at Urbana High School? Was it the band leader, Harding, who controlled the band’s musical repertoire? Or was it Leutwiler himself? Although the historical record remains silent, it is quite possible to conclude that each or all of the three could have been involved in the selection of the three pieces. No matter, the selections themselves tell us of the underlying motivation of the performance itself: all three were familiar to band members and fans alike and were designed as participatory songs. In playing them, Harding and Dvorak were establishing the halftime event as a site for University of Illinois fans to collectively gather to cheer on the University and its sporting teams in particular. In joining these compositions to the half-time performance of Leutwiler, the University Band established a broader more explicit meaning of ‘‘Illinois Loyalty,’’ ‘‘Oskee-Wow-Wow,’’ and ‘‘Hail to the Orange’’ to include a visual rendering of the University of Illinois’ supposed relationship to Indians. The performance of ‘‘Leutwiler’s Indian’’ was fluid before its transition to the sporting field. Leutwiler had no set script, music, or arena. It was not until ‘‘Leutwiler’s Indian’’ converged with the music of

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‘‘Illinois Loyalty,’’ ‘‘Hail to the Orange’’ and ‘‘Oskee-Wow-Wow’’ that the performance script of the ‘‘Chief ’’ became solidified. The conditions of emergence that authorized the halftime spectacle of music and dance remained generally consistent following the adoption of the moniker ‘‘Chief ’’ (Butler, 2005). ‘‘Leutwiler’s Indian’’ was quickly renamed ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ by football coach Robert C. Zuppke at a University pep rally in 1926.33 This renaming served as a clear demarcation by community members of the meaning of the Indian performance. It was no longer ‘‘Leutwiler’s Indian’’ but instead the more general ‘‘Chief Illiniwek,’’ a leader of the supposedly extinct Illinois Indians. The script was further written by Band Director Harding and University administrators who commissioned Karl L. King, the director of the Fort Dodge Municipal Band and owner of the K. L. King Music Publishing House, and Harry Alford, the ragtime composer and vaudevillian musician, to produce music for the ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ halftime performance.34 ‘‘They were asked to keep in mind the driving beat of the drums which were used at Native American pow wows,’’ Lester Leutwiler remembered. ‘‘They were also told that the music would have to live up to the power of the performance.’’35 The music itself, ‘‘Pride of the Illini’’ and ‘‘March of the Illini’’ written by King and Alford respectively, legitimated Leutwiler’s performance for the audience by presenting familiar themes and tones of pseudo-Indian life. By 1928, the standard Leutwiler performance no longer enacted the greeting and peace pipe ritual that was present at the initial performance. It relied entirely on the score adopted by the band to communicate an extended meaning of Leutwiler’s ritual. In effect, the band fulfilled the role that William Penn initially expressed: that of the civilizing mission.36 ‘‘Pride of the Illini’’ was the first overture in communicating the narrative of civilization and expansion. Band members in their martial uniforms took their place along the north end-zone lines and performed ‘‘Pride of the Illini.’’ The standardized march of the band suggests a call to attention and for collective action in favor of the University: ‘‘We are marching y Our lovey’’ etc. Giving way to the ‘‘March of the Illini’’ with its Indian sounding beat and dramatic visual rendering implicitly suggested that the ‘‘true Illini spirit’’ could be that of an Indian past that erased colonial violence, conquest, and the lingering anxiety of modern life.37 The music called forth the ‘‘Indian’’ and signaled a shift in the ritual performance by creating an aural demarcation of the space of ‘‘Chief Illiniwek.’’ ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ existed during a very specific moment within the space of the stadium as a solitary figure. Having the band accompaniment suggested a dominance and control over Leutwiler’s performance and Indians more

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generally. In effect, ‘‘March of the Illini’’ can be read as a duel between ‘‘civilization’’ in the guise of the band and the ‘‘primitive’’ in the form of ‘‘Chief Illiniwek.’’ As Leutwiler’s dance accelerated so too would the tempo of the music. Yet the tempo was ultimately controlled by Harding, the band leader. He signaled the rise and fall of ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ by beginning and drawing the song to a close. Leutwiler, in his Indian guise, could only enter the field to the signal offered by his ‘‘community’’ of band members and the sports audience and had to accede to progress by ceasing his performance when the music stopped. The final overture and metaphorical demise of ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ was to cease movement completely at mid-field and salute the crowd as ‘‘Hail to the Orange’’ was sung by band members and fans alike. ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ would then lead the Marching Band from the field leaving behind the fans as the inheritors of the metaphorical land, the football stadium.

THE INHERITORS CONCLUDE The University of Illinois was created for white men, by white men, for the benefit of white men to educate white men in the practice of being white men in America. The training of athletes in faux-military combat, band members in military drill and precision, and the fans in rituals of community all suggested that the role of white men was as controlled, contributing members of local society. By extension the rescripted halftime performance of ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ that marginalized Indian subjects was simply an extension of the mission of the University, stated or unstated: to train young men (and a growing number of women) how to be citizens invested in preserving the legacies of colonial conquest. ‘‘Leutwiler’s Indian’’ became ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ through an elaborated constructed halftime spectacle. For University of Illinois fans and community members, including Leutwiler, the production of Indianness at halftime allowed them to transform the lived textualities of their everyday performance of self into an authorized condition of community that allowed for a collective social lexicon and dialogue. The conditions of surveillance, in the form of the newly constructed Memorial Stadium and the activity of going to a game transcended perceived social, racial, gendered, and educational differences that were inherent to the growing community. The Champaign-Urbana community which enclosed the University of Illinois was not homogenous. It included, but was not limited to: international students, rural farmers, laborers and service workers, east coast intellectuals, and students from various racial and socio-economic backgrounds.

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As such, the practice of community had to be continually made and remade to shore up the perception of the University as a place for white elites (particularly men) that was constantly being contested by intellectual development, the inclusion of women, and the constantly shifting nature of the composition of the student body. The university was constantly in flux as a community and had to be preserved through acts of socialization and surveillance like the ritual of the football game and its halftime performance. Thus, as the community moved farther away from the historical interactions with Indians themselves and ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ performed again and again, the significance remained the same. It was not about the understanding of the particular condition of Illinois Indians and the pipe exchange enacted by ‘‘William Penn’’ and ‘‘Leutwiler’s Indian’’ but instead about the generic ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ and the relationship between community members who observed this spectacular ritual. ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ became a bridge between the University community and the surrounding Champaign-Urbana world. The ‘‘Chief’’ appeared at community functions, would perform for local youth and social organization, and generally served as an ambassador of the University to the growing community that may or may not have been actively enrolled in the University. ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ would come to serve not just as a University performance but as a cultural performance of community allegiance that would supersede many of the fissions associated with the expanding Champaign-Urbana world, be they economic, racial, or gendered. In rescripting the halftime spectacle, renaming the performer, and deemphasizing the role of ‘‘William Penn,’’ the University of Illinois was able to affirm an entire community of meaning: fans became ‘‘Illini,’’ the football field and stadium became the ‘‘war,’’ and no matter the outcome of the football game, no matter a loss or a victory, the University of Illinois and its community was always able to establish a sense of order to their world by participating in the halftime spectacle. By the 1930s, schools across the United States had adopted their own manifestations of the halftime spectacle and were actively engaged in affirming that they, individually, communally, and as institutions, were able to determine their own identity.

NOTES 1. I refer to the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Illinois as UPenn and Illinois, respectively. 2. Carol Spindel, personal papers, in possession of author (hereafter cited as Spindel Papers).

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3. The phrase ‘‘catlinite pipe’’ refers to the marble material the pipe was constructed from. These pipes took various shapes and were not necessarily associated with political or social rituals. The term ‘‘calumet’’ refers to the highly decorated stem that graced the pipe. For a thorough discussion of various pipes and the nuances of the calumet ceremony, see Brown (1989). 4. Thwaites (1974/1903, p. 125) quoted in White (1991, p. 21). 5. I adopt the convention of using quotation marks around a proper name when I am referring to the discursively produced figure utilized in mascotry. The lack of quotation marks signals that the individual or subject under discussion is not a fictive representation but a historical actor. 6. Lester Leutwiler, ‘‘Chief Illiniwek Tradition,’’ in Spindel Papers (hereafter cited as Leutwiler, ‘‘Chief Illiniwek Tradition’’). 7. Spindel Papers. 8. Nancy R. Miller, University of Pennsylvania Archivist, email message to author, May 4, 2007. Miller also noted this is conflation of ‘‘William Penn’’ and ‘‘Benjamin Franklin’’ became and remains commonplace when discussing the University of Pennsylvania mascot tradition. 9. Ivy League Calender, 1900, container 366, University Memorabilia Collection, 1787– 2006, University of Pennsylvania University Archives and Records Center, Philadelphia. 10. Leutwiler, ‘‘Chief Illiniwek Tradition.’’ 11. Yale University Bulldog Tradition, http://yalebulldogs.cstv.com/trads/ dani.html, April 1, 2007 (hereafter cited as Bulldog Tradition). 12. Football Team, 1895 Group Portrait, University of Pennsylvania University Archives and Records Center, Philadelphia. 13. Bulldog Tradition. Princeton University claims that ‘‘John Orangeman’’ was constructed as a representation of John Harvard, the founding father of Harvard University. It is unclear whether this declaration is true given the lack of evidence available. 14. Importantly, the division lines between collegiate sport and professional sport were extremely blurred during post–Civil War period. Many professional athletes participated simultaneously in collegiate sport and vice versa. Furthermore, the coaches, teams, and traveling sport circuits often converged. 15. The Sporting News, August 25, 1888 quoted in Burgos (2007, p. 92). 16. Duval was included on the tour despite protest by Anson. Malloy, ‘‘Out at Home,’’ p. 24. 17. Sociologist Ellen Staurowsky reveals the transition of the team name from the Cleveland Naps, after Napoleon Lajoie, an American of French-Canadian descent, to the Cleveland Indians and positions the name-change as squarely relating to Louis Frances Sockalexis. 18. Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 17, 1914. 19. It is important to note here that the dominance of the myth of Indians as ‘‘reservation’’ peoples with long-braided hair and feathered and beaded clothes has overshadowed the large number of urban Indian communities who crafted multi-tribal socio-cultural organizations that defied economic and racial restrictions of the Jim Crow era. 20. Leutwiler, ‘‘Chief Illiniwek Tradition.’’ John L. Strohm, Daily Illini, August 10, 1934. A contradictory narrative of the origins of the Leutwiler and William Penn

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costumes were posed by John L. Strohm, a Daily Illini reporter, upon Raymond Dvorak’s retirement from the University of Illinois in 1934. Strohm claimed that Dvorak had rented both an Indian costume for Leutwiler’s use and a ‘‘William Penn Quaker’’ costume for the initial exchange. Given that Leutwiler had been utilizing his own costume for community performances and Boy Scout events, it is more likely that Strohm mistakenly ascribed the costume to Dvorak because of Dvorak’s role in securing Leutwiler’s performance. 21. Chicago publisher William Bryce recruited Edgar Robinson, Senior Secretary of the YMCA Committee on Boys’ Work, Ernest Thompson Seaton, founder of the Woodcraft Indians, and Dan Beard, founder to the Sons of Daniel Boone, to oversee the formation of the first American chapter. BSA organizers occupied YMCA offices in New York City and sought out progressive men interested in child welfare. Prominent individuals including Luther Gulick, the noted expert on physical education who spent the first 15 years of his life in Hawaii as part of the American Board of Commissioners Foreign Missionaries and Jacob Riis, the master photographer of urban life in New York, as well as men affiliated with the Red Cross, Big Brothers, Outlook magazine, and public schools consulted for the organization. 22. Eastman (1971, p. 43) quoted in Lopenzina (2003, p. 735). 23. Ann Leutwiler-Brandenberg, communication with Carol Spindel, n.d., in Spindel Papers. 24. The list of luminaries who dined with the Hubbard family reads as a who’s who of American intellectual life: suffragist Susan B. Anthony, writer Carrie Jacobs Bond, Mrs. William Jennings Bryan, Uncle Tom’s Cabin author Harriet Beecher Stowe, Joel Chandler Harris, the author of Uncle Remus stories, American Red Cross founder Clara Barton, George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington, Ida Tarbell, Mark Twain, Eugene Debs, Margaret Sanger, Clarence Darrow, and Gutzon Borglum, the American sculptor who carved Mount Rushmore (Yost, 1979, pp. 59–60). 25. Hubbard spent the summer between his junior and senior years living among the Crow and visiting the site of Custer’s last stand at Little Big Horn. Trained by his Aunt Myrtilla, who held a doctorate and was the head of the museum at Cornell in 1905, Hubbard was a botanist and taxidermist. He parlayed these skills during his education at Oberlin University in Ohio, Cornell, and at the University of Colorado at Boulder (Yost, 1979, p. 71). 26. Leutwiler’s dark beaded shirt with bone and porcupine weave breast plate, spotted eagle feathered headdress with dual tails, feathered bustle and dark rope wig presented a dramatic counterpoint to the nattily attired men dressed in their formal band uniforms of white pants and military-styled jackets. 27. There are obvious links between the original marching style associated with collegiate bands and military training. The facilitation of orderly rows and choreographed movements was a necessity to military campaigns which often required concerted shifts in field position and troop’s use of weaponry. 28. ‘‘Oskee-Wow-Wow’’ in A. Austin Harding Collection, Box 98, folder 7. 29. ‘‘Illinois Loyalty’’ University of Illinois Archives, Illinois Songs and Music, 1903–1958, Box 2. Thatcher Howland Guild, We’re Loyal to You, Illinois, Melrose Music Corporation (New York, 1906) in Burford, p. 179. 30. ‘‘Oskee-Wow-Wow’’ University of Illinois Archives, Illinois Songs and Music, 1903–1958, Box 2. Burford, pp. 171, 181.

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31. ‘‘Hail to the Orange’’ University of Illinois Archives, Illinois Songs and Music, 1903–1958, Box 2. 32. Ann Leutwiler-Brandenberg, communication with Carol Spindel, n.d., in Spindel Papers. 33. Leutwiler-Brandenberg. 34. The historical record regarding the commission of the two performances is conflicted. Leutwiler believed that both King and Alford were commissioned, whereas the University of Illinois notes that only Alford was commissioned. Ann Leutwiler-Brandenberg, communication with Carol Spindel, n.d., in Spindel Papers. Louis A Garippo, A Report to the Board of Trustees: The Chief Illiniwek Dialogue Report, ‘‘History of the Chief,’’ Section IV. Available at http://www.uillinois.edu/ trustees/dialogue/report_files/IV.html 35. Leutwiler-Brandenberg, p. 5. 36. Jennifer Guiliano, ‘‘Leutwiler’s Indian: Creating ‘Indian’ Tradition,’’ Dissertation in progress. 37. Originally composed years earlier under the title ‘‘Battle of Tippecanoe,’’ the ‘‘March of the Illini’’ seamlessly merged ‘‘Indian’’ music with band arranging. The rapid tom-tom beat of the drum that King, in his role as composer for the Sells Floto – Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, and motion pictures had made popular was extended by Alford to include brass, wind, and percussion instruments. An ‘‘Indianflavored march melody,’’ the ‘‘March of the Illini’’ explicitly linked Indianness to the University band identity without using vocals. This continued the pattern of the silent Indian produced in motion pictures and confirmed the firmly established stereotypes of Indians as separate from social exchange. The music itself legitimated Leutwiler’s performance for the audience by presenting familiar themes and tones.

REFERENCES Brown, I. W. (1989). The calumet ceremony in the southeast and its archeological formations. American Antiquity, 54(2), 311–331. Burgos, A., Jr. (2007). Playing America’s game: Baseball, Latinos, and the color line. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Butler, J. (2005). Giving an account of oneself. New York: Fordham University Press. Eastman, C. A. (1971). Indian boyhood. New York: Dover Publications. Franklin, B. (1987). A narrative of the late Massacres. In: J. A. Leo LeMay (Ed.), Franklin: Writings (pp. 540–546). New York: Viking Press. Guiliano, J. (2010). An American spectacle: Collegiate mascots and the performance of tradition. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL. Haynie, J. T. (1971). The changing role of the band in American colleges and universities, 1900–1968. Ph.D. dissertation, George Peabody College for Teachers. Huhndorf, S. M. (2001). Going native: Indians in the American cultural imagination. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Jennings, F. (1964). Thomas Penn’s oath. The American Journal of Legal History, 8(4), 303–313. King, C. R., & Springwood, C. F. (Eds). (2001). Beyond the cheers: Race as spectacle in college sport. New York: State University of New York Press.

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Levine, P. (1985). A. G. Spalding and the rise of baseball: The promise of American sport. New York: Oxford University Press. Lopenzina, D. (2003). Good Indian: Charles Eastman and the warrior as civil servant. American Indian Quarterly, 27(3/4 Summer/Fall), 727–757. MacLeod, D. I. (1983). Building character in the American boy. Madision: University of Wisconsin Press. Martin, E. S. (1925). A double-barrelled social agency: The boy scouts of America. Social Forces, 4(1), 94–97. Merrell, J. H. (1999). Into the American woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania frontier. New York: W.W. Norton. Morris, B. (1970). Ernest Thompson Seaton and the origins of the woodcraft movement. Journal of Contemporary History, 5(2), 187. New York Times. (1890). Indian students not dying. New York Times, January 5, p. 3. New York Times. (1906). John the orangeman dead. New York Times, August 13, p. 7. New York Times. (1900). Suicide was 105 years old. New York Times, January 8, p. 5. Powers-Beck, J. (2001). Chief. American Indian Quarterly, 25(4), 525. Righter, C. (1956). Something new in marching bands? The Instrumentalist, November, 24. Rodgers, PH., Sullivan, C., & The Cambridge Historical Commission. (1984). A photographic history of Cambridge. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Spady, J. O. (2004). Colonialism and the discursive antecedents of Penn’s treaty with the Indians. In: W. A. Pencak & D. K. Richter (Eds), Friends and enemies in Penn’s woods: Indians, colonists, and the racial construction of Pennsylvania. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Spindel, C. (2001). Dancing at halftime. In: C. R. King & C. F. Springwood (Eds), Team spirits: The Native American mascots controversy. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Spindel, C. (2000). Dancing at halftime: Sports and the controversy over American Indian mascots. New York: New York University Press. Staurowsky, E. (1998). An act of honor or exploitation? The Cleveland Indians’ use of the Louis Francis Sockalexis story. Sociology of Sport Journal, 15, 305. Thwaites, R. G. (Ed.) (1974/1903). Father Louis Hennepin’s a new discovery of a vast country in America. Toronto: Coles. Urbana High School. (1925). The 1925 Rosemary. Urbana, IL: Urbana High School. Weber, M. (2002). The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. New York: Penguin Books. White, R. (1991). The middle ground: Indians, empires and republics in the great lakes region, 1650–1815. New York: Cambridge University Press. Yost, N. S. (1979). A man as big as the West. Boulder, CO: Pruitt Publishing.

WHY THE NCAA WAS RIGHT Stephen J. Kaufman INTRODUCTION At the November 24, 1997 meeting of the student–faculty Senate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the pending NCAA certification review of the university’s athletic programs was discussed. At that meeting, it was recommended that the university’s Division of Intercollegiate Athletics include in the goals of its Self Study, To consider whether the caricature and impersonation of a Native American Indian as the UIUC athletic mascot serves the integrity of the UIUC athletic program, the campus, and the principles of the NCAA.

This proposal met with an overwhelming positive response from the members of the Senate and the recommendation was presented to the Urbana Chancellor, Michael Aiken. Mr. Aiken’s refusal to include this issue in the Self Study process led me to write to then NCAA president, Cedric Dempsey. In contrast with Mr. Aiken, the NCAA was receptive to considering this matter of racial stereotyping in intercollegiate athletics. Mr. Dempsey and his successor, Myles Brand, provided the leadership that was lacking at the University of Illinois and elsewhere. They undertook a thorough investigation of this matter over a period of more than seven years. At a meeting with Myles Brand and NCAA vice-presidents Ron Stratten and Bernard Franklin in the summer of 2004, it became evident that the NCAA had a keen awareness and appreciation of the significance of the negative impact of racial stereotyping on intercollegiate athletics as well as on Native Americans. I was afforded the opportunity to present information to the NCAA Executive Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 34, 57–61 Copyright r 2010 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-2396/doi:10.1108/S0163-2396(2010)0000034007

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Subcommittee on Gender and Diversity Issues on August 3, 2005. On August 5, 2005, the NCAA stated it would no longer permit 18 member institutions with Indian mascots and imagery to host postseason exhibitions. The following section is based on my remarks to the NCAA Executive Subcommittee on Gender and Diversity Issues. Myles Brand died September 16, 2009; he is remembered by his many accomplishments. Dr. Brand advanced education and humanity in his academic career and as president of the University of Oregon, Indiana University, and the NCAA. He was a principled leader with high integrity. I am especially grateful to him for his courage and willingness to lead the NCAA in its work for racial justice in intercollegiate athletics. He exhibited leadership and courage where others failed.

WHY THE NCAA WAS RIGHT On August 5, 2005, the NCAA stated that it would no longer permit 18 member institutions with Indian mascots and imagery to host postseason exhibitions. Moreover, they urged colleges and universities not to engage in intercollegiate competition with those institutions on their list of 18. Included on this list were the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of North Dakota. The decision by the NCAA to intervene in the mascot debate came after years of information gathering and opportunities given to member institutions to explain why their sports programs should be permitted to remain outside the NCAA’s non-discrimination policies. The ruling by the NCAA was based on the thoughtful review of information by 40 presidents and chancellors of member institutions on three separate NCAA committees. It was the right thing to do and it is arguably the most significant action to promote racial justice in sports since Jackie Robinson took the field in Brooklyn. The ‘‘whys’’ of this follow. The consequences of intercollegiate sports programs using Indian mascots are not confined to the college campuses that initiate them; they travel with the teams and are broadcast and published all over America. The chanting of racial epithets like ‘‘Sioux Suck’’ and ‘‘Kill the Seminoles,’’ and worse, are heard all around the country. Sports headlines that read, ‘‘Indians Massacred’’ and ‘‘Injuns Scalped,’’ and Indians hung in effigy represent far more than ‘‘good-natured’’ enthusiasm for sports. Caricatures of Native Americans and appropriation of Native ceremonies, religious symbols, and dress do nothing to ‘honor’ Native Americans. The overwhelming majority

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of Native Tribes have made this absolutely clear and they have made ending this form of invidious discrimination a high priority. This racial stereotyping is offensive, sacrilegious, and harmful to Native American culture and people, and 99% of the 550 recognized Native American Tribes have advocated ending this stereotyping and denigration. Native Americans have been supported in their goal to end this misappropriation of their culture by the leadership of the nations major churches, by just about every civil rights organization including the United States Commission on Civil Rights, the NAACP, NOW, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, and by educational leaders and hundreds of educational organizations including the National Association of Social Workers, the American Association of Anthropology, and the American Psychological Association. As Charles Whitcomb, former chair of the NCAA Minority Opportunity and Interest Committee, wrote in the NCAA News, September 28, 1998: Member institutions with Indian mascots that promote Indian caricatures and mimic ceremonial rites do not comply with the NCAA’s commitment to ethnic student welfare. The use of these symbols and mascots is not respectful to Native American culture and is considered by that culture to be sacrilegious. No other race of people in America is used for mascots or nicknames for sports teams.

The evidence is clear:  The use of Native Americans as sports mascots creates a hostile environment and perpetuates racism. And I might add, it creates a hostile environment not only for Native Americans but for all groups that support them. On the University of Illinois Urbana campus, this includes all organizations that represent people of color as well as 80% of the UIUC faculty.  The use of Native Americans as sports mascots impedes the education and development of Native American youth and their identification with their culture. Students come to campuses to learn, but Native students are immediately challenged to deal with mascot issues.  Indian mascots denigrate Native American religion by trivializing and desecrating it in half-time shows. A dancing rabbi, priest, or Moslem cleric certainly would not be tolerated as half-time sports entertainment.  The use of Native Americans as sports mascots compromises honoring all people, for all people are denigrated by dehumanizing one race as the object of sports entertainment.  And lastly, Indian sports mascots undermine the goals of intercollegiate athletics and the mission of the NCAA.

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The arguments on the other side, and I have read and listened to hundreds of them, are basically sentimental at best and reflect arrogance and ignorance. At worst, they represent downright racism. They are the exact same arguments that were given to oppose to every social, political, and economic change in this country that sought to promote racial and gender equity and justice. When bumper stickers in Champaign-Urbana proclaim, ‘‘The Chief Today, Tomorrow, Forever,’’ a direct appropriation of the racist slogan ‘‘Segregation Today, Tomorrow, Forever,’’ the position of mascot supporters in clear. Since the 1998 statement from the NCAA Minority Opportunity and Interest Committee, the NCAA continued to make its position known and provided member institutions with a range of opportunities to express themselves and come into compliance with the NCAA’s non-discrimination principles. The responses of the University of Illinois and University of North Dakota to the Minority Opportunity and Interest Committee were complete whitewashes. Where some institutions complied, others such as Illinois and North Dakota remained intractable. When more enlightened institutions retired their mascots, it was always the result of leadership at the top and, parenthetically, in no case did gift-giving diminish. Unfortunately, at Illinois and elsewhere, the needed leadership was quashed by fear and intimidation and subverted by political and other interests of appointed trustees. When the University of Illinois Board of Trustees was finally prepared to retire its mascot, Illinois’ Governors intervened. Similar political pressure impeded progress on other campuses. With failed leadership at Illinois and elsewhere, the NCAA remained the sole solution to ending this form of invidious discrimination. The NCAA rules were clear on this and the NCAA Minority Opportunity and Interest Committee had been forthright. Some might argue that the NCAA banning the use of Indian mascots and symbols was an unreasonable interference on institutional issues. However, when institutional control becomes a device used by universities to preserve discriminatory practices in athletic programs, it was time for the NCAA to end such practices.  When trustees negate faculty control of the institution’s athletic programs,  When those entrusted with the education of our students disregard their faculty, deceive their students, promote racial divisiveness through their athletic program, and tell Native American students, ‘‘perhaps this is not a good place for you; perhaps you should leave,’’ it was time for the NCAA to remove the root of this.

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 When trustees find themselves subservient to state and local politics to the detriment of the institutions they serve, all because of a sports mascot, it was time for the NCAA to intervene.  When African American students at Illinois who support their Native American peers are told, ‘‘if you don’t like our Chief, go back to Africa,’’  When athletes and coaches are intimidated from speaking out,  And when Native American students and faculty have to walk a gauntlet of signs and logos in stores and dormitory halls, on the shirts of students and townspeople, and plastered throughout their sports facilities that proclaim they are something more akin to panthers, bears, huskies, eagles, and wolves than they are to humans, it was time for the NCAA to intervene. Unless you have any thoughts other than, ‘‘Native Americans are People, Not Mascots,’’ it was high time for the NCAA to act on this issue. Enacting policy that discourages use of Native Americans as sports mascots and symbols was not a new precedent for the NCAA. The NCAA did not leave up to individual institutions whether to include women or minorities in sports, nor should it have done so on the mascot issue. The governing and non-discrimination statements of the NCAA are quite clear on this and there was every reason to include Native Americans in the advocacy and protection of the NCAA’s rules. For all the hurtful things in the world that cannot be readily changed, here is one that could. We should be grateful to the NCAA and to its president, Myles Brand, for the courage, integrity, and leadership they showed. It is certain to expand racial justice and advance intercollegiate sports.

INVENTING TRADITION: THE GARIPPO REPORT AND THE PARAPHERNALIA OF JURISPRUDENCE Ray Gamache INTRODUCTION This chapter argues that in 2000 the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne (UIUC), retained Judge Louis B. Garippo to moderate information gathering and to prepare a three-part report to legitimize findings that would deliberately result in no substantive action. The framework of a legal proceeding – whereby Garippo served as judge and the Board of Trustees as jury in absentia – provided the necessary ‘‘nonfictions and metaphors of traditional jurisprudence’’ (Cohen, 1935, p. 812) to construct vehicles of communication in which the dialogue and subsequent report on Chief Illiniwek would be seen as impartial and objective. That framework resulted in ‘‘The Chief Illiniwek Dialogue Report (CIDR),’’ authored by Judge Garippo and presented to the UIUC Board of Trustees on November 8, 2000. Drawing on Eric Hobsbawm’s (1983, p. 3) concept of ‘‘invented traditions,’’ this chapter explicates how UIUC used the ‘‘formal paraphernalia and ritualized practices’’ of one invented tradition, the legal system, to justify its use of another invented tradition, Chief Illiwinek, and, in the Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 34, 63–86 Copyright r 2010 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-2396/doi:10.1108/S0163-2396(2010)0000034008

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process, forestall criticism, allow UIUC to continue its own ‘‘institutional deafness’’ (Strong, 2004), and avoid accountability. Hobsbawm (1983, p. 1) used the term ‘‘invented tradition’’ in a broad, but not imprecise, sense, including both those that were actually invented and formally instituted (i.e., Chief Illiniwek in 1926) and those that emerged in a less easily traceable manner (i.e., legal system). Of particular interest for this chapter is Hobsbawm’s (1983, p. 1) point that the term invented tradition ‘‘is taken to mean a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.’’ The idea that Chief Illiniwek was the creation of an individual who sought to inculcate certain values and norms associated with the indigenous Illini has been clearly documented by scholars (Spindel, 2000; King, 1998). Significantly, as Hobsbawm (1983, p. 2) notes, ‘‘insofar as there is such reference to a historic past, the peculiarity of ‘invented’ traditions is that the continuity with it is largely factitious.’’ In short, Chief Illiniwek was Lester Leutwiler’s response to a novel situation – the invitation to participate with a symbolic William Penn mascot during halftime of the Pennsylvania–Illinois football game at UIUC’s Alumni Stadium – which referenced a historical people by creating and appropriating ‘‘music, dance and costume’’ (II, p. 1) that had not been a part of Illini culture but which established its own past through what Hobsbawm (1983, p. 2) called ‘‘quasi-obligatory repetition.’’ As Hobsbawm (1983, p. 2) explains, the goal or characteristic of tradition is invariance, offering a contrast between the constant change of the modern world and the attempt to structure ‘‘at least some parts of social life within it as unchanging and invariant.’’ This chapter also draws upon the work of Felix S. Cohen (1935, p. 812, 1953) to unpack the ways through which the appointment of ‘‘a senior legal professional’’ (I, p. 1) and other ‘‘vivid fictions and metaphors of traditional jurisprudence’’ were utilized to create the impression that Garippo’s report would lend rationality and objectivity to an issue ‘‘without any appreciation of the economic, social, and ethical issues which it involves’’ (Cohen, 1935, p. 812). Cohen (1953, p. 348), of course, remains a particularly relevant source for commenting on Indian affairs, having served ‘‘as general counsel to several Indian tribes and to the Association on American Indian Affairs, Inc., and in his earlier capacity as counsel to the Secretary of the Interior and as Associate Solicitor and chairman of the board of Appeals of the Interior Department.’’ In delineating the erosion of Indian rights in the early 1950s, Cohen noted several tendencies related to the bureaucratic approach to

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solving practical problems of American Indians: (1) ‘‘administrations which sought to restrict Indian freedom have generally made sure that Indian tribes were not permitted to employ attorneys who might be inclined to challenge such assaults’’ (Cohen, 1953, p. 352); (2) ‘‘the use of federal funds to ‘enlighten’ Indian voters on the ground that it has a trustee’s obligation to see that Indians have a proper understanding of the issues on which they vote’’ (Cohen, 1953, p. 354); and (3) ‘‘the tendency of any government bureau to expand its power is vastly intensified when the people subject to the bureau’s activities are without many of the normal avenues of protest, publicity, and legal redress’’ (Cohen, 1953, p. 379). Cohen explains that the Indian, like the miner’s canary, has always marked the shift from fresh air to poisonous gas in our political atmosphere and that treatment of Indians reflects the rise and fall of our democratic faith. Significantly, Cohen (1953, p. 390) notes that the undermining of that faith ‘‘begins with the glorification of ‘expert administrators’ whose power-drives are always accompanied by soft music about ‘the withering away of the state’ or the ultimate ‘liquidation’ of this or that bureau.’’ In this case, calls for retirement of the Chief served as the soft music that accompanied Garippo’s ministrations. The chapter explicates the Garippo report as a strategic, bureaucratic ploy couched in discourse that portrays pro-Chief supporters as positive and reasonable and anti-Chief supporters as divisive and disruptive.

CIDR SECTIONS I-II: FORMAL SYMBOLIC ASSENT One of the most important ways for the UIUC Board of Trustees to formalize its response, or lack thereof, to the Chief Illiniwek issue was in the creation of a process that utilized the paraphernalia of jurisprudence. In this regard, Garippo was retained to conduct a dialogue and issue a report on ‘‘the issue of the continuation of the Chief Illiniwek performances at its athletic events’’ (I, p. 1). Garippo’s appointment was the direct result of a resolution passed by the UIUC Board of Trustees on January 13, 2000. In that resolution, the Board of Trustees reviewed actions it had previously taken regarding the Chief, including adoption of a resolution in 1990 to retain the Chief as the symbol of UIUC’s athletic teams, correspondence with the U. S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights regarding the closing of its investigation of complaints filed against UIUC, and receipt of a faculty resolution from 1998 recommending the Chief’s retirement. Given the continued criticism regarding the Chief’s performances and the

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need for ‘‘open discussion on this and other issues’’ (Addendum A1, p. 2), the Board of Trustees issued a four-part resolution that, in part, reaffirmed (1) ‘‘its responsibility to establish the University’s symbols’’; (2) ‘‘its commitment to a civil process of debate’’; (3) its direction to the University’s administration to devise and maintain appropriate strategies’’ for an open and respectful discussion of the issue; and (4) ‘‘to ensure that processes are in place, which are designed to address the differences within the University community regarding the use of the chief as a symbol and its alleged negative impact’’ (Addendum A1, p. 2). Several things about the Board’s January 13, 2000, resolution stand out, most notably, the fact that ‘‘this memorandum was not mailed to members of the Board prior to the meeting’’ (Addendum A1, p. 1). Additionally, the resolution makes clear that the Board of Trustees, while acknowledging the ongoing controversy, reaffirmed ‘‘its responsibility to establish the University’s symbols’’ (Addendum A1, p. 2). As Staurowsky (2004) notes, despite more than 100 different resolutions and statements contesting the appropriateness of American Indian imagery, the UIUC Board of Trustees, like other non-American Indian individuals and organizations, claimed in its resolution the proprietary right to establish the University’s symbols. Despite the creation of elaborate processes to ensure a civil process of debate in which the views of all constituencies would be considered and respected, the Board of Trustees alone held the responsibility and power regarding Chief Illiniwek. Significantly, Hobsbawm (1983, p. 10) explained that because invented traditions reintroduced ‘‘status into a world of contract, superior and inferior into a world of legal equals,’’ those seeking to inculcate ‘‘the same values in every citizen’’ realized specific socializations could not be accomplished directly. Rather, they ‘‘could be smuggled in by formal symbolic assent to a social organization which was de facto unequal y More commonly they might foster the corporate sense of superiority of elites’’ (Hobsbawm (1983, pp. 9–10). By affirming a commitment to dialogue among the various constituencies, the Board of Trustees created a means to achieve ‘‘formal symbolic assent’’ while retaining the ultimate responsibility to take absolutely no action. On February 15, 2000, the Board of Trustees issued a press release that delineated its plan for dialogue on Chief Illiniwek. As described by William B. Engelbrecht, Chairman of the UIUC Board of Trustees, this ‘‘tangible expression’’ of the Board’s commitment to dialogue was couched in quasilegal language. The press release explained that the Board would retain ‘‘a senior legal professional’’ to gather opinion through a ‘‘Special Intake Session’’ as well as ‘‘opinion solicitation’’ and present it to the Board ‘‘in a

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form that would allow the Board to respond to particular points in an organized way’’ (I, p. 1). The ‘‘senior legal professional’’ would then prepare a three-part report consisting of (1) an executive summary of the various arguments made about this issue from all points of view, (2) a distillation of these arguments into particular points to which the Board will reply, and (3) an appendix consisting of two volumes – one composed of various reports submitted from several organizations advocating retirement of Chief Illiniwek and a transcript of the Special Intake Session moderated by Garippo on April 14, 2000, and a transcript of the narratives taped in Foellinger Balcony on that same day; the second volume contained selected submissions from the Dialogue Mailbox. When the Board issued a subsequent press release on March 30, 2000, announcing that Louis B. Garippo, a former circuit court judge in Cook County, had been retained to assist the Board in conducting the dialogue, the Board clearly wanted to create the impression that this ‘‘dialogue’’ would be conducted within the ‘‘paraphernalia of traditional jurisprudence.’’ Engelbrecht cited Garippo’s ‘‘extensive experience, sound judgment and unquestioned integrity’’ (I, p. 2) as great assets to govern the process, although the press release made clear that Garippo would ‘‘not make a recommendation on the status of Chief Illiniwek’’ (I, p. 2). In retaining a former circuit court judge from Cook County to preside over the dialogue with the impartiality, rationality and ‘‘due process,’’ the Board doubtlessly sought to lend an air of legitimacy to the proceedings. As Cohen (1935, p. 818) has aptly noted, Legal reasoning carries a peculiar freight of human hopes and human suffering in that realm where the phrase ‘‘due process of law’’ serves as a text for judicial review of social legislation. Here, at least, one might hope that a ‘‘decent respect to the opinions of mankind’’ would lead courts to formulate with some clarity their own conception of what it is that they are doing. Yet in no realm does logomachy offer more stubborn resistance to realistic analysis.

As Cohen explains, due process is a term that offers very little in terms of meaning. In fact, it ‘‘can no more be defined in social ethical terms than in terms of legal history or abnormal psychology’’ (Cohen, 1935, p. 819). In practice, due process is self-referential to a court’s previous adjudications. In this case, the Board’s previous resolutions about the Chief’s performance determined its next course of action, however in depth the CIDR purported to be. Having no voice on the ultimate status of the Chief, then, Garippo assumed the role of unbiased adjudicator of the ‘‘Dialogue’’ and author of an executive summary of the opinions presented at the Special Intake Session.

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Despite the claim made by the Board of Trustees that Garippo would serve as an impartial, neutral moderator, such a claim was undermined when it was revealed that the law firm with which he is employed, Cahil Christian & Kunkle, Ltd., would be billing the University approximately $150,000 for the report (Mabry, 2000, p. 1). The revelation that Garippo was being paid by UIUC for his services may not necessarily have compromised his report, but at the presentation of his report to the Board of Trustees on November 8, 2000, Garippo nonetheless felt compelled to deny allegations that he was part of some ‘‘deep dark conspiracy’’ (Mabry, 2000, p. 1). More telling than any denial of a conspiracy was a statement in the CIDR’s ‘‘Introduction,’’ in which Garippo admitted that to anyone familiar with the controversy ‘‘this report will present no significantly new arguments’’ (I, p. 2). This, in effect, was clearly Garippo’s task because no new arguments provided the basis for the Board to take no new action on Chief Illiniwek. Admitting that in his role as moderator the most difficult goal was to ‘‘carry out the designated duties in such a manner that attendees at the Dialogue and readers of this report would feel that all views had been considered and fairly reported, and at the same time, no bias would be ascribed to the actions or statements of the moderator’’ (I, p. 2), Garippo couched his role in the discourse of impartiality, fairness, and neutrality. Cohen (1935, p. 821) notes that as one of many legal concepts, a judge’s impartiality belongs to those ‘‘supernatural entities which do not have a verifiable existence except to the eyes of faith’’ and which remains, for the most part, unassailable. A judge’s argument or report, on the contrary, is necessarily a text laden with elements of subjectivity and bias. Those elements seep through even the simplest section of the CIDR, the short second section, titled ‘‘Symbol vs. Mascot.’’ In this section, Garippo addressed a key issue ‘‘that the speakers and writers have spent a great deal of time discussing and analyzing’’ (II, p. 1). Those two designations problematize the very issue at the center of the controversy – the contestation of whether Chief Illiniwek represents ‘‘a magical talisman of identification and imagination for students, alumni and fans’’ (King, 1998, p. 46) or ‘‘War-bonneted apparitions pasted to football helmets y [that] act as opaque, impermeable curtains, solid walls of white noise that for many citizens block or distort all vision of the nearly two million native Americans’’ (quoted in Spindel, 2000, p. 3). In avoiding either designation of Chief Illiniwek, Garippo denied the validity of the respective arguments and situated himself within a position of authority that could not be contested or refuted. Garippo’s argument was based on the idea that Chief Illiniwek was neither a ‘‘Symbol’’ of the UIUC – because the Chief only

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appeared at athletic events – nor a true ‘‘Mascot’’ – because he did not participate in the usual cheerleading activities of other mascots. Nonetheless, he did not hesitate from designating the Chief as a performance that ‘‘began as a diversion for halftime at a football game’’ and ‘‘evolved into a tradition of its own’’ (II, p. 1). By calling the Chief a ‘‘tradition,’’ Garippo legitimized his designation while dismissing all others that he deemed were ‘‘based on subjective individual reaction or perception’’ (II, p. 1). By legitimizing only his designation, which necessarily was based on his own reaction and perception, Garippo undermined his owned impartiality ‘‘by asserting something that sounds like a proposition but which can not be confirmed or refuted by positive evidence or by ethical argument’’ (Cohen, 1935, p. 814). Such is the stuff of transcendental nonsense.

CIDR SECTION III: IMPERIALIST NOSTALGIA In the next three sections of the CIDR, Garippo provides a cursory history of the Illini Tribe, a history of Chief Illiniwek, and a history of the controversy. Although he devotes almost six pages of text to the history of Chief Illiniwek and nine pages to a history of the controversy, Garippo encapsulates the history the Illini Tribe in three paragraphs, geographically situating what was ‘‘a loose association or confederation of several tribes all speaking the Algonquin language’’ (III, p. 1) in an area approximately ‘‘from the IllinoisWisconsin border on the north, east to the Wabash River basin, westward across the Mississippi into eastern Iowa, with the Ohio River to the south’’ (III, p. 1). In his presentation, Garippo offers no history of the Illini before ‘‘the time of European contact’’ (III, p. 1), avoiding its history before the time when agents of colonialism encountered the tribe. Rather than providing material and expressive aspects of the tribe’s culture, Garippo relates how they once lived – ‘‘hunting, fishing, gathering and farming’’ – how their ranks were depleted – ‘‘by intertribal warfare and disease’’ – and how conflicts with other tribes ‘‘caused the Illini to move down the Illinois River Valley’’ (III, p. 1). Garippo’s analysis strives for a position of impartiality, although his emphasis on ‘‘traditional’’ aspects of the tribe’s culture (i.e., living close to nature), and the savagery of the frontier (i.e., intertribal warfare), serves as a reference point for what Rosaldo (1989, p. 108) calls an ‘‘ideologically constructed world of ongoing progressive change’’ in which a civilized nation (i.e., the United States) forces static savage societies (i.e., Native Americans) to adapt to new conditions (i.e., relocation to Oklahoma)

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‘‘where they yet remain, united as a single tribe, the Peoria’’ (III, p. 1). Thus, by 1830, ‘‘there were few Illini survivors left in Illinois’’ and by treaty ‘‘most of the land occupied by the Illini was ceded to the government’’ (III, p. 1). To conclude, Garippo provides U. S. census figures in which 0.2 percent (20,970 people) of the population in the State of Illinois identified themselves as American Indian, which ‘‘[C]oincidentallyy is identical to the Indian enrollment at UIUC’’ (III, p. 1). Garippo’s history of the Illini Tribe employs characteristics of imperialist nostalgia (Rosaldo, 1989). By striving for a position of impartiality in recounting what happened to the Illini, Judge Garippo invokes a mood of nostalgia that ‘‘makes racial domination appear innocent and pure’’ (Rosaldo, 1989, p. 107). Such an innocent pose, Rosaldo (1989, p. 108) posits, is often employed to capture people’s imaginations and ‘‘to conceal its complicity with often brutal domination.’’ Thus, Garippo need offer no commentary on the deleterious effect of the U. S. Government’s policy of removal and its use of treaty as a means to take away Native American land, a process that continued well into the twentieth century even after the American Indian gained citizenship in 1924. In fact, Cohen (1953, p. 366) notes that when the Indian learned to handle property, ‘‘the Indian Bureau devised a system to roll back all power over Indian allotments into Bureau hands y What began as more or less voluntary arrangements is now being maintained by ruthless force.’’ Feelings of nostalgia are a particularly effective way for people to deal with the passing of what they themselves have transformed. Rosaldo (1989, p. 108) posits that ‘‘much of imperialist nostalgia’s force resides in its association with (indeed, its disguise as) more genuinely innocent, tender recollections of what is at once an earlier epoch and a previous phase of life.’’

CIDR SECTION IV: A RITUAL OF BECOMING Garippo’s history of Chief Illiniwek is composed of six parts: Origin, Costume, Music, Dance, Evolution, and Funding. The story of Chief Illiniwek’s origin, Garippo asserts, ‘‘is common knowledge to those familiar with the debate surrounding the Chief’s existence’’ (IV, p. 1). This first sentence distorts the parameters of the debate, shifting the focus from the University’s use of this ‘‘Symbol,’’ ‘‘Mascot,’’ or ‘‘performance’’ to ‘‘the Chief’s existence’’ (IV, p. 1). The debate was never merely about the Chief’s existence per se; rather, the debate revolved around the continued

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deployment of the Chief at UIUC athletic events (e.g., football and basketball games) despite protests about the Chief’s performance by members of various UIUC constituencies, as well as Native American tribes and numerous educational and civil rights organizations. Garippo concludes his introductory remarks by adding that ‘‘it is informative to analyze the origins of the entire performance’’ for those new to the ‘‘discussion’’ (IV, p. 1). It defies explanation as to how Garippo could provide such an analysis without invariably involving subjectivities and partisanship. Lastly, to characterize the controversy or debate as a ‘‘discussion’’ betrays his purported impartiality by diminishing the intensity of the divisiveness the Chief’s performance has engendered. That Garippo’s history of Chief Illiniwek would be unable to maintain any semblance of impartiality is evidenced in the first statement of ‘‘fact’’: ‘‘In 1926, Ray Dvorak, assistant director of bands, conceived the idea of having a Native American war dance performed at halftime at the IllinoisPennsylvania game’’ (IV, p. 1). In contrast to this version, Carol Spindel (2000, p. 80) offers a different version of the situation. ‘‘When the University of Pennsylvania was coming to play Illinois in 1926, its marching band offered to bring a William Penn costume for a halftime skit if Illinois would come up with a character to meet Penn.’’ That there exists two distinctly different versions as to which university hatched the idea for the halftime performance strongly suggests that the history of Chief Illiniwek is anything but ‘‘common knowledge’’ (IV, p. 1). Garippo then offers a version of the Chief’s origin that naturalizes the appropriation of Native American culture by the European-American culture, suggesting origin of the Chief follows other adoptions, as in ‘‘the prevalence of Indian names for states, rivers and other geographic landmarks’’ (IV, p. 1). He also points to Americans ‘‘carrying on Indian customs as reflected by the formation of the Boy Scouts y and other groups which placed heavy emphasis on the cultivation of Indian crafts and practices’’ (IV, p. 1). Given the proliferation of ‘‘countless pictorials of the American Indian’’ in the UIUC yearbook, titled Illio, beginning in 1901, Judge Garippo concludes, ‘‘An Indian was a likely selection for the performance’’ (IV, p. 1). The appropriation of Indian customs was inherently paradoxical, relying on generating identity and traditions from a culture it was bound to subjugate by wielding military, economic, and political power. In attempting to find a way out of its liminality, Americans appropriated customs by creating performances of imagined ancestors. Vincent J. Deloria in his seminal study Playing Indian argues non-native Americans have played out

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their own fantasies about Indians to experience national, modern, and personal identities. Deloria (1998, p. 25) explains, Indianness helped Mast Tree rioters define custom and imagine themselves a legitimate part of the continent’s ancient history. Indians and the land offered the only North American past capable of justifying a claim of traditional custom and a refiguring of the rhetoric of moral economy y White Indians laid claim, not to real Indian practices, of course, but to the idea of native custom—the specifics to be defined not by Indians, but by colonists.

Performances of Indianness occurred frequently in colonial times (e.g., the Boston Tea Party) and suggest the colonists’ desire to forge an identity through a ritual of becoming was largely shaped by rejecting everything British. This ritual was not quickly realized, however, because looming on the edge of an increasingly expanding national border was the presence of actual Native Americans. These people were conceived of as a primitive, savage Other, the white man’s burden. Deloria argues that Native Americans assured Americans of their own civilized nature while at the same time justifying the dispossession of real Americans. ‘‘There was, quite simply, no way to conceive an American identity without Indians. At the same time, there was no way to make a complete identity while they remained’’ (Deloria, 1998, pp. 36–37). To appease anxieties, Americans continued to play Indian through fraternal organizations such as the Tammany Society, the Society of Red Men, Ernest Thompson Seton’s Boy Scouts of America, and Campfire Girls, all of which purported to continue Indian customs. Garippo builds his analysis of Chief Illiniwek’s history by using sources that are decidedly pro-Chief. The section on the Chief’s costume, for example, relies almost exclusively on information, gleaned from the Chief Illiniwek Homepage, which recounts the efforts of A. Webber Borchers in designing the Chief’s costume and making sure UIUC would ‘‘have certain objects to continue this tradition’’ (IV, p. 2). Borchers chose regalia of the Sioux rather than the indigenous inhabitants of Illinois, who ‘‘did not wear the dramatic war bonnets of the plains Indians’’ (IV, p. 2). Significantly, Garippo offers no analysis of the decisions that went into the costuming of Chief Illiniwek. Rather than revering and materializing Illinois culture, Chief Illiniwek is a composite representation of Indianness derived from cinematic and literary images, not as they were understood by themselves and others but as imagined by European-Americans. C. Richard King (1998, p. 51) explains, Indeed, Chief Illiniwek is a stereotypical representation of Native American cultures and histories, informed by racist notions and romantic sentiments. It operates as a

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double-coded icon which simultaneously illustrates prevailing uses and understandings of the indigenous inhabitants of Illinois and the broader category of ‘‘Indianness.’’

Garippo comes closest to offering an unbiased presentation of the contestation over the Chief’s costume when he notes, ‘‘There are conflicting reports within the University’s website as to whether the [current] outfit was donated by Fools Crow or purchased by the University’’ (IV, p. 2). For the section on the Chief’s dance, Garippo relies exclusively on a description of the origin and nature of the dance as submitted by John Madigan, who was the 33rd person to play Chief Illiniwek. Garippo offers no analysis or commentary on this subject, other than one sentence in which he explains, ‘‘Most of his [Madigan’s] opinions are redacted in this section but his entire submission can be found at Trustees’ Appendix @ No. 3’’ (IV, p. 3). Madigan’s submission purports to legitimize the authenticity of the Chief’s ‘‘fancy dance,’’ an argument that has been thoroughly discredited by scholars. Nonetheless, Madigan asserts, ‘‘The performance of Chief Illiniwek can neither be classified as ‘non-authentic’ or ‘authentic,’ because it has changed and evolved just as fancy dancing has over the past century’’ (IV, p. 4). Ultimately, Madigan relates that the Chief’s performance has been made ‘‘somewhat consistent from year to year and from Chief to Chief’’ (IV, p. 4) because the Chief’s role is more important than the individual performing. Hobsbawm explanation of how invented traditions take root sheds light on how elements of Chief Illiniwek’s performance (i.e., costume, music, dance) came to play a ‘‘prominent role on campus and within the local community’’ (IV, p. 5). He notes, ‘‘The crucial element seems to have been the invention of emotionally and symbolically charged signs y [whose] significance lay precisely in their undefined universality’’ (Hobsbawm, 1983, p. 11). As such, these emotionally and symbolically charged signs ‘‘command instantaneous respect and loyalty’’ (Firth, 1973, p. 341). The Chief’s stylized dance, costume, and music have become routinized, resisting the flows of history while fixing ‘‘the contours of ‘Indianness’ as it has revivified stereotypes about Native America and Native Americans’’ (King, 1998, p. 50). Rather than contextualizing the Chief Illiniwek performance within the larger project of America’s racial ideology that fosters stereotypical understandings of Native American culture, Garippo’s ‘‘analysis’’ absolves the UIUC of complicity in sanctioning use of the mascot, noting that the University ‘‘disapproves’’ of Chief caricatures used to sell sundry products (e.g., toilet seats, toilet paper, boxer shorts, silk panties), that the Chief logo no longer appears on University stationery, that the athletic department funds maintenance of the Chief’s performance, that no scholarships or tuition

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waivers are awarded, and that ‘‘the costs of maintaining the regalia and providing time for student Chiefs to visit Indian reservations are minimal’’ (IV, p. 6). Garippo’s choice of the term ‘‘minimal’’ demonstrates the use of weasel words that characterizes much of the Dialogue Report.

CIDR SECTION V: PERSONAL DEVILS Garippo’s chronological review of the controversy begins with an excerpt from an article that appeared in the 1975 yearbook, Illio, titled ‘‘A Challenge to the Chief.’’ By focusing only on the protest within the UIUC community, Garippo isolates the controversy from the protests over the use of Native American imagery that began in 1968 when a freshman at Stanford University, Lois Risling, a 21-year-old student from the Hoopa reservation in northern California, viewed the mockery of native peoples during her first Stanford football game. Risling left the stadium, vowing to end the racism. Risling and other Native American students protested the way the name ‘‘Indians’’ and the mascot were used as symbols. After more than two years of debate that drew national attention and support from national organizations such as the American Indian Movement, the Stanford University Student Senate voted to drop the Indian mascot and symbol. Stanford adopted a new nickname, mascot, and logo in 1972, the Stanford Cardinal. Other colleges and universities such as Dartmouth and Marquette discontinued their use of Native American mascots and nicknames. Garippo then contends that from 1975 until 1989, ‘‘little attention appears to have been paid to the issue on the campus’’ (V, p. 2), although it is unclear how this assertion was arrived at other than the fact that nothing was brought to his attention. Controversy began, according to Garippo, in 1989 when Charlene Teters, a member of the Spokane Tribe, protested ‘‘the presence of the Chief at athletic events’’ (V, p. 2). Garippo’s characterization fails in several respects. It fails to distinguish between the Chief’s ‘‘presence’’ and the Chief’s ‘‘performance.’’ It also fails to acknowledge the impact that performance had on Teters’ children, which Teters has repeatedly stated was a contributing factor in her decision to protest. Singling out Teters as the cause for subsequent ‘‘anti-Chief protests’’ is tantamount to claiming Rosa Parks started the civil rights movement. Blaming an individual diminishes the depth and breadth of any protest movement and follows what Cohen (1953, p. 389) called ‘‘the traditional American penchant for blaming national ills on personal devils.’’ Thus began what Garippo deems the ‘‘concerted attempts to eliminate not only the Chief, but other school and

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professional team symbols, mascots, names, logos, etc. that in any way referenced Indians [sic] signs or people’’ (V, p. 2). In subsequent sections, Garippo seems intent on discrediting the protests. He notes that a 1989 Student Government Association (SGA) resolution that would have encouraged elimination of the Chief was overwhelmingly voted down by students in a ‘‘Dial a Vote’’ promotion, adding that a similar resolution was finally passed in 1991. This SGA resolution followed a 1990 Board of Trustees resolution that moved the Chief be retained. The motion made by Trustee Hahn noted that ‘‘those who view the Chief as a ‘mascot’ or a ‘caricature’ just don’t understand the Chief ’s true meaning’’ (V, p. 2). In presenting ‘‘The Position of the Peoria Tribe,’’ Garippo asserts that in 1995 the tribe approved the use of the Chief, calling them ‘‘the direct descendants of the remnants of the Illini Tribe’’ (V, p. 3). This section utilizes a quote attributed to Chief Giles of the Peoria expressing the tribe’s pride in having the University ‘‘drawing on that background of our having been there’’ (V, p. 3). Another quote from Peoria officer Ron Froman that appeared on the Chief Illiniwek Home Page asserts that the opinions of the Peoria tribe members should bear more weight because they were the only descendants of the Illini. As Charles Fruehling Springwood has noted, such efforts to embrace these people as the living descendents of Illinois occurred only after the Chief’s performance was contested. These efforts ‘‘were made to resurrect the voices of these Indians, anticipating that the public would embrace them as holders of the only historically authentic opinion regarding Chief Illiniwek’’ (Springwood, 2004, p. 63). Only at the end of the section does Garippo relate that the Peoria Tribe passed a resolution in April 2000 requesting that the University cease the use of Chief Illiniwek. Arguably, Garippo’s presentation of Jay Rosenstein’s documentary, ‘‘In Whose Honor?,’’ raises the most disquieting questions about his impartiality. Not only does he offer an opinion in the first sentence that ‘‘the film had a definite anti-Chief point of view’’ (V, p. 4), but he also states that the ‘‘focus of the film was anti-Chief activist Charlene Teters’’ (V, p. 4). Asserting that the film showed clips of Teters ‘‘during the various stages of her efforts to eliminate Chief Illiniwek’’ (V, p. 4), Garippo makes no mention of the death threats made to Teters and her family. He then presents 10 statements, taken out of context, that were made in the film, and he provides no indication as to how or why these particular statements were selected for inclusion in the CIDR. One can only wonder why he included the statement, ‘‘The University must listen to people who say ‘ouch’’’ (V, p. 5). Equally disturbing is the final paragraph of this section in which Garippo refers to the dissenting votes of Trustees Susan Gravenhorst and Thomas

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Lamont in opposition to the appointment of Rosenstein as an assistant professor of journalism. He notes, ‘‘Their objections were based on the ground that Rosenstein had been less than honest concerning his true intentions when he had approached them’’ (V, p. 5). That Garippo would include the uncorroborated condemnations of these two members of the Board of Trustees without providing Rosenstein the opportunity to respond to the accusations clearly calls into question his qualifications to serve in the role to which he was appointed. Adding that a third trustee, Judith Reese, also opposed Rosenstein’s appointment, Garippo fails to note that Rosenstein’s appointment was supported by the other board members. Garippo ends his history of the controversy by listing a number of the organizations that have opposed the Chief, qualifying the opposition by noting that the vote by the Student–Faculty Senate who favored the resolution to ban the Chief represented ‘‘only’’ 36 percent of the total number of faculty. Also, after the list of organizations in opposition, Garippo adds another qualification. Finally, he ends by explaining that the North Central Association (NCA) Report, which engendered the CIDR, would be ‘‘set forth verbatim’’ (V, p. 9). This section offered the most pointed criticisms of the University’s handling of the controversy, so there was no way for Garippo to offer his own summary without drawing undue attention to his presentation.

CIDR SECTION VI: VERBATIM Garippo begins his section on the NCA Report with this statement: ‘‘Rather than summarize the NCA Report, the pertinent references to Chief Illiniwek are set forth verbatim’’ (VI, p. 1). The first section of the NCA Report that deals with the Chief controversy explains the third-party contents received, including ‘‘over 100 letters, petitions, press releases, and newspaper articles’’ (VI, p. 1), as well as a copy of Rosenstein’s document, ‘‘In Whose Honor? American Indian Mascots in Sports.’’ Notably, the University omitted any discussion about the issue from its self-study because ‘‘the institution’s position is that use of The Chief is not an accreditation issue’’ (VI, p. 1). The NCA explained that even though ‘‘a school mascot per se is not an accreditation issue,’’ the University’s policy has educational consequences that are ‘‘within the purview of an accreditation review’’ (VI, p. 1). Having met with proponents and opponents of the Chief during the team’s site visit, the NCA Report then outlines in six points what it understands the facts to be. Garippo did not provide the first six paragraphs of the NCA’s summary

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regarding the Chief and the controversy, having provided his own highly subjective summary. In the final four points of the context for third-party comments, the NCA Report offers testimony from both the history and the anthropology departments that argues for the elimination of the Chief because it undermines the learning environment; statements from Trustees on the Rosenstein documentary and the 1990 resolution are also related. In its evaluation of the third-party comments, the NCA Report reiterates its position not to resolve the validity of individual comments but to ‘‘determine whether the comments raise substantive issues relevant to the institution’s ability to meet GIRs [General Institutional Requirements] and Criteria [Criteria for Accreditation]’’ (VI, p. 2). The NCA Report then explicates those substantive issues relative to communication and governance that the Chief controversy raised. First, it shows that the University’s position on the Chief runs counter to the1978 BOT resolution to ‘‘eradicate prohibited and invidious discrimination’’ and to foster programs that eliminate ‘‘the effects of historical discrimination’’ (VI, p. 2) and to the 1991 Statement on Access, Equity and Diversity that states the institution is expected to create and maintain ‘‘a teaching and learning environment that supports sensitivity to diverse individuals and groups’’ (VI, p. 2). The team noted that the ‘‘ill will, animosity and resentment’’ engendered by the Chief controversy puts it in violation of its own policy against invidious discrimination. Equally telling was the team’s statement that ‘‘there is no doubt in the team’s mind that the continued controversy is having a negative effect on the educational effectiveness of UIUC’’ (VI, p. 3). Furthermore, the NCA Report noted that UIUC had not shown that it had plans to deal with those negative effects, nor had it shown ‘‘why its policy on The Chief is in keeping’’ with its statement on diversity. The NCA Report outlined four conclusions: that use of the Chief is an educational issue; that the controversy was not going away; that the institution was not addressing the issue in a manner consistent with its own policies; and the institution was responsible for finding a resolution to the controversy that was consistent with the principles of the NCA and the goals of the UIUC. In the final section of its report, the team issued two stipulations to its recommendation to continue UIUC on a regular decennial review cycle, noting that it met or surpassed the General Institutional Requirements and the Criteria for Accreditation. The stipulations called for a progress report to be filed by January 1, 2001, that delineated the processes that would be used ‘‘to address the educational impact of the continued use of The Chief’’ and ‘‘to articulate the rationale for its policies’’ (VI, p. 4). Significantly, the instrument that the University chose as the process to address the

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controversy of the Chief was the CIDR; yet, in its initial press release, it made no mention of the NCA Report or its findings related to the Chief controversy. Additionally, the rationale that the UIUC used to justify its continued use of the Chief was the very same it had used since the controversy surfaced in 1975, namely, that the Chief’s performance honored the Illini (Peoria) Tribe and that the Chief ‘‘is not meant to be offensive and so therefore should not offend’’ (IV, p. 2). In the face of continued criticism, the UIUC employed the very same policy it had from the beginning.

CIDR SECTION VII: LOST IN AN APACHE DRESSING ROOM WITH MONTY In Section VII, ‘‘How Other Schools Have Dealt with Issue of Indian Designations,’’ Garippo provides what he deems ‘‘a long list of universities and colleges’’ (VII, p. 1) that changed their logos, mascots, or nicknames, as well as organizations that have spoken out in opposition to the use of American Indian imagery. Garippo offers no summary about the impact the changes had on the students, faculty, administration, or alumni at those institutions. Nor does he explain how any of these colleges and universities was able to end controversy by retiring the offensive mascots, logos, and nicknames. Certainly, any one of these institutions would have provided a useful case study of change and serve as a model of the process that was followed. Rather, the main thrust of this section delineates three other Division I universities ‘‘that have retained their Indian’’ (VII, p. 2) references: Florida State University (Seminoles), the University of North Dakota (UND) (Fighting Sioux), and the San Diego State (Aztecs). That these institutions were selected as representatives of universities that have retained their Indian references in the face of controversy indicates in which direction Garippo was guiding the dialogue. Garippo’s summary presents a justification of the university’s use. For example, he notes that the ‘‘Seminole Tribe designed the costume worn by Osceola’’ (VII, p. 2), legitimizing its usage. He describes how Osceola charges onto the football field on horseback at the beginning of home football games and ‘‘ends his charge by throwing a flaming lance at midfield’’ (VII, p. 2). Additionally, Garippo states that the Seminole Tribe ‘‘participates in many University functions’’ by providing concerts at the University, a Princess and Junior Princess from the tribe ‘‘crown the student Chief and Princess with

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headdresses designed and made by the Seminoles’’ and the tribe presented the University with a tribal chant that ‘‘has proven difficult for the crowds [at football games] to perform’’ (VII, p. 2). Significantly, the school even ‘‘provides a secure place for them [protestors from national Native American groups] to picket. Interestingly, there has been no vocal protest of the use of Osceola’’ (VII, p. 3). Not content with this highly subjective, one-sided summary of Florida State University’s use of Osceola, Garippo added an article by Dr. Dale W. Lick, former FSU president, which Garippo characterizes as ‘‘informative’’ (VII, p. 3). Garippo’s intention in using FSU handling of the issue becomes clear in the next section when he contrasts the ‘‘lack of any significant campus controversy at FSU’’ (VII, p. 4) with the controversy at North Dakota. Garippo’s characterization marginalizes and diminishes the many voices who have spoken in opposition to FSU’s use of Osceola and his pre-game spectacle. Those in opposition have pointed out the numerous inaccuracies of this spectacle, noting that the ‘‘Seminoles had neither appaloosa horses nor spears’’ (Remillard, 2005, p. 111). An American Indian Movement flier mocked the FSU mascot, noting that he is ‘‘a Lakota who got lost in an Apache dressing room riding a Nez Perce horse’’ (quoted in Andino, 2001, p. 1). Furthermore, the status of Seminoles as warriors belies their cultural tradition as a tribe that valued peace. Even more disconcerting is the appropriation of the disembodied head of Osceola painted at midfield and included on team uniforms, fan apparel, and Florida license plates. The historical Osceola’s head was removed after his death by Dr. Frederick Weedon and placed on display in the window of his St. Augustine drugstore (Remillard, 2005). As Remillard (2005, p. 111) argues, ‘‘the logo is a macabre trophy that stands as a reminder of a past that despicably turned one of its own into a public spectacle.’’ Garippo’s characterization of FSU as a university without significant campus controversy is clearly misleading. Garippo selected the UND as an illustration of a university that ‘‘is engaged currently in a process very similar to the U of I’s Dialogue’’ (VII, p. 4). Noting that the mood of the protests at UND ‘‘is far more heated’’ than at UIUC, Garippo attributes that mood to the presence of more Native American students at UND than at UIUC, although ‘‘most of the Native American students at UND are from tribes other than Sioux’’ (VII, p. 6). Because UND’s retention of the nickname and logo is considered an administrative issue, ‘‘the president has reserved the right to make the final decision himself ’’ (VII, p. 5). Garippo provided the UND Report on its controversy in the CIDR Appendix No. 8, which is composed of 11 separate packages of documents. Lastly, his characterization of the San Diego State

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University (SDSU) controversy is limited to three paragraphs. Although he notes that SDSU ‘‘finds itself similarly involved’’ in a mascot controversy as UND and UIUC, several factors undercut that assertion, not the least of which was the use of a ‘‘cheerleading mascot, Monty Montezuma’’ (VII, p. 5). In fact, the only similarity to the other institutions was that the ‘‘final determination will be made by University President Stephen Weber’’ (VII, p. 5), who indicated he would consider the opinions of the ‘‘30,000 students, 180,000 alumni and the San Diego residents at large’’ (VII, p. 5). Not surprisingly, in pointing out what other universities were doing and not doing to retain their controversial mascots, Garippo implicitly offered telling examples of how UIUC might proceed.

CIDR SECTION VIII: ARGUMENTS WITHOUT FORMAT Based on the Special Intake Session from April 14, 2000, in which over 120 people over the course of six hours voiced their opinions in person or on video, this section is composed of the arguments advanced in four areas of discussion: Tradition, Stereotype, Effect on Campus, and General Arguments. In his ‘‘Addendum to the Report to the Board of Trustees,’’ Garippo (2000a, 2000b, p. 5) noted that this ‘‘is the heart of the report.’’ Not surprisingly, Section VIII became the most controversial part of the report in large part because Garippo (2000a, 2000b, p. 6) omitted ‘‘an explanation of the format’’ that he used to present the arguments he heard on that April day. The reason Garippo (2000a, 2000b, p. 6) gives for this omission was that he hoped ‘‘the readers might dwell on the content of each argument and thereby give deeper consideration to the substance.’’ However, to ignore the most basic, practical question related to a presentation of the Dialogue Report’s most important part is to invite confusion; yet, Garippo (2000a, 2000b, p. 1) begins his Addendum by stating that ‘‘What was not expected was some confusion as to the format.’’ This is but one of the many inconsistencies that mark this section, as well as the entire Special Intake Session on which it is based. The marketing of the Special Intake Session began on February 16, 2000, when the Board of Trustees issued a press release announcing ‘‘a plan for renewed dialogue on Chief Illiniwek,’’ in which ‘‘interested people of all shades of opinion will be welcome’’ (Dialogue on Chief Illiniwek, 2000a, February 16, p. 1, 2000b, March 30). An ‘‘opinion solicitation’’ in which anyone could submit opinions in writing constituted the first step.

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However, as Brenda Farnell (2004, p. 40) notes, ‘‘In fact, such letters and appeals had been flowing to the board in ever-increasing numbers for more than a decade by this time.’’ Perhaps what made this a ‘‘renewed dialogue’’ was the board’s retention of a ‘‘senior legal professional’’ to moderate the session. A subsequent press release announced that Garippo (2000a, 2000b, p. 1) would ‘‘preside over the session’’ to ‘‘ensure that parliamentary procedure is followed’’ and that ‘‘the trustees will be present’’ (March 30). Potential participants had to register to be considered, and the speakers selected to present were notified two days before the Special Intake Session occurred, doubtlessly limiting presenters to those already in the area or able to arrange travel on short notice. The Special Intake Session could hardly be described as a dialogue. Farnell (2004, p. 40) explains, ‘‘Rather than an exchange of views—a conversation or discussion—participants were subjected to a series of carefully controlled, alternating monologues from preselected representatives on both sides of the issue, framed according to a courtroom model.’’ In his role as ‘‘presider,’’ Garippo sat alone on the stage of Foellinger Auditorium, as ‘‘witnesses’’ approached a microphone and read their statements within the allotted time – three minutes for individuals and five minutes for organizations. In direct contradiction of its own press release, not a single member of the Board of Trustees was present. Farnell (2004, p. 41) posits that this ‘‘endowed them with an overwhelming virtual symbolic presence at the event, iconic of the absolute higher power they held to decide this issue.’’ Other inconsistencies can be seen in Garippo’s distillation of the ‘‘many facets of the debate submitted by the Dialogue participants’’ (Garippo, 2000a, p. 6). In his ‘‘Addendum,’’ Garippo explains that during the Intake Session, he began making mental notes identifying the various arguments, but then corrects himself. ‘‘It was my opinion y that really there was only one argument on each side of the issue, and all other arguments flowed from these two positions’’ (Garippo, 2000a, 2000b, p. 6). Because he did not want to present ‘‘such a simplistic analysis’’ (Garippo, 2000a, 2000b, p. 6), based solely on the pro-Chief argument (i.e., Tradition) and the anti-Chief argument (i.e., Stereotype), the many facets were subsumed within these two areas of discussion. He continues this explanation of how the arguments were divided into the groups by stating that the report ‘‘treats those two arguments (i.e., Tradition and Stereotype) differently than the rest’’ (Garippo, 2000a, 2000b, p. 6). The difference can be found in what Garippo (2000a, 2000b, p. 6) added, namely, ‘‘a single narrative, a special digest of what the various writers have submitted in support of that view.’’ In other words, Garippo distilled the various presenters’ arguments into a single

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statement, which he set forth in bold type. Next, he included the narrative ‘‘attempting to capture the thoughts’’ of the presenters. Following that were sub-arguments from both points of view. That a former circuit judge whose ‘‘extensive experience, sound judgment and unquestioned integrity’’ failed to explain such a convoluted format and then express surprise that confusion abounded echoes Cohen’s (1935, p. 820) consternation about the nature of legal nonsense. In every field of law we should find peculiar concepts which are not defined either in terms of empirical fact or in terms of ethics but which are used to answer empirical and ethical questions alike, and thus bar the way to intelligent investigation of social fact and social policy.

After ranging far beyond his role of advising the board on procedural questions by creating narratives for each argument, Garippo had to assume the role of apologist. ‘‘This narrative is not to be interpreted as a view of the moderator although I believe some readers have interpreted it as such’’ (Garippo, 2000a, 2000b, p. 6). In denying that his narratives were composed from subjective perceptions, Garippo implicitly suggests that he and he alone was capable of remaining unencumbered with ‘‘the White privilege that goes with race prejudice against Native Americans fostered by a culture saturated with race prejudice’’ (Staurowsky, 2004, p. 24).

CIDR SECTIONS IX–X: NUMBERS AND COLLOQUY Although Garippo inadvertently undermined his impartiality by failing to provide a description of the format used to present the arguments advanced in the Dialogue Report, in the next section, he took a different path to achieve a similar result. After processing the mail box submissions for the Dialogue Report, Garippo provided a table reflecting ‘‘the statistical results of the survey’’ (IX, p. 2). The stated purpose of the mailbox submissions was to afford the public an opportunity to be heard. Garippo emphatically states, ‘‘Never was it intended that the responses be considered a poll or a contest’’ (IX, p. 1). Such an assertion loses credibility, however, when in the next sentence, Garippo adds that as time passed, ‘‘a great deal of interest has been expressed in a tally’’ (IX, p. 1). Unfortunately, Garippo does not explain who expressed interest in a tally or when it was expressed. Why include statistical results when he clearly states that such results ‘‘should not be taken as any kind of accurate measure of public opinion’’ (IX, p. 1)? Why leave himself open to, in the very least, charges of poor judgment and,

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in the worst, abdication of responsibility and collusion with the pro-Chief faction? Faced with inquiries concerning the statistical results, Garippo had to address yet another controversy in the Addendum. Rather than admitting to poor judgment, Garippo titles this section ‘‘The Dialogue Was Not A Poll’’ (Garippo, 2000a, 2000b, p. 4). Although he states, ‘‘the numerical results never were intended to be meaningful,’’ one can only speculate as to how he thought the numbers would be interpreted, especially after ‘‘sensing that the numbers would be misinterpreted and draw undue attention’’ (IX, p. 4). His rationale for including the statistical results strains credulity. First, because the report would come out in the midst of the presidential election campaign, ‘‘the news media and perhaps the public generally would be immersed in tracking poll results’’ (IX, p. 4). That there would be a corollary between presidential election polls and the Chief Illiniwek Dialogue requires considerable imagination. Second, knowing there would be ‘‘immediate interest in the numbers’’ (Garippo, 2000a, 2000b, p. 5), Garippo wanted to avoid questions ‘‘if they [the numbers] were not available’’ (Garippo, 2000a, 2000b, p. 5). But why would there even be ‘‘immediate interest’’ in the numbers if that was not the purpose of the submissions? Even if there were questions, would it not have been better to include the data in an Appendix rather than in the Dialogue Report? Why include them ‘‘reluctantly’’ (Garippo, 2000a, 2000b, p. 5) and then express disappointment ‘‘that so many people failed to understand that this was not a true poll’’ (Garippo, 2000a, 2000b, p. 4)? Blaming the public for his own poor judgment hardly inspires confidence in his impartiality. To these questions, Garippo (2000a, 2000b, p. 5) offers only the assertion that ‘‘I did not want to appear to be hiding anything.’’ By providing the statistical results that he knew to be meaningless, Garippo invited the news media and the public to utilize them to draw conclusions. When they used them to frame the news stories about the Dialogue Report, his fears were confirmed. To then state, ‘‘On reflection, the release of the statistics might have been delayed’’ (Garippo, 2000a, 2000b, p. 5) is to hide behind hindsight. As Cohen (1935, p. 820) notes, ‘‘And one may suspect that a court would not consistently hide behind a barrage of transcendental nonsense if the grounds of its decisions were such as could be presented without shame to the public.’’ In the report’s final section, Garippo searched in vain for a compromise solution. He presents an exchange with Michael Haney of the American Indian Arbitration Institute in which he asks Haney whether or not ‘‘the Chief could stay and it would be then through the educational process that over time you would feel that the Chief would die as a result of greater

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educational opportunities on campus’’ (X, p. 2). That Haney answered affirmatively was doubtlessly the basis for including this colloquy. Garippo indicates that immediately after this exchange, Haney was approached by ‘‘anti-Chief people’’ (X, p. 2), opposition apparently being an identifiable trait, and changed his position regarding compromise. He then adds, ‘‘The above [exchange] is not to attribute a lack of proposals for compromise solely on the anti-Chief forces’’ (X, p. 2). Incriminating one party for ‘‘a lack of proposals for compromise’’ and then qualifying it by suggesting the anti-Chief forces are not ‘‘solely’’ responsible is hardly even-handed.

AFTERMATH: HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT The CIDR was published on October 18, 2000. The report raised many questions regarding the format used to present the arguments. When the report was presented to the Board of Trustees on November 9, 2000, during a public hearing, Garippo attempted to answer some of the questions that had surfaced. In news reports of the hearing, Garippo defended his impartiality. ‘‘Nothing I did in there reflects my opinion or care. People are reading the report with suspicion, rather than seeing what’s there’’ (Dodge, 2000, p. 1). He subsequently provided ‘‘An Addendum to the Report to the Board of Trustees,’’ because his remarks at the public hearing ‘‘did not reach all those who had read the original report and because there were significant submissions to the moderator taking issue with some of the arguments reported’’ (Dodge, 2000, p. 1). In the ‘‘Addendum,’’ Garippo seeks to clarify what governed his decision-making processes, his omissions, and ‘‘the considerations’’ that went into the original report. A thorough examination of the CIDR and the Addendum reveals that Garippo’s claims of impartiality in presiding over this ‘‘dialogue’’ and in the presentation of his ‘‘Report’’ are disingenuous, a barrage of nonsense. As Cohen (1935, p. 821) explains, legal concepts such as impartiality ‘‘are supernatural entities which do not have a verifiable existence except to the eyes of faith.’’ Unfortunately, many people misplaced their belief that this ‘‘expert administrator,’’ hired by the UIUC Board of Trustees, would produce a substantive report, not a report intended to do absolutely nothing. Lastly, as educators, we must continue to offer a praxis that works toward social justice and the elimination of Native American imagery. Education, in the very least, must be employed as a tool of liberation. In this case, educators must continue to shut off what Ellen Staurowsky (2004, p. 17) calls the ‘‘escape routes’’ utilized by institutions to avoid accountability for

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the perpetuation of racist stereotypes engendered during colonial times, propagated during the westward expansion fueled by manifest destiny, and commodified in the Wild West shows and postmodern popular culture texts. As Dr. Cornel Pewewardy (2001, p. 1) writes, ‘‘the image of Indigenous Peoples has radically shifted from any reference of living people to a field of urban fantasy in which wish fulfillment replaces reality.’’. The CIDR, authored by Louis B. Garippo, stands as a consummate example of wish fulfillment that defies the reality of actual Native Americans.

REFERENCES Andino, A. T. (2001). Indian mascots still stir emotions, October 27. Jacksonville.com. Available at http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/102801/met_7670344.html. Accessed on May 2008. Cohen, F. S. (1935). Transcendental nonsense and the functional approach. Columbia Law Review, 35(6), 809–849. Cohen, F. S. (1953). The erosion of Indian rights, 1950–1953: A case study in bureaucracy. The Yale Law Journal, 62, 348–390. Deloria, P. J. (1998). Playing Indian. New Haven: Yale University Press. Dialogue on Chief Illiniwek. (2000a). Office of public affairs press release, February 16. Available at http://www.uillinois.edu/trustees/dialogue/press_release2_16_00.html. Accessed on May 2008. Dialogue on Chief Illiniwek. (2000b). Office of public affairs press release, March 30. Available at http://www.uillinois.edu/trustees/dialogue/garippo_release3_30_00.html. Accessed on June 2008. Dodge, S. (2000). Profs rip board on report on chief. The Chicago Sun-Times, November 9. Available at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20001109/ai_n13879814/ print. Accessed on December 2007. Farnell, B. (2004). The fancy dance of racializing discourse. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 28(1), 30–55. Firth, R. (1973). Symbols, public & private (London, n.p.). Garippo, L. B. (2000a). An addendum to the report to the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Available at http://uillinois.edu/trustees/dialogue/report_files/addendum.html Garippo, L. B. (2000b). The Chief Illiniwek dialogue report: Intent and tradition vs. reaction and history. Available at http://www.uiuc.edu/dialogue/report_files.html Hobsbawm, E. (1983). Introduction: Inventing traditions. In: E. Hobsbawm & T. Ranger (Eds), The invention of tradition (pp. 1–14). New York: Cambridge University Press. King, C. R. (1998). Colonial discourses, collective memories, and the exhibition of native American cultures and histories in the contemporary United States. New York: Garland. Mabry, B. (2000). Report on the Chief. Inside Illinois, 20(10). Available at http://news. illinois.edu/II/00/1116chief.html. Accessed on June 2008. Pewewardy, C. (2001). Educators and mascots: Challenging contradictions. In: C. R. King & C. F. Springwood (Eds), Team spirits: The native American mascots controversy (pp. 257–278). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

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Remillard, A. J. (2005). Holy war on the football field: Religion and the Florida state university Indian mascot controversy. In: J. Vlasich (Ed.), Horsehide, pigskin, oval tracks, and apple pie: Essays on sport and American culture (pp. 104–118). Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Rosaldo, R. (1989). Imperialist nostalgia. Representations, 26, 107–122. Spindel, C. (2000). Dancing at halftime: Sports and the controversy over American Indian mascots. New York: New York University Press. Springwood, C. F. (2004). I’m Indian too! Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 28(1), 56–70. Staurowsky, E. J. (2004). Privilege at play: On the legal and social fictions that sustain American Indian sport imagery. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 28(1), 11–29. Strong, P. T. (2004). The mascot slot: Cultural citizenship, political correctness, and pseudoIndian sports symbols. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 28(1), 79–87.

DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF CHIEF ILLINIWEK (1926–2007) David Prochaska This chapter is an exercise in speaking, letting individuals speak for themselves insofar as possible. As Marx famously put it, ‘‘they cannot represent themselves, they must be represented.’’ The ‘‘they’’ were peasants, potato farmers in 1840s France, and by extension peasants, workers, and other lower class groups, not to mention women and minorities who rarely made it into the historical record, and even more rarely in their own words. To give ‘‘voice to the voiceless,’’ as the now old new social historians of the 1960s and 1970s put it, I consciously include here numerous speakers, arranged in two sets of different voices: quotes in the text and endnotes to further document and amplify points. With this plethora of voices, the aim is not to complicate but to speak clearly, listen carefully, and engage respectfully. To multiply the speakers speaking is the single best way to make two primary points concerning what is most important about the Chief Illiniwek mascot controversy: that the sheer number of individuals speaking out is in itself significant, and that this community colloquy all comes down to identity – who we are, individual identity, communal identity. One more preliminary point: I am anti-Chief (duh). But the reason I use ‘‘mascot’’ and not ‘‘symbol’’ here is not out of disrespect for the proChiefers who constantly repeat ‘‘the Chief is a symbol not a mascot’’ mantra but to state the issue as clearly as possible. To repeat the ideologized terms of the debate is to reproduce the debate, give renewed life to it. Take for

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example, French colonialism in Algeria (1830–1962). When the French invaded and warred on the Algerians after 1830, they consistently termed it ‘‘pacification.’’ Where they said ‘‘French Algeria’’ (Alge´rie franc- aise), in contrast, therefore, I consistently say ‘‘colonial Algeria.’’ To change my, our mindset begins at the level of language. Thus, I present the pro-Chief argument here but do not say ‘‘symbol’’ when a sports mascot is being referred to.

 Chief Illiniwek passed away at home on February 16, 2007, in ChampaignUrbana, announced the office of Larry Eppley, chairman of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. He was 81. He was born on October 26, 1926, at halftime during the Illinois–Penn football game. The Chief was a beloved member of the community, and especially of University students and alumni. He was best-known for his performances during halftime at home football and basketball games, when he dressed up in Oglala Sioux regalia to honor another, different group of natı¨ ve Americans, the Illini, whose modern-day descendants, the Peoria, live in Oklahoma to where they were forcibly removed in the 1830s.1 Although his demise was sudden and took friends and relatives by surprise, it was not unexpected. His health had been declining for some time due to a series of attacks, especially since April 2006. A first, minor attack occurred in 1989 as a result of blows sustained in a contretemps with native American protestor Charlene Teters. The same year he was treated for depression when his favorite cartoon character, Squanto, was banned from all Department of Agronomy publications. Following these bouts of illness, he underwent a series of operations, including cosmetic facial surgery performed in the 1990s to remove Block I face paint. To pay for protracted illness and rising care costs, local residents and supporters made financial contributions, including attorney John Gadau. Income was also generated from sales of Chief Illiniwek toilet paper, boxer shorts, toilet seats, silk panties (‘‘Illini Backfield in Motion,’’ ‘‘Illini Fanny’’), and other goods. To help maintain his health, the Chief ’s movements were progressively restricted, and he left his sick bed only to appear at home football and basketball games. In addition, his appearance at the homecoming parade and pep rally was banned from 1991, and his participation in postseason bowl games was eliminated beginning in 2005. These actions were not sufficient, however, to stem his deteriorating health. Renewed attacks occurred during 2006 by the National Collegiate

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Athletic Association (NCAA). Indian critics wanted items of personal clothing returned even before his physical demise. He was preceded in death by numerous older siblings including Lester Leutwiler and Webber Borchers. He is survived by several half brothers including Tom Livingston and Don Maloney.2 Funeral arrangements are being organized by students and local residents. There will be a rally held on campus, supporters announced, and a celebration of his life during the next home basketball game. In lieu of a memorial service, there will be community-wide mourning. Donations, condolences, and expressions of grief and outrage will be gladly accepted by Students for the Chief, Citizens for Chief Illiniwek, Students for Chief Illiniwek, Chief Illiniwek Educational Foundation, and Honor the Chief Society. Comments may be made in guest books found at http://studentsforchief. com/; http://chiefilliniwek.googlepages.com/; http://www.honorthechief.com/. Further information and details can be supplied by the Champaign Urbana News-Gazette. Contact editor John Foreman, sports writer Loren Tate, or any of the staff. Source: News-Gazette, February 16, 2007.

 After living in Champaign-Urbana for years, after talking and writing about Chief Illiniwek, I thought I had seen and heard everything. But I was wrong (of course). When Chief Illiniwek was done away with, ‘‘retired,’’ as the University of Illinois sports mascot in early 2007, I was completely surprised, taken aback, and appalled at the city-wide mourning, and the outrage at ‘‘his’’ demise. I was surprised at the intensity of pro-Chief feeling, at the outpouring of grief and especially of anger, surprised at the large, hastily organized, evening rally on campus, stunned by the outpouring of emotion at the ‘‘last dance’’ performance and its commemoration (newspaper, film, alumni magazine cover), taken aback at the run on Chief merchandise at local stores.3 I always knew that as a revered ‘‘symbol’’ rather than a sports mascot, pro-Chief supporters in a sense considered ‘‘the Chief’’ real, a person. But ‘‘in a sense’’ is wrong: supporters literally considered ‘‘him’’ real. Only at the time of ‘‘his’’ passing, February 17, 2007, of his funereal ‘‘last dance’’ February 21, however, did it all become clear to me, appallingly clear. Instead of pro-Chiefers realizing that this was an extreme case of anthropomorphism versus a real person, loved one.

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Instead of realizing that at the heart of the heart of the Chief tradition, there was nothing, a void, an absence, for there never was a historical Chief Illiniwek versus the invented tradition of the Chief. Instead of realizing that white guys dressing up as Chief Illiniwek was another instance in a whole long history of white Americans playing Indian, a ‘‘revered’’ ‘‘symbol’’ ‘‘honoring’’ native Americans. Instead of realizing that Chief Illiniwek was another example of representing native Americans as noble savages, a ‘‘positive’’ stereotype displaying virtues of courage, bravery, and honor, but a stereotype nevertheless. Instead of University administrators and the Board of Trustees exercising leadership, their subsequent actions and inactions allowed and enabled the resurrection of the Chief, further fueling collective denial and deferral. And most important, instead of processing and working through the end of Chief Illiniwek, and moving on, there was widespread anger and resentment, betrayal and grief at the timing, manner and rationale of the ‘‘death’’ of the mascot, resulting in an indefinite deferral and refusal to come to terms with what had happened and why.

 The Illinois mascot controversy had been coming to a head since 2005 with the situation definitely deteriorating in early 2007 – call it the onset of the Chief ’s terminal illness – when ‘‘his’’ cancerous disease metastasized. In April 2005 the NCAA prohibited Illinois from hosting postseason athletic events, Illinois appealed, and the following November the NCAA upheld its ban.4 From then on it was clear that it was only a question of time before the Chief was dumped. ‘‘It’s y fair to say once the NCAA announced their policy, that became a leading force – maybe not the lead force because the Board did say we would do something about it, but it did become a leading force.’’5 Then at the end of 2006 Illinois students put up a Facebook website, ‘‘If They Get Rid of the Chief I’m Becoming a Racist.’’ Over 100 students signed up, and at least two hate speech comments were posted. ‘‘What they [anti-Chiefers] don’t realize is that there was never a racist problem before y but now i [sic] hate redskins and hope all those drunk, casino owning bums die.’’ And referring to an American-Indian activist on campus, ‘‘I say we throw a tomahawk into her face.’’6 In response, a forum sponsored by Students Transforming Oppression and Privilege (STOP) drew an overflow audience.7 These local events made national news: stories and editorials appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Washington Post and elsewhere (Thacker, 2007; Wise, 2007; Lydersen, 2007).

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This was the backdrop to the Board of Trustees’ surprise announcement on February 16 to ‘‘retire’’ the mascot. It was a surprise, because it happened suddenly, even stealthily, and in a way that only fueled pro-Chief anger and resentment and their sense of betrayal. Instead of the Board discussing and formally voting at a regular meeting, apparently Board Chair Larry Eppley tried to line up support informally through conference calls but ran up against the Open Meetings Act ban on such discussions.8 Eppley proceeded with the support he had, and the University issued a press release announcing the ‘‘retirement.’’ Although I was unsurprised at the end of the mascot, I was surprised that the ‘‘retirement,’’ of Chief Illiniwek was felt by so many so strongly, as if it were exactly like the death of a loved one, a close relative, a dear friend. Now, there had been calls earlier for the mascot’s retirement. I had always thought that ‘‘retirement’’ was used metaphorically, figuratively, that they actually wanted to retire the Chief-as-abstraction in the sense of end, ban, get rid of it. After all, only people retire. But, again, I was wrong: people meant ‘‘retirement’’ literally. I had not realized this before the Chief ’s retirement in February 2007. So, I wondered: Did all those anti-Chiefers earlier calling for retirement mean it literally or metaphorically? Was it a sop tossed to pro-Chiefers, or a real confusion between a person and a thing? Was it not a case of sending a mixed, if not hopelessly scrambled, message? In 2001 I wrote, ‘‘In 1994 a faculty inclusivity committee recommended banning the Chief. In 1998 the faculty senate voted 97-29 to get rid of the Chief ’’ (Prochaska, 2001, p. 178). In 2001 I thought they meant ‘‘ban,’’ ‘‘get rid of,’’ but what they actually said was ‘‘retire.’’ So, I was wrong again. When the chancellor’s Task Force on Inclusivity recommended in October 1994 that Chief Illiniwek be eliminated in their document, ‘‘Building a More Inclusive Community,’’ they said ‘‘retire.’’9 When the UI Faculty Senate voted in 1998 in favor of its Committee on Equal Opportunity’s call to get rid of the mascot,10 the resolution said ‘‘retire’’: ‘‘Be it resolved that the University Administration and Board of Trustees retire Chief Illiniwek immediately.’’11 When then-new Board of Trustees member Frances Carroll in 2003 submitted a resolution to ban the mascot, her resolution said ‘‘honorably retire’’: ‘‘Resolved, That Chief Illiniwek be honorably retired at a time and in a manner to be determined.’’12 First of all, her wording clearly implied a specific retirement ceremony as if for a real person, a ritual to be held at a designated time and place and organized by faculty, students, staff, alumni, and others. Second, the final clause in her resolution called for the continued use of ‘‘Fighting Illini.’’

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DAVID PROCHASKA 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.13 We take pride in the association that the University has through this name with the people of Illinois.

To ban the mascot but retain ‘‘Fighting Illini’’ has blunted efforts to definitively put to rest the mascot controversy, as I discuss at the end of this essay. Even so, Carroll took enormous flak for her position. So, when Chief Illiniwek’s end came, it was most often couched as ‘‘retirement,’’ I assume because that was the most common term that had been used previously by both sides. But this was not a ‘‘live happily ever after with a gold watch’’ retirement, pensioning off a valuable employee with a golden parachute. This was decidedly retirement as getting rid of, ‘‘to remove from a position or office,’’ ‘‘to give up an occupation or career,’’ ‘‘to take out of circulation,’’ ‘‘to put out,’’ ‘‘to withdraw permanently something (a ship, a machine) from its previous service,’’ as the dictionary says. ‘‘Retirement’’ was in fact death by another name, and understood as such. Death of the Chief (Novak, 2007) On Friday, Board of Trustees Chairman Larry Eppley declared the end of Chief Illiniwek14 Chief Illiniwek: October 30, 1926-February 21, 200715 The bell tolled for Chief Illiniwek today. How utterly sad.16

One post referred to the decision to ‘‘assassinate’’ Chief Illiniwek.17 A person’s pro-Chief website features a black T-shirt with ‘‘R.I.P. Our Beloved Chief Illiniwek 1926–2007’’ in white lettering and the Chief logo.18 And at a prominent intersection in an Urbana residential neighborhood, a homeowner prominently displays a tombstone inscribed ‘‘Yo Chief Illiniwek 1926–2007.’’19 The announcement of the mascot’s retirement-as-death prompted an evening rally on campus, a quasi-memorial service. Students clad in Chief Illiniwek attire showed their support Monday night [February 19], rallying on the Quad with the hope of preventing the University symbol from being retired. The rally, first introduced last week as a Facebook event, drew about 200 students. y The rally closed with students singing the ‘‘Alma Mater’’ closely followed by chants of ‘‘save the Chief.’’20

Two days later, the mascot danced ‘‘The Last Dance.’’ Again, the evident emotion of those present (as well as the anger and sorrow of all those

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without tickets upset at not being able to say goodbye in person) comes through clearly in newspaper accounts and photos. The Chief ’s walk from mid-court to the [exit] tunnel – marked for years by respectful silence – in its final rendition, is filled with the loudest applause of the night, an applause filled with cries of cheer and desperation from the crowd y the Chief begins to exit between the folded arms of cheerleaders. But on this night he pauses, turns around, and strides back to center court y the Chief pays his respects to his adoring crowd by facing in each direction, raising his hands to thank his audience. y The crowd was never louder.

After the retirement announcement, at the rally and last mascot performance, in the press and on blogs, throughout the student body and the local community, there issued forth extensive, voluminous reactions, especially in the form of comments to articles and blogs. This was no ordinary private loss followed by a modest funeral, this was an immediate, instantaneous, palpable, emotional, widespread outpouring of collective grief at the loss of an outsized individual, someone people felt a connection to, someone whom they had been touched by. This is clear from the way the student paper and local newspaper covered the story: huge, world war-sized headlines (‘‘One Dance Left’’). Full color photos, column inches-large, fans in orange brimming with emotion, buck-skinned mascot with arms aloft, serious mien. In the issue of the student newspaper covering the last performance, a single photo takes up the entire width of the front page and extends way below the fold. Also telling were the over 645 responses posted to a dozen articles in the local press; one article alone elicited over 100 replies.21 Many of those posting (perhaps 50%) were repeaters, but the number of responses, far greater than for other articles, attests to the widespread engagement of people on the ground in Champaign-Urbana and beyond. First of all, sadness is frequently expressed. I am really sorry that the U of I bowed to pressure. y The Chief was not a mascot but a symbol of greatness, strength, courage, desire. I am so sad!22 Yesterday was a sad day for the Council of Chiefs [organization of past impersonators who conducted tryouts to choose new one each year]. To a person, we are quite proud of our association with the University and the Illiniwek tradition for these past 81 years. All should know that we consistently endeavored to portray Chief Illiniwek with Honor, Dignity and Respect.23 I love the Chief and the honor, loyalty, and tradition that he stands for. For me he was the University of Illinois and made me proud to be a part of that community. I am saddened beyond words at this decision.24 ‘‘The whole situation is a very sad ending to an honored tradition,’’ Tom Maloney [father of Dan Maloney, last Chief portrayer] said.25

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The suddenness of the announcement caught pro-Chiefers off-guard, and now they are resentful that they will not be able to see off their Chief-person appropriately, at a proper funeral they all can attend, not just ticketholders, and achieve closure, say goodbye properly. It feels for many like the loss of a family member, having not had the opportunity to say goodbye.26 Saddest day ever to be an Illini. I think many of us Chief supporters deep down thought that this day would eventually come, but to have it announced on a Friday [February 16], y that it’s all over next Wednesday [February 21], particularly when it appears Mr. [Board chair] Eppley and crew made the decision last spring, is a total crock.27

And on the other side elation. As a Native American, this is a PROUD day to be Indian!28

Grief was not the only thing people felt at getting rid of the Illinois mascot. Second, and primarily, they felt anger, rage: they were mad as hell, and resentful, too. A whiplash of a backlash of visceral anger. It is a SAD day for the U of I. What a shame a few idiots rule. It was a honor to watch the chief perform, I alway got chills. I grew up in CU, a lot of locals from Urbana were the Chiefs, it was as HONOR to be chosen. I WILL NEVER ATTEND ANOTHER BASKETBALL OR FOOTBALL GAME AGAIN, NOR WILL I DONATE ANOTHER DOLLAR.29

They railed against ‘‘a few idiots’’ (above) to ‘‘this Nazi-like anti-Native American movement’’ (below). My colleagues and I have decided to withdraw all financial support for U of I, including athletics. Instead, universities in the Dakotas that are willing to fight this Nazi-like antiNative American movement will become the beneficiaries. In addition, I am modifying my wills and trusts in such a way that any descendant [sic] who attends U of I will be unable to enjoy the benefit of my estate. In all, I estimate that this collaborative effort will result in the loss of several hundreds of millions of dollars that U of I would have received.30

Some of the anger was aimed directly at anti-Chiefers. Today a significant portion of this campus, University Alums, and other members of the Illini Community have experienced a significant loss. The least anti-Chief supporters can do is respect their feelings and not gloat.31 I’m an Illinois Grad, and I find this funny: All of the anti-Chiefers out there are suddenly telling us Pro-Chiefers to ‘give up’ and ‘quit whining’. Well, screw you all. You’ve been whining for years, you damn hypocrites.32

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Not all anti-Chiefers were by any means lovey-dovey, namby-pamby, niceguy, polite folks. Common sense did prevail. You should be sad that you don’t recognize what a hurtful thing in which you’ve participated. ALL THAT MATTERS is that Native Americans find the Chief offensive. You may as well be going on court in blackface. Take the extra time you’ll have now that the racist symbol of the chief has been banned, and examine your ethics, and how this whole ordeal has actually affected people besides white suburban kids who think they’re doing Native Americans a favor by honoring a tradition they find offensive.33

Outrage on the part of some (above) was counterbalanced by dripping sarcasm (below). Oh how the tears of regret well in my eyes at hearing about a white boys chagrin for not being able to dance a disrespectful jig for the adoration and entertainment of the masses. How will we ever move on? Although many adore the Chief, I was one of the ‘‘vocal minority’’ who was utterly disgusted by the Chief and all that he stood for – the outright, crass, and egregious disrespect of a group of people masked under the thin veil of an ‘‘honorable tradition.’’ What a load of crap. If I never see the Chief perform again it will be too soon. I have tried to be sensitive to the affections of Chief supporters, but their adamant support of the Chief proves that they refuse to be sensitive to my desire to not be humiliated by a the foolishness of a caricature dancing for a stadium full of paying spectators. In fact, I resolved to be as cold and insensitive as the Chief ’s many supporters. With that I say to the Chief, ‘‘Sit down and shut the hell up once and for all. You will not be missed.’’34 I caught a few minutes of the news highlighting the most recent Chief performance, and focusing in on the crowd reaction at the basketball game. One young girl was openly weeping. The ‘‘Chief’’ himself was breathing heavily through his nose and making quite the stern-looking face. Honestly, the whole thing cracked me up. Both sides take themselves entirely too seriously. If Bucky the Beaver were to retire next year, would people weep? I doubt it. Well, maybe, since some people are just nutty like that. But really, as someone who has unfortunately had the dubious ‘‘honor’’ of witnessing the Illini mascot go into what some people call a dance, but more closely resembles a protracted and painful series of uncontrollable muscle spasms, I have to say thank goodness he is being retired. Maybe someone can finally prescribe some medication to treat that problem.35

Third, there was anger at how the ideals personified by the mascot had been dishonored, disrespected. This is where the logic takes an illogical turn. In the pro-Chiefer’s worldview since the mascot is ‘‘positive,’’ attacks on it are ‘‘negative.’’ Not only that, but critics attack the ideals the mascot stereotype stands for, and in doing so demean, disrespect, and dishonor precisely what the pro-Chiefers find noble and good. Never mind that the ‘‘noble savage’’ stereotype of native Americans is just that, a stereotype, as

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I discuss later. Never mind that in creating the mascot stereotype, the proChiefers conjured up the object that anti-Chiefers are now attacking, that far from being innocent, passive victims, pro-Chiefers are the ones who invented the mascot in the first place that is now being attacked. This is more than ‘‘school spirit.’’ The Chief embodies the values we carry with us through life.36 The school could have fought the good fight. y But no.37 [Chief Illiniwek’s performance is] THE RE-CREATION OF A SOLEMN CEREMONY BY A PERSON WHO APPEARS ONCE AT A GAME, HONORING OUR ILLINOIS NATIVE HERITAGE.38

This is twisted logic: ‘‘honoring’’ native Americans of Illinois by dressing up and playacting. The post below takes this warped logic to its logical extreme: ‘‘this is a shameful day for native Americans.’’ Dismissing as ‘‘garbage’’ anti-Chiefers’ contention that the ‘‘noble savage’’ mascot is not ‘‘honorable,’’ the writer argues further that if the mascot is ‘‘bad,’’ then so, too, are all other signs of traditional life – ponytails, buckskin, turquoise, totem poles – ergo, they all need to go, too. The logical coup de grace is then delivered: in attacking the Chief, native Americans ‘‘have disgraced your ancestors and have disgraced hollow [sic] ground.’’ That whites expropriated native Americans, expelled them west of the Mississippi, and replaced them with a ‘‘noble savage’’ mascot is completely turned upside down and inside out here. This is a shameful day for native Americans. This has been nothing but a personal vendetta against an institution who has done nothing but honor the spirit of the native Americans. To uphold the criteria of even being considered of Chief is above all common levels of decency and respect for a given ethnicity. To use the old excuse of portraying hostile misinterpretation of native American for our students sake is garbage. If this is true then I want all native Americans to look at themselves in the mirror and cut your braided ponytail off, hide your turquoise and take your buckskins down from the wall because you don’t want to offend and portray a hostile image to the children. Next, close all native American burial grounds in which it is ok to display your ancestors bones for profit. If you really have an agenda then take down all the caricatures of these hideous totem poles spread throughout areas of native American history. And finally why not go after the ‘‘redskins’’ in Washington? I was there the day of Chief Fools Crow and was over [sic] by swelling emotion for the native Americans and its brotherhood with the U of I. It is all over now for a handful of activists with a vendetta but you have disgraced your ancestors and have disgraced hollow [sic] ground.39

Fourth, there was anger felt at the role money played, specifically the lost revenue to Illinois due to the NCAA postseason ban. This is a corollary to

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the dishonor and disrespect suffered by the Chief: the noble ideals ‘‘he’’ stood for have been traduced literally for a pot of money.40 The NCAA played the money card and the esteemed Board of Trustees acquiesced. This decision was not unanimous. Money talks in the end.41

Contrary to the noble ideals of honor, courage, and bravery, the ‘‘spineless’’ administration and Board of Trustees ‘‘gave up’’ and were ‘‘bullied.’’ ‘‘Is this the true Illini spirit?’’ The obvious answer is no. This administration has behaved shamefully. y One of the reasons the [UI president Joe] White administration should be shamed is for having given in to a minority of misfits, loud loonies, and professors who have more time (and competence) to be radical activists, rather than to teach – basically sinecure-hunters who brazenly suck a very considerable amount of money from this school’s outstretched and outspent tits.42 Unbelievable!! An 80 year old honored tradition is being discontinued by a clear minority opinion (not even near a majority) and a group of dictatorial misguided fools. y It’s time to get a spine and show these manipulating fools the error of their ways. y Do you really think the [Washington] Redskins or the [Kansas City] Chiefs are going to change? They refuse to be bullied. Is this the true ILLINI spirit?43 Anger at how in a democracy, the majority were outvoted, lost to a minority. Once again political correctness and a population minority rules.44 I didn’t like the divide of people, but this is a democracy, and the majority rules, not the minority. If they don’t like the Chief, turn the TV off, don’t go to games, etc.45 This is a democracy people; once you have 51% it doesn’t matter what the minority thinks.46 The University of Illinois administration got what it wanted. The NCAA got what it wanted. [Anti-Chief] Professer [sic] Kaufman got what he wanted. Everybody got what they wanted but the majority. Unfortunately, that seems to be America these days.47

These sentiments were coupled with a refusal to consider that matters such as the mascot controversy are not straightforwardly amenable to a simple vote, thumbs up, thumbs down, as in the following post comparing it to the school prayer controversy. It is difficult to understand how we in the majority lose to the few. This is much the same as the argument over ‘‘In God We Trust’’, prayer in schools or the Pledge of Allegiance. Though the poll numbers show over whelming support to the contrary y the voice of the few wins the day.48

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This argument about the majority versus minority, about a democratic vote needs to be unpacked, taken a step further. The assumption, no doubt correct, is that if the Chief controversy had been voted on, one person one vote, then the Chief would have ‘‘won.’’ The diverse stakeholders involved – University of Illinois administration, faculty, students, and alumni; native Americans on and off campus; the wider Champaign-Urbana community and Illinoisans generally – were sometimes polled, sometimes not. Yet it was always clear that power to decide lay with governing bodies with differing agendas (faculty senate, university administration, state legislature) and ultimately with the University of Board of Trustees – not least because the campus administration refused to take the lead. In the end, the key change that occurred over time was the glacially slow shift in the position of the Board of Trustees. Uncomfortable thought: a democratic vote is not always right. Rarely, however, was the issue framed as a majority versus minority one where simultaneously the views of the majority directly clashed with the moral, philosophical, and educational arguments of a minority, let alone one in which the position of a numerical minority trumped the majority will. Rather than directly engaging this key issue, here, too, the two sides mostly talked past one another. I think it’s detrimental [student referendum on Chief Illiniwek held February 2008] because we’re talking about a human rights issue here, and I really don’t think human rights issues should be left up to any particular population of students. The popular decision isn’t always the way to go in situations like these.’’49

Fifth, there was anger directed at the minority that won not because they had the votes, but only because they played the ‘‘political correctness’’ card. Again, there was a refusal to engage the arguments of so-called political correctness, a refusal to lend them any credence or validity whatever. The Chief is honorable: end of story. We are so caught up in being politically correct and not hurting someone’s feelings y get over it. I am so glad that a MAJORITY of people aren’t letting the Chief issue die. y I am so proud that finally the MAJORITY is standing up and saying ‘‘hey y we don’t like what’s going on or happening’’. The MAJORITY is tired of being Politically Correct and watching what they say for fear of ‘‘offending’’ someone y50 There is no law anywhere that guarantees you (or anyone else) the right to never be offended. Yet that’s what the shrill minority of anti-Chief zealots have done. They’ve stretched, distorted and perverted our anti-discrimination rights into some new right to ‘‘never be offended’’ and the Board of Trustees have happily embraced this new ‘‘Right of The Hypersensitive Minority y’’51 This was a pagan sacrifice on the altar of Political Correctness.

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I fear these leaders will do away with other traditions. y I think our present president and chancellor are not leaders. They are political-correctness kings. y The professors who pay attention to what they’re doing academically don’t have time to monkey around in other departments like he [Professor Stephen Kaufman] did.52 PC Jerks y53 ‘‘Being politically correct means always having to say you’re sorry’’ – Charles Osgood.54

Related to political correctness was the argument that although it may have been assumed that all native Americans were anti-Chief, ‘‘we’’ know this is not true, we know native Americans who were not anti-Chief. Everyone, it seems, has their ‘‘good’’ Indian. I grew up in Illinois and graduated in ’91. y I worked for an Indian (just in case you are ignorant enough to correct my use of Indian, they often use the term, maybe you’d correct them, help ‘em get politically correct) tribe for over 3 years and I’d guess that most of the opinionated folks involved with this issue are very ignorant in regards to Indians and could really care less what any Native American thinks or how they live in their country. I think about a night in 2005, I was travelling through McDermitt, NV, and I saw a high school age Indian boy wearing a Chief hat, I asked if he liked the Fighting Illini and he said Yeah, I like ‘em. y I guess that unimportant dark haired boy was just too ignorant to see all the harm that Chief symbal [sic] was doing?55

The implicit argument made here is that not all native Americans are antiChief. This is coupled with the claim, ‘‘I know an Indian, I met him driving one night in Nevada.’’ Yet anti-Chiefers did not spend a great deal of time addressing the issue that not all native Americans were, or had always been, anti-Chief. Talking past one another ran both ways. My husband and I are both alumni of U of I. We are proud to presently have a daughter who is a freshman at U of I. Most of my husband’s family still lives in Central Illinois and come from a Native American heritage. His family has always taken great pride in their heritage. Likely they have always looked at the Chief with esteem and have never been offended by him. On the contrary they are proud to have their heritage remembered and I have heard my husband comment that this is all the result of political correctness at its silliest. He is disappointed in the whole matter.56

Take this argument, this talking past one another, a step further. At base, the anti-Chiefers argued, ‘‘if native Americans say the Chief hurts, then it hurts. End of story.’’ I have a very good friend who is an alumnus of U of I and is of Native American descent. She finds the Chief to be hurtful and feels he trivializes and demeans her heritage. That’s enough for me. How many people does the Chief have to hurt until he is seen as being damaging? Give me a number, Chief defenders. This is not about being ‘‘PC’’ or anything else. The Chief causes people very real emotional pain and I want you to tell

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me exactly how many people must be hurt by his existence until it is allowable to get rid of him.57

Such an argument left pro-Chiefers with the weak response, ‘‘even if it hurts, it can’t hurt that much, it’s only a symbol after all,’’ an argument considered insensitive and uncaring. Yet the implicit assumption of the anti-Chief argument is that all, or virtually all, native Americans agreed that the mascot was hurtful, and the evidence for that claim is that they said so: if they said they had experienced hurt, then they had. Direct, personal experience is dicey to question and still harder to refute. Uncomfortable thought: the work of feminist and poststructuralist Joan Scott, of all people, can be used to support the implicit pro-Chief position here. Scott questions the evidence of ‘‘experience’’ when it is invoked by an individual to ipso facto justify and rationalize what may often be the result of both how an individual has learned to interpret his or her world (political context, social moeurs, historical contingency) as well as apparently unmediated personal experience (Scott, 1996). If Scott is on to something, it would account for why perhaps most but not all native Americans are anti-Chief, and why pro-Chiefers had a point when they raised the bugaboo of ‘‘political correctness.’’ Thus, to implicitly argue that all native Americans are antiChief leads uncritically to a position of political correctness: native Americans are assumed to be anti-Chief. This claim pro-Chiefers refuted by trotting out ‘‘their’’ pro-Chief native American, yet anti-Chiefers did not engage their position. Here precisely is where the two sides literally talked past each other.58 I honestly don’t know why this is happening at all [getting rid of the mascot]. I am 50% Seminole Native American with strong ties to the Seminole Nation and have relatives in both Florida and Oklahoma. I grew up near Florida State University and can tell you the Native Seminole population there would be very upset if the Seminole name and spear hurling Chief Osceola were removed. In fact, the Seminole Nation voted to support FSU’s continued use of the Seminole name to show to others we approve of our images use. The only people that should be qualified to judge this issue are the descendants of the Illiniwek (now in Oklahoma, I believe). I have personally seen Chief Illiniwek perform at least a half dozen times over two and a half decades or so and found no disrespect.59

Sixth, Chief supporters felt angry because the mascot did not die a natural death, that ‘‘they,’’ someone else, killed ‘‘our’’ Chief, that it was someone else that is doing this to us rather than us. Thus, it is not our fault, it is their fault: we are not responsible, they are. The pro-Chiefers were in total denial here: they were the ones who originally invented the mascot in the first place, and only after whites had earlier expropriated the native Americans living here.

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So, a strong subcurrent of anger was directed not only at anti-Chiefers but also at all those who were considered to have allowed, enabled, and engineered ‘‘his’’ demise, despite their protestations of concern, support. In other words, alleged pro-Chief friends betrayed us, and in so doing betrayed also the ideals the ‘‘noble savage’’ mascot stood for, and that we honored. Outside the University, the institution nearly universally vilified for its role in the death of the mascot was the NCAA.60 How hypocritical of the NCAA to ‘‘look the other way’’ about FSU when the only difference between the two situations is that FSU admittedly pays off the Seminole tribe and the NCAA believes such payoffs negate any hostile/abusive connotations of the savage Chief Renegade symbol. I live in Florida and all I hear and see is that tomohawk [sic] chop and their infernal chanting. But that is all OK isn’t it, because money talks and the NCAA is so corrupt it can’t think or see straight. What a bunch of baloney. Shame on the U of I administration for caving in so easily. FSU fought back and won. Why didn’t we try harder to save this great tradition? What wimps!!!61 The real problem we have in Illinois is we don’t have a tribe to buy off. Other tribes killed off the Illini. Look at Florida State. They buy the Seminoles off and it’s okay for a white kid to throw a flaming spear in the ground.62

To which a Washington Post writer replies, ‘‘He’s right about that. The hypocrisy on this issue prevents an across-the-board abolition of Indian mascots. You buy one tribe’s silence, and it’s okay to reject the claims of insensitivity by another.’’63 One Illinois alumnus and state legislator was especially upset: ‘‘It’s a sad day [banning the mascot]. What’s next? Mom, the flag, apple pie? Apple pie’s got trans fat in it.’’64 To punish the NCAA, the lawmaker introduced a bill to tax the organization.65 Not only the NCAA, but within the University the Board of Trustees and all those fellowtraveling administrators were the main betrayers. Why [sic] to go BOT, you have made a difficult decision easy for me. No Chief, No Donations from this alumni!! Oh, maybe you should ask the NCAA next time you need money, as they seem to be running the show these days.66

The Board of Trustees said they were on our pro-Chief side, but in the end they did us in. Instead of standing up to the NCAA and the politically correct anti-Chiefers – like the Chief would have done – they caved in. To add insult to injury, Board chair Larry Eppley arranged the decision behind closed doors and out of public view, likely in violation of the Open Meetings Act, announced it at the end of the week on Friday, and to take effect less than a week later. For this, Eppley was castigated for his sneakiness and trickery as well as treachery.67 The outpouring of criticism sums up many of the points made so far.

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This BoT vote [March 2007] does NOT cure Chairman Eppley’s Open Meetings Act violation. The Illinois Supreme Court has held that crystallizing a decision in private, only to ratify it later is still a violation of the Open Meetings Act.68 This decision was made by bullying. A small, vocal minority bullied the issue to the forefront, then refused to listen to reason until it got what it wanted. My kids used to do the same thing, but I forgave them, since they were only two years old at the time. Now the only thing left for the Board is to decide which spineless invertebrate will best represent the University of Illinois as a mascot.69 It’s unfortunate the Board of Trustees didn’t have the courage to stand up to the NCAA and fight for something worth fighting for.70 Shame on the BOT. I can now feel ashamed to be associated with such a spineless institution.71 The board has no backbone. The rumor is, they’ve already got another name picked out for Illinois. We’ll be the Spineless Chickens.72 No it isn’t awesome news [of end of mascot]. Not on the basis of being pro or anti Chief. It’s horrible news because one man arrogantly and brazenly made a decision based primarily on the financial considerations of what he felt the Chief was costing the athletic department, screw Eppley. If the Chief was to be retired it should be done but the University body after due diligence is done to the issue [sic]. NOT because a guy with an ego, on a power trip made cash King. We’ve all lost for losing Chief this way. Pro Chief or Anti Chief we’re all getting hosed right now.73 Growing up in Central Illinois, and as active undergrad and alum, this hurts me and some of us more than others. It is indeed like a member of the family has died. And it also feels like other members of the family (the board and its chair in particular) have turned on us by not being up front in the handling of the timing of the announcement. It’s like thinking you know someone for years and not knowing them at all now.74 We should not be harsh towards ‘‘Perfesser’’ Kaufmann, Emil Jones, Lawrence Eppley and their fellow travelers, for they cannot rise above the smallness of their lives and are compelled by envy to destroy what most find as good.75 I expect the University to stand for DIVERSITY of OPINION. Not to cave weak-kneed when the going gets tough, and CERTAINLY not to capitulate because of financial reasons. y It is NEVER right to back down from a fight when you are right. y values the Chief represents, by the way.76 The end of the Chief is bad enough, but the way it was done is dishonorable.77 May the Chief be back soon and reign long. And may the Board of Trustees rot in hell.78 As all alums I am saddened by the loss of the ‘‘Chief’’, but I was expecting this day to come. What hurts more is that he was suppose to be retired in a dignified and respectful way, celebrating the years of tradition that was a part of the Illini Tradition. But instead the Board of Directors chose to quickly enforce this and have his last performance be at

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a basketball game less than a week away that is not even nationally televised. How can the Board say they allowed the fans the chance to send the Chief off with respect and dignity?79 I’ll still tell people where my degree is from, but the pride I felt is gone. All because the sorry-ass weenies on the Board of Trustees refused to stand up to a strident minority. I will offer one last thought to my alma mater. If you’re looking for a school mascot in the future, there are LOTS of spineless invertebrates for the Board to choose from.80 I am a disgusted alum who never really had any great attachment to the Chief, but who has always disdained the University’s pathetic appeasement of the professional do-nothing radicals who hide out in the University because it is the only place where they can be unproductive and useless to society and still get paid for it, through taxpayer funded salaries, fellowships and scholarships.81 Shame on the Board again. y There are a lot of buildings on campus named for great leaders of our state and of our University. Next fall at the first football game in the Blue Lot we will be naming the Larry Eppley Port-o-Potty. Hopefully he will show up for that ceremony unlike the final basketball game where he would not show his face.82

This is where anger got mixed up with sorrow and which was then directed at the Board of Trustees. In short, this was not something that we did, the consequence of what we had done, a response to our actions – this is something happening to us, done by people outside, elsewhere; we are passive, being acted upon. A common thread here is that we have a will, but we are being walked on, trampled. This narrative is a story pro-Chiefers tell to other pro-Chiefers explaining away any culpability on their part. Rather than owning up to their active versus passive role, the reasons for the Chief ’s demise were rationalized away, displaced onto other folks, other entities, in a tortured logic that produced and reproduced already elements of a counter-narrative. Above all is the sense of betrayal by the Board of Trustees, and especially Chair Eppley. It is as if to say ‘‘we thought they were our friends, on our side, but they betrayed us, they caved in. Furthermore, they went against all the values noble Chief Illiniwek stood for – telling the truth, honor, and pride – doing what is right even if it is unpopular, standing firm against minority opinion, affirming the majority over the minority, the minority of the politically correct – the ‘radicals,’ wimps, weenies.’’ Such is the way the logic was twisted. Ultimately, the anger and resentment and betrayal felt by pro-Chiefers at the way the mascot was gotten rid of redounds on university administrators and the Board of Trustees for not taking a stand and making a decision themselves; in short, for not providing leadership. That the blame was allowed to be shifted elsewhere and onto other entities, such as the NCAA,

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meant that resentments festered and a narrative of ‘‘sneaky’’ Eppley, ‘‘cowardly’’ Board was produced. Lastly, upside down logic again warped the discussion of racism. It was commonly heard, for example, that ‘‘We are not racists: why can’t they see that the Chief is positive, honorable? Because it is positive and because we are honoring native Americans, by definition we cannot be racist, and to label us so is unfair and absurd.’’ If the purpose of a symbol/mascot is to bring honor, even if misguided, then it cannot be racist be definition. y By the way, now there is no motivation to continue discussion about Native-American issues on campus. Good plan?83 It’s sad to see that an honorable tradition can be labeled ‘‘racist’’ by a vocal minority, and that by simply making the statement, it must obviously be true. Has all rational thought been removed from civil society? Soon it will become self evident that primates have all the rights of humans and plants have feelings too.84

In a bizarre turn, to deny pro-Chiefers a voice abrogates their free speech, since to be American encompasses native America. The fact is that this is truly oppression of speech. Native Americans and their pandering followers are claiming that non-Native Americans are not allowed to express their respect and appreciation for Native American culture, despite the fact that as an American, Native American culture is MY history too.85

The twisted logic comes full circle in the following comment by a prominent pro-Chiefer, who simultaneously appropriates native American heritage for himself and challenges anyone to call him, as a Caucasian, a racist for doing so! Chief Illiniwek is part of my geographic heritage. y For anyone to dismiss that because I’m Caucasian, that’s racist.86

He is not alone: this theme is echoed by others. The heritage of the Illini and other Indian tribes that first populated what was to become Illinois is not the province of any one group; as an American and a native Illinoisan it is part of my heritage too. (Wise, 2003)

 This whole thing is silly. We finally were able to rid ourselves of our racist mascot-why keep him lamely hanging on? It’s not like the BoT will ever have the opportunity to reinstate the Chief-the blow to the University’s reputation would be too great. Why not just let the whole thing die off so we, the sons and daughters of Illinois, can move on to something else?87

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Chief Illiniwek may have been retired, but he keeps coming back. Call it death and resurrection. Primarily because even those who got rid of the mascot were often of two minds: instead of a proactive decision, the University (administration and Board of Trustees) reacted to what was widely regarded as coercion by the NCAA. Instead of killing off the Chief themselves, instead of dead and buried, the Chief kept being resurrected, brought back, coming back. In March 2007 at the Board of Trustees meeting, some thought he was put away for good. The local newspaper, politically conservative and pro-Chief: The University of Illinois Board of Trustees took final action today to eliminate Chief Illiniwek and called on the campus and community to move forward. Trustees approved a resolution that confirms Board Chairman Lawrence Eppley’s action on Feb. 16 announcing the end to the Chief dances and the end to American Indian imagery being associated with the UI and its athletics programs. (Garennes & Wurth, 2007)

Certainly local resident, activist and faculty member, Debbie Reese thought so. I’ve been working alongside other Native people and our allies on this issue since I came here in 1994. THIS is the closure we’ve been working towards. The announcement made by BOT Chair Eppley in February was unsatisfying, because it did not acknowledge what is WRONG with the chief illiniwek. Today’s BOT meeting was different. It acknowledged what is wrong.88 I do think we’re at a definitive moment today. y I do think we’ve turned a corner.89

Then, as homecoming fall 2007 approached, students assumed that the ban on the Chief logo would apply to floats in the homecoming parade. Nonetheless, they raised the question. Surprisingly, the University Chancellor made a one-time exception, and lifted the ban on the grounds that free speech, however culturally derogatory, offensive, even racist, trumped the use of Chief Illiniwek that others regarded as a racist mascot, and precisely what the Board of Trustees had eliminated. ‘‘The University,’’ the Chancellor wrote, ‘‘values free speech and free expression and considers Homecoming floats, decorations, costumes and related signage all representations of such personal expression.’’90 Others disagreed. If a float maker wants to use KKK imagery or a noose hanging from a tree on a homecoming float, is this now also acceptable under the auspices of ‘free expression?’ Or if a float maker wants to use images of people copulating or nude participants on a float,

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would this also be accepted as the freedom of personal expression? And if not, why not? Certainly if public nudity is considered immoral or at least inappropriate, why not public racism?91

Clearly, the University had reversed itself. The ‘‘administration made the original decision to ban the Chief symbol and has lifted its own ban.’’92 What had happened was that the parade organizers, working with the University, established a new policy in August 2007 that banned parade participants from using the Chief Illiniwek logo. The ban was not challenged until the student newspaper published an article about it, which led the chancellor to scale back the ban and allow Chief-themed homecoming floats. This was too much even for some previously outspoken Chief supporters. ‘‘The University of Illinois should step up y by putting Chief Illiniwek to rest – for good,’’ wrote Sports Illustrated columnist Dave Zirin, who earlier had been pro-Chief but now came out anti-Chief (Zirin, 2007).93 To take the argument a step further and in a broader direction, the dispute ultimately raises profound questions about free speech. First, free speech is not absolute: it is against the law to yell ‘‘fire’’ in a theater. Second, there are distinct cultural and national differences. In the United States, the stress is on individual expression, which most often trumps the rights of groups not to be slandered or vilified, Jews for example. In Europe hate crimes, including speech, is criminalized: ‘‘death to the Jews,’’ and frankly anti-semitic material is not allowed.94 Distinctions between free speech and hate crimes are enormously difficult to distinguish, police, and prove, but arguably without the barriers afforded by hate crime laws how does a community or nation stanch the reproduction of past acts, including speech acts, today universally condemned, for example, the Holocaust? Then, on the one-year anniversary in February 2008 of the end of Chief Illiniwek, a pro-Chief group ‘‘painted the hall black’’ by distributing 900 black T-shirts with the Chief logo to the student cheering section at a basketball game to show their continued disapproval with the Board of Trustees’ action. ‘‘Present at the game was a delegation of members of the Illinois General Assembly. [Chairman] Larry Eppley was not sighted at the game,’’ a pro-Chief group reported sarcastically.95 Also marking the oneyear anniversary was the student newspaper with an article, ‘‘Has campus changed since the Chief left?’’ that prompted 38 responses. Subtitled ‘‘Remnants of the chief controversy still remain,’’ the piece detailed what had not changed (Wool, 2008). The music that accompanied Chief Illiniwek’s dance was still being played; the three-part composition dated back to 1928, two years after the Chief was invented.96 Although technically the music did

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not depend on the Chief ’s dance, its association with the former mascot was not lost on anybody. Pro-Chief: ‘‘I’m happy they kept it [the music]. y Even though the Chief isn’t there, the people still clap at the same parts.’’97 Anti-Chief: ‘‘I think [the music] evokes the same ideologies of having a person perform traditional [Indian] dances, and that’s offensive.’’98

Keeping the music is important, because it is clearly associated with the mascot. As with the name ‘‘Fighting Illini’’ (see later in text), however, a narrow, technical distinction was made regarding the music in order that it be retained. Not everyone agreed. The head of the undergraduate Marching Illini program argued that ‘‘it is wise to continue using the ‘Three in one’ marching routine but change the music. ‘The music for the ‘Three in One’ is created for the Chief Illiniwek performance.’’’99 Then, at the end of February 2008 in a nonbinding referendum students voted in favor of reinstating Chief Illiniwek 80% to 20%. More than onethird of all undergraduates sent ballots through email, the second-highest turnout in 10 years of online voting. Earlier in 2004 students had voted in favor of the Chief 70% to 30%.100 Then, in March 2008 ‘‘an Illinois fan dressed in a full Chief outfit’’ appeared at a basketball game, and during the halftime musical performance ‘‘made his way around the top concourse, walking with arms folded and stopping only to raise his arms during the ‘Hail to the Orange’’’ musical segment. ‘‘The appearance of the Chief brought the Assembly Hall crowd to its feet and earned a standing ovation’’ (Grodsky, 2008). Then, in April 2008 the winners of the annual Chief competition, begun in January, were announced. ‘‘The importance of tryouts is to ensure that there is always a student on this campus that, on instant, can perform the dance with pride and honor,’’ according to the last official student who played Chief Illiniwek (quoted in Anderson, 2008). The new unofficial Chief said he is of Mexican descent, but that he doesn’t see the Chief as being a racist symbol. ‘‘Not at all,’’ he said. ‘‘Obviously not, or I wouldn’t be here. My family is of mixed race. Racial tolerance has never been an issue for me.’’ (Monson, 2008a)

 Get over it folks. The decision is finally [sic]. Time to move on.101

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I hope we can move on with life now.102 Saying goodbye to the Chief tradition is hard for many people, just as the Chief tradition itself was hurtful to many people. My goal in moving forward is to lead a healing process for everyone who cares about this issue.103

What is to be avoided is indefinite, ongoing denial and deferral, a limbo situation where instead of closure, there is a festering sore. This is what can happen not only to people and individuals but also to groups of people and societies. We are self-conscious beings, after all, cognizant of history: we live in history. Living in history entails dealing in the present with the past to move into the future.104 For societies, like individuals, can and do lose their way. This is what happened, for example, to France during the Nazi Vichy regime, 1940–1944.105 To continue with the individual and body analogy, what we strive for is a healthy body politic, one resistant to panics – moral, sexual, and political. Individuals can choose to undergo step-wise recovery programs; societies can conduct political purges (France 1944) or more recently so-called truth and reconciliation commissions (Africa, Latin America). In one and the other case, it is necessary at either an individual or societal level to recognize and acknowledge what has happened, process and work through the historical baggage, and get clear of it to move on. Coming to terms with the past results in a healthier, more mature social body. Yeah, right: easier said than done. All this is easy for an intellectual to prescribe, hard for a collectivity, community, or country to act on and carry through. Might as well say to Americans that the United States under Bush has become a nation that tortures people, that we need to stop the practice and apologize, that we need to acknowledge, work through, come to terms with, and punish the wrongdoers, to arrive at a resolution. Meanwhile, back in River City, er y Urbana-Champaign, so far this is precisely what is not happening. As seen earlier, reactions to the end of Chief Illiniwek have been overwhelmingly negative on the part of pro-Chiefers, marked by anger, resentment, rejection, pushing back and, it has to be said, often gloating on the part of anti-Chiefers (‘‘see, I told you so,’’ ‘‘we won’’). Yet ‘‘he’’ is not dead and buried, but keeps coming back y and back, and back again. What would be necessary (and I use the conditional rather than ‘‘is’’ on purpose) would be, first, to recognize that there is a problem with how the majority of students and local residents, alumni and Illinoisans view the history, significance, and demise of the UI mascot. Certain historical analogies may seem outsized relative to a local matter, especially a small potatoes matter like a sports mascot (‘‘why not work on serious issues,

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such as native American poverty, alcoholism, suicide?’’), yet they are useful, ‘‘good to think’’ in defining the stakes involved, for the larger issue here concerns identity. Already mentioned are such analogies as Vichy France, and the Algerian war of independence against France. Closer to home is Vietnam. Nationalist triumphalism was shunned and discredited in America after Vietnam. We were forced to see ourselves as others saw us, and it was not always pleasant. We understood, at least for a moment, the lie. But the plague of nationalism was resurrected during the Reagan years. It became ascendant with the Persian Gulf War, when we embraced the mythic and unachievable goal of a ‘‘New World Order.’’ The infection of nationalism now lies unchecked and blindly accepted in the march we make as a nation towards another war [the Iraq War], one as ill conceived as the war we lost in southeast Asia. (Hedges, 2003, p. 61)

When we think ‘‘the US and Vietnam,’’ we think first, US defeat, but also the so-called postwar ‘‘Vietnam syndrome’’ (the de facto ban on similar military aggression 1975 to early 1990s), and George H. W. Bush’s statement during the first Iraq War referring to this syndrome, ‘‘by God, we’ve kicked that.’’ And now with the second Iraq War begun in 2003, we have kicked it good, real good. Most societies never recover from the self-inflicted wounds made to their own culture during wartime. y This is why the wall of names that is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is so important. It was not a project funded or organized by the state but by those who survived and insisted we not forget. It was part of America’s battle back to truth, part of our desire for forgiveness. It ultimately held out to us as a nation the opportunity for redemption, although the state has prodded us back towards the triumphalism that led us into Vietnam.106

To continue with outsized historical analogies to ostensibly little local matters, let me elaborate on the comment I made earlier concerning those civil conflicts that have torn societies apart in recent history and that have been followed by some sort of so-called truth and reconciliation commission charged with working through collective trauma (Argentina, Rwanda, South Africa, Morocco). Such efforts occur in history, in real time; by definition they are imperfect. They are instances of political justice, which we can define as the intersection of justice – law – and politics – the art of the possible. Some, guilty as hell, get off scot-free. The little-bit-guilty are more often scapegoated. Some innocents are targeted, informed on, scores are settled. The reach of the proceedings are limited in time, in place. Few people, if any, are completely satisfied. The dead are not returned to life. Nonetheless, a scarring over, if not a healing, of sorts, occurs. People, communities, societies are enabled, enable themselves to come to terms with

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the past, a rough-and-ready resolution is arrived at, and nations move on into a future they have made different by their actions in the present. Likewise, in Champaign-Urbana so-called civic leaders and university administrators need to step up and take a stand. In particular, the history of the University of Illinois leadership throughout the years-long mascot controversy has been the failure of the leadership to lead. ‘‘While it is a poorly kept secret that many top UI administrators are tired of the Chief debate and would just as soon see the symbol dumped,’’ no one stepped up (Foreman, 2003).107 1997: ‘‘Show some moral leadership. y In short, ‘Do the right thing – Get Rid of the Chief’.’’108 2002: ‘‘The board [of trustees] needs to make a decision and stand by it.’’109 2004: ‘‘Illinois’ leaders must step up, get rid of Chief ’’ (Slezak, 2004). ‘‘The failure of the University of Illinois and its board of trustees to resolve the Chief llliniwek issue is evidence of a failure of leadership and shared governance at the university.’’110 2007: ‘‘By refusing to retire the mascot, at some level the university’s Board of Trustees tacitly condones the backlash on campus [such as the Facebook incident discussed above]. y The subtext in keeping the Chief amounts to a code of acceptance’’ (Wise, 2007). At the STOP forum in January 2007, The first question to [University President] White regarded his plans to change the use of Chief Illiniwek. His reply of appreciation for the forum was cut short by an ‘‘answer the question!’’ from the audience that drew applause. To answer, White declined to comment on what the Board of Trustees planned to resolve in 2007. y White, who seemed to be the crowd’s scapegoat for the night, endured more than a few interruptions and jeers from the audience. (Won, 2007)

October 2007: ‘‘In making the decision to allow Chief Illiniwek to return [for homecoming], [Chancellor] Herman acted in a manner of the inferior, following instead of leading’’ (Zirin, 2007). No doubt the costs of taking a stand are significant. In 2003 at the time of Trustee Frances Carroll’s ill-fated attempt to ban the mascot, thenChancellor Nancy Cantor said, ‘‘We sit here 50 years after the Brown v. Board decision, and this great country and this great university are still grappling with issues of race and inclusion. The delay is troubling to me, because this has been an extremely divisive issue that has held us back and unnecessarily clouded our future.’’111 To which the editor of the local, politically conservative newspaper responded, ‘‘to frame the Chief question in the context of Brown vs. Board of Education y is like trying to compare the Bataan Death March to a bad day at the office’’ (Foreman, 2003).112 No doubt current and past chancellors, and other leaders are sincere, yet

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polite public pronouncements – ‘‘My goal in moving forward is to lead a healing process for everyone’’ – do not cut it.113 (I write this during the waning months of George W. Bush’s second presidential term. The situation is so strikingly similar that the local appears to mimic the national, or is it vice versa?) Uncomfortable thought: at the same time, those of us who are educators have failed to educate, to educate many enough well enough soon enough. Yes, some of us have been doing all we can. Yet relative to the need, to what would have to be done, on balance we collectively have so far failed. Which raises the question: How do we educate? We might as well ask: How does learning happen? Education only occurs when people interact, come together on a relatively even playing field, when we move out of our comfort zone, think outside the box; when one person says or does something that connects, resonates, speaks to another. We have all experienced it: education is the a-ha moment when the coin drops, when we get it. I taught an undergraduate seminar several years ago with a dozen students, two of whom were African-American, one older than the other. We were all sitting around a big conference table having an animated, not to say heated, discussion with pro- and anti-Chiefers voicing their positions. The younger African-American spoke up in favor of the Chief. His older African-American classmate, forearms on the table, looked long and hard at him, and said, ‘‘Hey man, it’s all about ‘coons.’’ There was absolutely no comeback, no response by anyone. Q.E.D. The present moment is a teaching moment if there ever was one. What is necessary is a different perspective, to view the situation from a different angle, redskins analogous to ‘coons, ‘‘revered symbol’’ as racist mascot. Only by opening ourselves up to other viewpoints can we change our minds, their minds. Roger Ebert, Urbana native, University of Illinois grad, Chicago-based film critic, changed his mind. Chief Illiniwek is a positive, not a negative, symbol. y The Chief was created in goodwill, he is presented in goodwill, he is taken in goodwill, and there is nothing exploitative about him. (Ebert, 2001) I wrote an op-ed piece a week ago defending him [Chief Illiniwek] y and I realize it is time to think again. y I must listen again to what Native Americans are saying, and they are saying they feel wounded and dismayed by this depiction of their culture. If that is how they feel, then I must respect them. y It is time to move on y114

Apparently, NL learned. Illiniwek was some guy dressed up in a costume. Much like Santa Claus at the mall. Eventually, we all learned that Santa is not real, stopped our traditions of letter writing

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and leaving out milk and cookies, and went on with the rest of our lives y it doesn’t mean that Christmas was ruined forever.115

And so, too, did BG. I wanted to make one thing clear. I used to be pro-Chief. I’m a UI grad. My dad is an alum and used to take us to football games where we would reverently stand at attention as the chief ran out on the field. I followed suit by taking my kids to women’s basketball games where we would stand courtside, arms folded, as the chief performed. I used to think the chief truly was an honored symbol. Then, somewhere along the way, it dawned on me that the people we supposedly were honoring didn’t feel honored. When I saw that the Peoria tribe officially considered the chief to be demeaning, I started thinking that there was some weird kind of illogic in saying we were honoring a people that flat out did not want to be honored in the way we were honoring them. It just felt like we were saying to the Peoria that they were too ignorant/stupid to know that we were honoring them y ‘‘we’re honoring you people no matter how you feel about it.’’116

A 1998 faculty senate anti-Chief resolution noted the shift over time from viewing Chief Illiniwek as a ‘‘symbol’’ to a ‘‘mascot.’’ The University community is now aware that the caricature and impersonation of a Native American as the mascot of UIUC is a form of racial stereotyping.117

Historical observation: have you noticed that the drumming of the anti-Chief position has been so incessant in recent years that even still stolid pro-Chiefers have become increasingly aware of the anti-Chief arguments, in the process moving from a proactive to reactive stance? Responding to the racist mascot argument by saying, ‘‘I’m not racist,’’ for example. But what a hard sell! And such a slow, incremental one. What helps to change a person’s mindset, intellectually and politically, is other perspectives on sports mascots. Here our intellectual toolkit includes postcolonial studies notions ‘‘good to think’’ such as anthropomorphism, playing Indian, invented traditions, imperialist nostalgia, imagined communities, and noble savage. Chief Illiniwek is an extreme instance of anthropomorphism, ‘‘the ascription of human form or attributes to a thing or a being not human.’’ Pro-Chiefers who regard the Chief as real, a real person, who react emotionally to and form an emotional attachment to ‘‘him’’ are anthropomorphizing an ‘‘it’’ into a ‘‘him.’’ I am part Indian myself and I love nothing more than the SPIRIT of the Chief even if the dance isn’t real. All that matters is that he is real to me and makes me well up with pride for my University.118 I was born, lived, taught and grew up in Illinois. I know the Chief !119

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As I wrote some years ago, ‘‘Key y is that in the heart of the heart of Chief Illiniwek country, there is literally nothing, a historical absence, a nonperson. Chief Illiniwek is a sign without a historical referent, a freefloating signifier in a prairie-flat land wiped clean, erased of Native Americans. This makes the literalness with which pro-Chief supporters invoke and refer to Chief Illiniwek – as if it were a part of them – all the more of a conundrum’’ (Prochaska, 2001, p. 165). Except that ‘‘conundrum’’ is way too anodyne. Second, Chief Illiniwek exemplifies the much larger phenomenon of ‘‘playing Indian’’ (Deloria, 1998; Root, 1997): Boy Scouts, Eagle Scouts, Order of the Arrow, Order of Red Men, Campfire Girls, Woodcraft, Boston Tea Party. ‘‘White Indians’’: white New Agers playing Native American wannabes. And what is ‘‘playing Indian,’’ ‘‘playing native,’’ ‘‘playing an Other’’ all about? It is about play, for one thing, in the sense of dressing up, masquerade, the Bakhtinian carnivalesque (Bakhtin, 1984). It is also about appropriation, in the sense of taking on, assuming another’s identity, taking another’s identity. The implication here is replacing one with another, speaking for another, silencing another. Such appropriation is predicated on power, the power to appropriate; power is the necessary prerequisite for appropriation. Cultural appropriation is often counterpart to physical expropriation. ‘‘Indian play y necessarily went hand in hand with the dispossession and conquest of actual Indian people’’ (Deloria, 1998, p. 182). I want the tradition back, and I mean the real tradition, not the version put in place over the last 16 years. This really started down-hill when Terry Shepard ([former chancellor] Mort Weir’s ‘‘hitter on Indian questions’’) and Gary Smith supposedly fixed some ‘‘shortcomings’’ in the ‘‘Chief Illiniwek Tradition,’’ a written description of the tradition handed out to applicants for the role of Chief. That was all in the name of ‘‘accuracy and sensitivity.’’ Horse you-know-what! We need to call it what it was back then and still is: Illinois’ ‘‘redskin tradition’’. What’s wrong with that? And speaking of horses, I want the homecoming parades back with the Chief on a horse. I think [last Chief Illiniwek portrayer] Dan Maloney would look just fine on the back of a horse. Goodness, but haven’t we become so proper and correct that we can’t even play Indian.120

Yet for critics, playing Indian is exactly what the mascot does, and which makes it a throwback to an earlier era. Having recently moved here from Oregon, this was a new experience [witnessing Chief Illiniwek]. To say I was shocked when he came running out would be an understatement. It was so kitschy, so anachronistic, that I stood in slack-jawed amazement that a character could be portrayed as such a blatant stereotype, and is still in existence today. It was living, dancing example of what I remember as a child growing up on ‘50s Westerns. (Stewart, 2003)

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Did you all really believe John Wayne movies that much?121

Third, Chief Illiniwek is an invented tradition. Yes, pro-Chiefers view it as a sacrosanct and immutable, local and university tradition that goes back to 1926, celebrated as if every halftime performance was some sort of mini-July 4 commemoration. Following Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, however, we can say that Chief Illiniwek is a classic case of an ‘‘invented tradition,’’ a tradition ‘‘actually invented, constructed and formally instituted’’ (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1983, p. 1). This [eliminating Chief Illiniwek] wasn’t a case of a tradition becoming an anachronism. This was a pagan sacrifice on the altar of Political Correctness. When I graduated from the U of I, they played ‘‘Pomp and Circumstance.’’ Why? Because it’s a tradition at commencement ceremonies. It would have been y well y weird to have them play anything else. Our traditions are how we pass our culture on to the future generations [my emphasis DP].122 If you really believe tradition is how we pass on our culture, I suggest you read an article called ‘‘Invented Traditions’’ [sic]. Most traditions have no roots in the past whatsoever and are a recent creation.123

As a social construction, an ‘‘invented tradition’’ consists of ‘‘a set of practices y which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behavior by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past’’ (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1983, p. 1). In short, Chief Illiniwek is a tradition invented during halftime at an Illinois football game in 1926. As the leading figure spearheading the anti-Chief movement, Charlene Teters, put it, ‘‘You say ‘your Chief,’ of course he’s your Chief, you invented him’’ (Rosenstein, 1996).124 Fourth, Chief Illiniwek exemplifies imperialist nostalgia. Imperialist nostalgia occurs when ‘‘people mourn the passing of what they themselves have transformed’’ (Rosaldo, 1989, p. 69) An unconscious or ideologized reaction, imperialist nostalgia was first applied to anthropologists, missionaries, and other agents of change in the Philippines who denied to themselves complicity in changes occurring to the indigenous population that they themselves had been instrumental in bringing about. Similarly, those who consider Chief Illiniwek an ‘‘honored symbol’’ of the historical Illini are displaying imperialist nostalgia. First, white Americans ran the Illini out of Illinois. Second, current students and others wax nostalgic over what their forefathers wrought and transmute it into a commemoration of ‘‘what they themselves have transformed.’’ The Chief represents a symbol of imperialist nostalgia, not respect for Native American culture. There is something sick about thousands of Non-Native American fans screaming and cheering as a white male dressed in faux Native costumes dances and

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prances around in a mock Native American dance. y This ‘‘celbration’’ only represents nostalgia for a revisionist history regarding Native peoples. We like to remind ourselves that Natives were brave and strong, but like to forget that in the end, they were murdered in mass [sic] and sent to live on reservations – as noted above – while settlers took there [sic] land and legacies as part of their own ‘‘heritage.’’125

In short, ‘‘‘The chief ’ stereotype is that of a figure from the ‘golden age’ of Indians, a purer, more innocent time before Native culture was destroyed and altered by the coming of Europeans. This kind of imperialist nostalgia informs every aspect of ‘the chief ’’’ (Garza, 2007, p. 6). Fifth, the community to which Chief Illiniwek appeals is what we can call an ‘‘imagined community.’’126 ‘‘At precisely such moments [singing the national anthem], people wholly unknown to each other utter the same verses to the same melody.’’ Thus, the Chief standing with raised arms after his dance and the crowd singing the alma mater is an occasion ‘‘for the echoed physical realization of the imagined community.’’127 Sixth, Chief Illiniwek exemplifies the noble savage stereotype of native Americans. It is the flipside of the bloodthirsty savage stereotype. Although the noble savage stereotype is a ‘‘positive’’ image, while that of the bloodthirsty savage is a ‘‘negative’’ one, the key point is that they are both stereotypes. As such they are reductive, simplistic, and caricatural images that misrepresent more than they represent, miss more than they capture, of native American history past and present. At the end of the day, they tell us more about whites who invented the stereotypes than about those who are stereotyped. It was, and is, appropriate that Chief Illiniwek, the embodiment of the Red Men who had vanished before the overwhelming waves of White Men, should return to the land of their fathers. It is fitting that he should revisit the Illinois campus. In the name of his tribe and in memory of his forefathers and of the warriors who had struggled and died both in prehistoric and historic Illinois, it was proper and pleasing that the Chief should strut his stuff and perform his ancient ritualistic dances, in the lovely days of Indian Summer, while the Marching Band played weird incantations before the packed Stadium of contemporary Palefaces. (Burford, 1952, p. 407)

Chief Illiniwek as a noble savage goes to the core of the still-continuing controversy over whether it was a ‘‘symbol’’ or a ‘‘mascot.’’ Although Chief supporters retreated at least some on almost every other front, they were unyielding on the Chief as ‘‘symbol’’ versus ‘‘mascot.’’ Some seemed to acknowledge that the other side really did view the Chief as a mascot. But beyond that they were unwilling to go. The line throughout was that it was an ‘‘honored symbol.’’ ‘‘ ‘I don’t think it [the creation of the Chief ] was to honor us, because, hell, they ran our (butts) out of Illinois,’ as Chief Froman

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of the present-day Peoria put it.’’128 How can something so positive be viewed by some as negative, a bad thing? Admittedly, this is a tricky argument to make. And to be perfectly frank, I find intellectual explanations for the palpable, heartfelt, visceral feelings pro-Chiefers express for the mascot ultimately dissatisfying, wanting. Complicating matters is that, as former Yale chaplain William Sloan Coffin, Jr. once put it, what is emotionally rooted is not intellectually soluble. Certainly, playing Indian is broadly similar to minstrelsy, but our predecessors – not, of course, us – were meant to laugh at more than empathize with Amos and Andy and others of their caricatural ilk. And yes, in broadly general terms, identifying with the mascot is an anti-modern, nostalgic embrace of a now-defunct lifestyle, but the problem is that to say ‘‘broadly general’’ fails to connect satisfactorily with the real, live crowd in the stands. For me, Vine DeLoria, Jr., comes closest when he writes, ‘‘playing Indian gave white Americans y a jolt of self-creative power’’ (Deloria, 1998, p. 185). Yet I would guess this is only part of what pro-Chiefers would acknowledge they are feeling, if that.129 Uncomfortable thought: native American anti-Chiefers say they are genuinely hurt by the mascot; pro-Chiefers say they feel a genuine emotional bond to the Chief. Who is to say – and on what basis – that one reaction is less authentic than the other?130 Yet pro-Chiefers were and have been heaped with scorn and derision for not ‘‘getting it.’’ ‘‘I think people realize the ‘savage’ depictions are not okay, but only slowly are they realizing that good caricatures, the whole ‘honorable warriors who loved nature and are connected to the land’ and all that kind of thing, are also not okay.’’131 And again: The Chief portrays Native Americans as one dimensional cartoons, and no matter how high the pedestal upon which he’s placed, how many wonderful characteristics are attached to his name, or how honored his treatment, he’s still y a caricature. y It says, in effect, ‘as far as Indians go, we prefer our version.’132

‘‘Symbol’’ versus ‘‘mascot’’ is in short a classic case of talking past one another. Or, as Michael Be´rube´ says, it demarcates ‘‘as much a cultural divide as a political one.’’ on came the Chief himself [at a basketball game]. It was a profoundly cringe-inducing experience. y I turned to Nick [his son] and said, ‘‘never mind the debate about whether the Chief is racist – this stuff should be banned for sheer cheesiness alone.’’ y For as I watched and cringed and cringed some more, I noticed that sure enough, people around me were cheering and tearing up. And I began to think, this is as much a cultural divide as a political one, a divide between those with a liberal cringe reflex and those without. Surely, for my fellow Illinois fans, my visceral reaction to the Chief was just the mirror image of their visceral reaction to the Chief – except that mine was defined by what they

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would see as an elitist, nose-pinching PC rectitude that symbolizes everything wrong with liberal college professors. y Please, I thought, let this hopping-and-skipping minstrel show end, and let’s get back to basketball. I didn’t come here to meditate on town and gown – or on what we’d now call blue and red America.133

An instance of mutually unintelligible interpretive communities. Of there being no compromise possible, as Trustee Roger Plummer concluded in his report to the Board of Trustees.134 At base White people with good intentions believe they have the right to honor persons of color. White people can do this by appropriating symbols, images, and meanings that are associated with another group and its way of life. If the intentions of whites are honorable, then their actions are beyond reproach. Those who would criticize them, are engaging in cultural politics, in a form of political correctness. Hence the views of such critics can be dismissed.135

Yet this is already a twisted view of political correctness in the Illinois case. In an irony that could only be found in the bizarre lexicon of university political correctness, the group [Students for Chief Illiniwek] uses the word ‘‘symbol’’ instead of ‘‘mascot’’ because the term ‘‘mascot’’ is offensive to Chief Illiniwek. (Zirin, 2007)

Such views explain some of the twisted arguments and strange turns that the UI mascot controversy took. That a fiction, a thing was taken to be real, a person. That a cultural stereotype was ok, so long as it was a ‘‘positive’’ one. Thus, one reason, already discussed earlier, why folks were so angry when the Chief was done away with was that the noble ideals of honor, bravery, integrity personified by the mascot were being dishonored, disrespected, trampled on. A second argument heard after Chief Illiniwek was banned was that since ‘‘he’’ was a ‘‘positive’’ ‘‘symbol’’ and not a caricatural mascot, it would be far better to not replace ‘‘him’’ with anything instead of some ‘‘cute animal’’ mascot like other school mascots. Nullity squared, I guess you could say, a void within a void: refusing to replace with anything a thing that never existed to begin with. As far as what is next, I would recommend no mascot at all. After 80 years of the Chief being embraced as symbol of spirit, honor, and respect, any new portrayal of the University would be a sham.136 I feel like maybe that’s the only way to honor the Chief, by not having anything. y He will be missed.137 I hope this University will retire Chief Illiniwek and recognize the beloved Chief is the only deserving mascot for all time for this great University. There can be no replacement – anything less would be to blaspheme the legacy of one of college’s greatest symbols and institutions that meant so much to its alumni and community.138

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And from the other side: ‘‘I do think it’s time to move on and get a real mascot. Having a hole, encouraging people to resent what was taken from them and nurse anger, is not okay.’’139 A third, illogically logical argument was that although ‘‘we’’ believed in the nobility of the Chief, the tawdry reality of Indian life today, from casinos and alcohol abuse to Pine Ridge poverty, belies all the ‘‘good’’ that ‘‘he’’ represented. how about taking some pride, and show us how an Indian acts? All we see is discord, poverty and gambling insitituitons [sic]. At least the Chief was a since [sic] of pride for a lot of people, and we did not see him as an indian. he was bigger than that.140

A stereotype is a person ‘‘bigger than’’ a real Indian! Right. Our Chief did more to raise a positive image of the American and Midwest Indian than any other Indian symbol of our generation. It is a tragedy the vocal minority and politically correct elite doesn’t see it this way. Maybe they will understand when they wake up and see the only contemporary icon our children’s children will associate the American Indian with will be gambling casinos and Chief Wahoo. What a shame.141 I’m offended by Indian Casinos, I’m offended by Political Correctness run amoke [sic], I’m offended by racebating [sic] scaremongers, I’m offended by the ‘‘victim class’’ that always wants something at everyone else’s expense.142 so many of the give away, special rules like casinos, special treatment like the NCAAs rulings on Chief Illiniwek and preference programs for Native Americans are fueled by guilt and pity for past wrongs. As Native Americans bring more and more ‘‘victim checks’’ to the bank to be cashed the balance in that account is diminishing. It would be wise to spend the balance on something more substantive and profitable than Chief Illiniwek.143

In January 2007 the Oglala Sioux demanded the return of regalia worn by the mascot bought in the early 1980s. ‘‘If you want to get into cliche´s, the first thing that comes to my mind is Indian giver. y We bought it. It’s ours.’’144 To try and dispel some of the ‘‘positive’’ connotation of Chief Illiniwek, let me go into the history of the noble savage myth in somewhat greater detail. At the beginning of the film [Rosenstein, 1996], the following quote appears on the screen: ‘‘It has ever been the way of the white men in relation to the Indian, first, to sentimentalize him as a monster until he has been killed off, and second to sentimentalize him in retrospect as the noble savage.’’ (James Gray, ‘‘The Illinois,’’ 1940)145

The first point is that European notions of the primitive by the time of the Renaissance imagined ‘‘lands lying far away to the west or long ago in the past whose citizens dwelt in an ideal(ized) landscape and gentle climate in

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harmony with nature and reason.’’ These ideas ‘‘influenced the Renaissance explorers’ perceptions of the native peoples they encountered’’ and ‘‘shaped the vocabulary and the imagery the explorers and settlers used to describe their actual experience in the New World.’’146 Second, the noble savage myth came to the United States only in the nineteenth century – much later than Europe – because it was first necessary to physically eliminate native Americans as threats to colonization before they could be reinvented as noble. Just as it has been said that the Europeans could easily ennoble the Indian because of their remoteness from savage warfare, so commentators have argued that American authors and artists of the Eastern United States only conceived of the Indian as noble after that section of the country had eliminated its Indian problem.147

Significantly, less time transpired from the arrival of the noble savage idea in the United States to the invention of Chief Illiniwek in 1926, than from the ‘‘birth’’ to the ‘‘death’’ of the mascot. For the nineteenth-century arrival of the noble savage via Europe occurred – and this is the third point – at the same time as Indians were allegedly dying out. ‘‘To pity truly the poor dying Indian, American authors and artists had to transform him from a bloodthirsty demon into a Noble Savage.’’148 As painter George Catlin put it, Nature has nowhere presented more beautiful and lovely scenes, than those of the vast prairies of the West and of man and beast no nobler specimens than those who inhabit them – the Indian and the buffalo – joint and original tenants of the soil, and fugitives together from the approach of civilized man; they have fled to the great plains of the West, and there under an equal doom, they have taken up their last abode, where their race will expire and their bones will bleach together.149

Fourth, some native Americans qualified as noble savages more than others, and it was those who had ‘‘fled to the great plains,’’ the Plains Sioux, who came to apotheosize this stereotype. ‘‘Eventually the stalwart tribes peoples of the Plains became the quintessential American Indian in the eyes of the White citizens of the United States.’’150 Ultimately, the two primary white stereotypes of native Americans, the bloodthirsty savage and the noble savage, are two sides of the same coin, because they are both stereotypes. Eventually, both Indians go under; whether savage or noble, both are doomed. ‘‘Regardless of whether the Indian was savage or noble, he would inevitably be replaced by White civilization.’’151 Native Americans were forced out of Champaign county in 1832; Chief Illiniwek was invented nearly 100 years later, in 1926. The modern-day descendants of the former inhabitants of east central Illinois are the Peoria, who live in Oklahoma, yet Chief Illiniwek’s costume is Oglala

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Sioux.152 Chief Illinwek, a white boy playing Indian, wearing Oglala Sioux dress: Chief Illiniwek was the quintessential noble savage, ‘‘safely dead and historically past.’’153 Uncomfortable thought: to critique, give up the ‘‘noble savage’’ stereotype means viewing native Americans as less than ‘‘noble.’’ If they are not ‘‘savage,’’ then they are not ‘‘noble’’ either. They are just like other folks: some noble, some not so much, many not, just like any other human group. Therefore, all those New Age-y ‘‘positive’’ stereotypes – spirituality, connection to the earth – are equally in need of historical deconstruction. Corollary: so does this not mean that anti-Chiefers’ New Age-y ‘‘positive’’ emotions are structurally analogous, if not identical, to pro-Chiefers’ ‘‘positive’’ feelings?

 Different people proposed different ideas for moving on. One possibility for moving on is to stage a museum exhibition.154 I think having some exhibit about the tradition, if it clearly states where the tradition is from (i.e. people meant well, but it’s a Boy Scout Indian-in itself an extremely American traditional thing-and not actually educational about the people who did live near here), and keep some memorabilia, in a museum context, it could be a good thing.155

Good idea, except that an exhibition is not, ipso facto, unproblematic, as the writer above seems to assume. Recall the Enola Gay exhibition proposed then scuttled by the Smithsonian. A museum exhibition is all well and good, but it raises the question: Who owns the history? Who decides what is exhibited how with what signage? In short, an exhibition could be an excellent educational and esthetic tool, but it is not ipso facto a way of moving on and putting the matter to rest. In the process of mounting it, an exhibition is very likely to stir up the whole controversy all over again. A second possibility: What is in a name? Initially, I was going to conclude this essay by having some fun and discussing new proposed mascots: ‘‘spineless invertebrates,’’ a reference to the Board of Trustees; ‘‘cute animal mascot,’’ such as a baboon (‘‘That way, even if we’re losing, we can throw poop at the opposing team’’). One faculty member proposed HAL from the film 2001: I respectfully submit that we think of the Chief as a beloved but aging CEO of an old family company who has now begun to drool, force crazy decisions on the company, and make lewd and probably actionable remarks to women and people of color. Time moves on, culture changes, and it’s time for him to go. y In his place, I suggest you recruit the computer HAL from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. He is, after all, supposed to have

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been created in a computer lab on the Urbana campus y HAL would be ideal in several ways: he would publicize the university’s long history and current superiority in computer development, [and] his huge red eye and unforgettable synthesized voice could issue prophecies and commentary at halftime that would be every bit as compelling as the Chief.156

My own personal favorite is Farmbot. There are many things that Farm Bot stands for. For one thing, it stands for ‘‘Fing Awesome Robot Mascot.’’ What other university’s non-mechanized mascot would stand up to the awesome might of our gigantic metal hero? What other figure could we rally around at halftime to literally crush our foes on the gridiron and on the basketball court? What other symbol shoots corn out of his arm cannon and bottle rockets out of his stovepipe hat, resembling Illinois’ most honorable statesman and uniter, Abe Lincoln? y Let us all unite amid Farm Bot’s cries of ‘‘Let’s Cornhole ‘Em!’’157

But, again, I was missing the point. If the pro-Chiefers cannot have ‘‘him’’ (their ‘‘symbol’’), they do not want anything (some ‘‘cute animal’’ mascot). In other words, if not the Chief, who never existed, who was a blank, a void, but whom the pro-Chiefers brought to life, breathed into existence as a symbol, then no mascot, no nothing, because anything mascot-y would be unacceptable. Here again, the administration and Board of Trustees have mostly sidestepped the issue, and so, too, it must be said, have the anti-Chiefers for the most part. Sigh.

 Thus, to discuss or suggest new mascots is all well and good, but it is not going to happen, or is very unlikely. Since at least Frances Carroll’s 2003 resolution to the Board of Trustees, anti-Chiefers concentrated on getting rid of the Chief, the dance, the regalia and the logo, but have mostly been alright with retaining ‘‘Fighting Illini’’ so long as no visual image goes with it. As with the music discussed earlier, Chief Illiniwek and Fighting Illini are technically separate and distinct: Fighting Illini refers to soldiers from Illinois killed during the First World War.158 ‘‘Illini’’ was first used as the name of the student newspaper from 1874, and eight years later in 1882 the paper clearly explained the origins of the name. ‘‘Illini is but another form of the Indian word Illinois, and has the same meaning, i.e. ‘real men.’ Perhaps it is a French abbreviation of the term.’’159 From the campus newspaper the name spread to the students and alumni, and from there to the athletic teams. ‘‘In all cases, it was meant to evoke the name of the state as well as the state’s Native American origins.’’160 And there exactly is the rub: yes, Illini antedates Chief Illiniwek by a good 50 years, but they both evoke the name of the state’s former native American inhabitants.

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The ‘‘Fighting’’ in ‘‘Fighting Illini’’ came later, just before Chief Illinwek was invented. Trustee Plummer thinks that ‘‘the names [such as] Fighting Irish y are meant to suggest college teams that strive valiantly for victory.’’161 Three years later Trustees chair Eppley in appealing the NCAA’s ban on the mascot seemed to agree with Plummer. ‘‘‘Illini’ is taken from the name of our patron state and ‘Fighting Illini’ refers to our University’s winning spirit and drive to excel.’’162 Could it be that neither Plummer nor Eppley were aware that ‘‘Fighting’’ was added to ‘‘Illini’’ to commemorate Illinois’ World War I veterans? The following blogger has it right: Some have incorrectly linked Chief Illiniwek with the nickname Fighting Illini. Though many assume that both are based on Illinois’ Native American traditions, the name ‘‘Illini’’ was first associated with the school by the student newspaper. y The addition of the adjective ‘‘fighting’’ originated about five years before the appearance of Chief Illiniwek as a tribute to Illinois soldiers killed in World War I. Similarly, the on-campus football venue, Memorial Stadium, was named in honor of these fallen soldiers.163

There is just one problem: for most people most of the time Chief Illiniwek and Fighting Illini are indissolubly linked – just as with the music. Both were born in the same historical moment, the 1920s; they go hand in hand. Certainly the NCAA found it contradictory at least initially to ban the one and not the other, for in August 2005 it banned both the names Illini and Fighting Illini, and the Chief Illiniwek mascot as ‘‘hostile and abusive.’’ The University appealed and three months later in November the NCAA agreed that the names could be retained but kept Illinois on the sanctions list due to Chief Illiniwek.164 So, a narrow, technically accurate, legalistic distinction made between the two has inadvertently left the whole issue open, unresolved, in a liminal state.165 On the one hand, a goodly proportion of pro-Chiefers argues strenuously against any mascot replacing the Chief precisely because for them ‘‘he’’ is a revered symbol rather than some ‘‘cute animal’’ mascot. On the other hand, the UI administration has made no moves to add anything, to concretize in any way ‘‘Fighting Illini’’ – no image, no personification, no nothing. And finally, for most anti-Chiefers ‘‘the Chief ’’ was the main issue, only a minority pushed also to eliminate ‘‘Fighting Illini’’ and few, if any, anticipated any future problem.166 Certainly, Eppley hoped to avoid any future problem. The News-Gazette: Tell us at what moment you decided to make this statement [to get rid of the mascot], when did you know it was going to happen? Eppley: Last spring [2006]. Last spring we knew we won the names. It was important for a lot of people because a lot of people were confused over if we don’t have the Chief,

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what do we call ourselves? We’ve always tried to be clear, as far as we’re concerned, Illini and Fighting Illini are different from the Chief and we got the NCAA to agree.167

Yet the diehards die hard. Some say that after four years students graduating will have had no first-hand experience of Chief Illiniwek, and thus it will gradually die out. Others are doing what they can to keep it alive. Since the Chief ’s ‘‘Last Dance’’ in February 2007, a student group, Students for Chief Illiniwek, has held a ‘‘Next Dance’’ in both 2008 and 2009; there were anti-Chief protests both years. We will see.

NOTES 1. Initially, the Peoria were in favor of the Chief mascot. That changed in 2000 when the tribal council voted 3 to 2 in favor of a resolution calling on the ‘‘the leadership of the University of Illinois to recognize the demeaning nature of the characterization of Chief Illiniwek, and cease use of this mascots [sic].’’ They have been anti-Chief ever since. ‘‘Peoria Tribe of Oklahoma Request That UIUC Cease Use of Chief Illiniwek as Mascot’’ (April 13, 1999), cited in ‘‘Chief Illiniwek,’’ Wikipedia. 2. Leutwiler and Borchers were the first two students to play Chief Illiniwek in the 1920s, Livingston played the Chief mascot in the 1990s, and Maloney was the last Chief portrayer. 3. ‘‘I know I rushed to purchase Chief merchandise, and rightfully so. TIS [local bookstore] was full of people buying Chief items as fast as they could, many on cell phones w/loved ones asking for sizes etc.’’ Posted by Chris (February 16, 2007 at 2:30 pm) to Andrew Mason, ‘‘What’s next for UIUC?’’ Daily Illini (February 16, 2007). http://www.daily illini.com/blogs/ (Hereafter posts not otherwise identified are responses to the Daily Illini. See http://www.daily illini.com/blogs/). ‘‘I went out and got my Chief gear. Dropped a ton and none of it at the [University] bookstore.’’ Posted by Run On Merchandise (February 16, 2007 at 6:24 pm) to Mason, ‘‘What’s Next.’’ 4. A year earlier in 2004 the North Central Association, the body that accredits the University of Illinois, clearly stated that the mascot had to go, but refused to impose sanctions. ‘‘In separate observations that accompanied the formal report, the [accreditation] team y was clear in its desire to have the campus get rid of the Illiniwek symbol. ‘As the nation has moved over the last century to de-legitimize and reduce discrimination against minorities, it has become less tolerant of the use of stereotypes and language regarded as offensive by minorities and many others’, the team wrote. ‘If UIUC continues on course, it will be increasingly out of step with the times’.’’ Jim Paul, ‘‘Review team raps U. of I. on Illiniwek issue,’’ Chicago Sun-Times (August 25, 2004). Nine years before that in 1995 a discrimination suit lodged with the federal Department of Education resulted in a ruling that the mascot did not violate the civil rights of native Americans – not on the grounds that the mascot was not discriminatory, as pro-Chiefers claimed, but for lack of sufficient evidence. One of the plaintiffs, psychologist Dennis Tibbetts, wrote, ‘‘As an educator I find it inconceivable for reasonable university officials to expect Native Americans to

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feel welcomed and included into a campus community that uses their culture as a mascot or licensed trade mark to serve as a University logo. Furthermore, it is not reasonable to expect Native people who witness a non-Native person with face paint, in ceremonial regalia, dancing for people at a sporting event, to believe their culture is being respected and honored. y Chief Illiniwek’s performance coupled with the chief logo creates an atmosphere that unfairly places Native people into a position where they are not treated as modern day people who have a viable culture, but people of the past who entertain at sporting events and serve as logos for everything from letterhead to jackets’’ (1998 faculty senate resolution, http://www.retirethechief. org/Documents/ILsenate.html). 5. Board of Trustees president Lawrence Eppley quoted in Christine Des Garennes, ‘‘Eppley discusses timing of Chief decision,’’ News-Gazette (February 16, 2007). 6. Facebook website, since removed. A Web posting threatened Professor Stephen Kaufman, an outspoken critic of the mascot, to ‘‘expect some burning crosses on your lawn.’’ See Kari Lydersen (2007) and Matt Spartz (2007). 7. The forum also addressed sorority and fraternity theme parties such as ‘‘Tacos and Tequila’’ held fall 2007. For Chancellor Richard Herman’s campus-wide January 9, 2007, email in which he got behind the previously planned forum, see http:// www.nah.uiuc.edu/archived-news.htmhttp://www.nah.uiuc.edu/archived-news.htm 8. Pro-Chiefers blasted Eppley’s attempt to circumvent the Open Meetings Act, and castigated him and the Board for being spineless and failing to stand up for the Chief mascot. See later in text. 9. The recommendation to retire Chief Illiniwek was cut from the final report, ‘‘Framework for the Future,’’ issued in spring 1995. 10. The vote was 97 to 29. Already by 2000, the following departments and academic units had passed similar resolutions calling for the end of the Chief: Anthropology, History, College of Medicine, Center for African Studies, Psychology, Social Work, School of Life Sciences, Sociology, English, School of Life Sciences, and Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences. 11. Emphasis added. Actually, I have cut the second part of the sentence, which reads: ‘‘and discontinue licensing Native American Indian symbols as representations of the University.’’ Thus, the resolution went a step further to ban licensing the logo and other symbols. 12. Emphasis added. When the mascot was eliminated in early 2007 Chancellor Richard Herman was tasked by the Board of Trustees with resolving remaining issues concerning trademark rights to the name, logo and other activities associated with the mascot, such as the music played during the performance (see later in text). In outlining how he planned to proceed, Herman ironically used the exact same wording as Carroll’s heavily criticized resolution four years earlier: ‘‘I have initiated a comprehensive process and intend to move expeditiously, all the while keeping in mind the board’s stated goal of honorable retirement [emphasis added], ‘‘Chief Illiniwek: The End of An Era,’’ Illinois Alumni Magazine, vol. 19 no. 6 (May/June 2007). 13. On a copy of Carroll’s resolution alumnus John Gainer wrote, ‘‘Part of my heritage is the war dance at halftime by Chief Illiniwek. Why destroy my heritage?’’ (sent to Board of Trustees, November 11, 2003).

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14. Subtitle to Daily Illini Staff Report, ‘‘One Dance Left,’’ Daily Illini (February 19, 2007). 15. The only text on page 1, Daily Illini (February 22, 2007). 16. Posted by Alumnus Joel (February 16, 2007 at 10:26 pm) to Eric Naing, ‘‘RIP: The Chief,’’ Daily Illini (February 16, 2007). 17. Posted by illinijd76 (February 17, 2007, 9:47 am) to Christine Des Garennes, ‘‘Eppley discusses timing of Chief decision,’’ News Gazette (February 16, 2007). 18. Jrocke217, Male 27 years old, Mahomet, Illinois, ‘‘Kornfields & Metal in the Ghetto.’’ 19. See Brian Klein, ‘‘Retirement greeted by a polarized public unafraid to weigh in on issue,’’ Daily Illini (February 19, 2007). 20. Patrick Wade, ‘‘Students rally in support of the Chief,’’ Daily Illini (February 19, 2007). 21. In the first three months of 2007 as the mascot controversy came to a climax, 77, 20, 26, 43, 45, 45, 57, and 63 responses, respectively, were posted to eight articles alone in the Daily Illini and News Gazette. In early 2008 during the events occurring around the first year anniversary of the ban, and which I discuss later as the ‘‘resurrection’’ of the Chief, an additional 68, 22, 28, 27, and 111 responses, respectively, were posted to another five articles. This is by no means an exhaustive or comprehensive tally of all the articles and posts. In addition, several petitions were put up on the Internet. A ‘‘Save the Chief!’’ petition garnered 15,505 signatures (http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/987672837?ltl ¼ 1172801140), and one to ‘‘Save Chief Illiniwek!’’ obtained 17,463 names (http://www.petitiononline.com/ mod_perl/signed.cgi?savchief). A petition that called on anti-Chief Professor Steven Kaufman to resign (he was already retired) was signed by 3,436 individuals (http:// www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/316267750?ltl ¼ 1161138603). One ‘‘Save the Chief!’’ signatory wrote, ‘‘Im only 11 years old. And I cried for at least 2–3 hours after the chief walked of the court. I am not a negative person at all but the antichiefs should read all 15,000 some signatures and what it means to those people. y I have wanted to be the chief for at least 5 years now but when i heard the news i about collapsed. I was so mad and sad i couldnt even cry. I SAY BRING THE CHIEF BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’’ Posted by Trey Reidel, Normal, IL (August 6, 2007, 9:36 pm). 22. Posted by Larry Rauch, St Augustine, FL (February 18, 2007, 4:26 pm) to Jodi Heckel, ‘‘Chief portrayer had hoped common sense would win,’’ News Gazette (February 18, 2007). 23. Posted by FormerChiefIlliniwek (February 17, 2007, 12:03 pm) to Garennes, ‘‘Eppley discusses.’’ 24. Posted by bfair (February 18, 2007, 12:17 pm) to Heckel, ‘‘Chief portrayer.’’ 25. Quoted in Schenk (2007a). 26. Posted by illinijd76 (February 17, 2007, 9:47 am) to Garennes, ‘‘Eppley discusses.’’ 27. Posted by dntown (February 17, 2007, 3:51 pm) to Garennes, ‘‘Eppley discusses.’’ 28. Posted by Plainswarrior (February 17, 2007, 1:30 am) to Garennes, ‘‘Eppley discusses.’’

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29. Posted by Skoeberlein (February 17, 2007, 6:47 am) to Garennes, ‘‘Eppley discusses.’’ 30. Posted by William Price (March 13, 2007, 11:30 am) to Kathleen Foody, ‘‘Trustees ratify Feb. 16 decision to retire Chief Illiniwek.’’ Daily Ilini (March 13, 2007). 31. Posted by Kara (February 16, 2007, 10:19 am) to Vasanth Sridrahan, ‘‘Chief, Retired?’’ Daily Illini (February 15, 2007). 32. Posted by Jeff in Alabama (March 13, 2007, 5:31 pm) to Foody, ‘‘Trustees ratify.’’ 33. Posted by isaacarms (February 18, 2007, 7:05 pm) to Heckel, ‘‘Chief Portrayer.’’ 34. Posted by Truth (February 18, 2007, 11:29 pm) to Heckel, ‘‘Chief Portrayer.’’ 35. Posted by Nonesuch (February 19, 2007, 12:55 pm) to Heckel, ‘‘Chief Portrayer.’’ 36. Posted by Mikki (February 16, 2007, 8:41 am) to Sridrahan, ‘‘Chief, Retired?’’ 37. Posted by jmayer (February 17, 2007, 11:08 am) to Garennes, ‘‘Eppley Discusses.’’ 38. Posted by Tom Matyas (February 18, 2007 at 9:54 am) to Andrew Mason, ‘‘Your letters about the Chief update,’’ Daily Illini (February 17, 2007). 39. Posted by honor9chief (February 16, 2007, 9:15 pm) to Garennes, ‘‘Eppley discusses.’’ 40. On the other side, anti-Chiefers criticized the University for the money spent on defending the mascot for so long and so hard. 41. Posted by cbebt01 (February 17, 2007, 10:03 am) to Christine Des Garennes, ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’s last dance set for Feb.21,’’ Daily Illini (February 16, 2007). 42. Posted by Eng. Graduate (January 18, 2008, 10:52 am CST) to Eric Anderson, ‘‘Council of Chiefs Opens Tryouts,’’ Daily Illini (January 18, 2008). 43. Posted by mustwhiz (February 16, 2007, 12:53 pm) to Garennes, ‘‘Chief ’s Last Dance.’’ 44. Posted by jmayer (February 17, 2007, 11:08 am) to Garennes, ‘‘Eppley discusses.’’ 45. Posted by Heather (February 19, 2007, 5:31 pm) to Mason, ‘‘What’s next.’’ 46. Posted by Paul S. (February 21, 2008, 3:44 pm) to Wool (2008). 47. Posted by Frank Dutton (February 16, 2007, 7:07 pm) to Foody, ‘‘Trustees ratify.’’ 48. Posted by tcheatum (February 16, 2007, 5:26 pm) to Foody, ‘‘Trustees ratify.’’ 49. Jen Tayabji quoted in Paola Cisneros ‘‘Chief Illiniwek Issue Steps Closer to Vote by Students,’’ Daily Illini (February 11, 2008). 50. Posted by Mallory (February 21, 2008, 2:46 pm) to Wool (2008). 51. Posted by RegularGuy (February 17, 2007, 3:02 pm) to Naing, ‘‘RIP: The Chief.’’ 52. Alfred Hendron, 69, of Mahomet, retired UI professor of civil engineering quoted in Schenk (2007b). 53. Posted by Jack65 says (February 17, 2007, 12:31 pm) to Mason, ‘‘What’s next.’’

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54. Posted by RegularGuy says (February 16, 2007, 11:03 pm) to Naing, ‘‘RIP: The Chief.’’ 55. Posted by Chuck (February 17, 2007, 10:13 pm) to Naing, ‘‘RIP: The Chief.’’ 56. Posted by Anonymous (February 19, 2007, 4:08 pm) to Mason, ‘‘Your Letters.’’ 57. Posted by Jason (February 16, 2007, 2:06 pm) to George Knue, ‘‘Let It Go,’’ in ‘‘What’s Goin’ On, Chicago Sports Blog’’ (blogs.chicagosports.chicagotribune.com). 58. ‘‘That should be the criteria: If an ethnic group approves, it’s good. If an ethnic group doesn’t approve, it’s bad’’ (Morrissey, 2003). But who decides and how: a representative body or a vote open to all? If the latter, a plurality of the entire ethnic group or simply of those casting votes? During the 2000 mascot ‘‘dialogue,’’ ‘‘we were finding that 75% of the people in that Native American category favored retention of the Chief,’’ although the unreliability of the data was emphasized by those collecting it (Garippo Report, Addendum, p. 69). Yet national opinion polls of native Americans in recent years ‘‘have not been much help’’ (‘‘Chief Illiniwek,’’ Wikipedia). A Harris poll found over 80% favored Indian mascots, whereas a comparable percentage in a poll by Indian Country Today, a native American newspaper, opposed such mascots. 59. Posted by Joe S. (February 16, 2007, 12:39 pm) to Knue, ‘‘Let It Go.’’ 60. Note how the anger is displaced here onto an external object. 61. Posted by Lanse (February 16, 2007, 9:22 pm) to ‘‘Text of UI announcement on Chief Illiniwek,’’ News-Gazette (February 16, 2007). 62. John Gadau quoted in Wise (2007). 63. Wise, 2007. Earlier Florida State University mascots Sammy Seminole and Chief Fullabull, played by white undergraduates, were banned by 1972. They were replaced by the historical Seminole chief Osceola, again played by a white student, and his horse Renegade. FSU makes various payments and contributions to the Seminoles, and in exchange the Seminoles agree to the use of the Seminole name and mascot antics by the university. Because the Seminoles have gone on record as okaying use of their name, the NCAA pretty much had to go along: ‘‘The decision of a namesake sovereign tribe, regarding when and how its name and imagery can be used, must be respected even when others may not agree.’’ Quoted in Wieberg (2005). 64. Chapin Rose quoted in Schenk (2007b). 65. ‘‘He has proposed legislation calling for the association to be charged a 10-percent tax on revenues it earns in the state. Mr. Rose argues that the low graduation rates among men’s basketball players show that the NCAA has abandoned its educational mission and therefore does not deserve its tax-exempt status. y Mr. Rose acknowledges that his tax proposal is directly in response to the Chief Illiniwek controversy.’’ See Peter Schmidt (2007). 66. Posted by Bob (March 13, 2007, 12:01 pm) to Foody, ‘‘Trustees ratify.’’ 67. See, for example, Daily Illini Staff Report, ‘‘One Dance Left.’’ 68. Posted by Robot (March 13, 2007, 12:22 pm) to Foody, ‘‘Trustees ratify.’’ 69. Posted by RegularGuy (February 16, 2007, 11:03 pm) to Naing, ‘‘RIP: The Chief.’’ 70. Tom Maloney quoted in Schenk (2007a). 71. C. Ruthman (February 16, 2007, 10:06 pm) to Foody, ‘‘Trustees ratify.’’

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72. John Gadau, a Champaign lawyer and member of the Honor the Chief Society who has spent thousands of dollars on billboards denouncing former Chancellor Nancy Cantor, ‘‘Keep the Chief. Dump Cantor,’’ and located on the highway leading from the airport into town, quoted in Wise (2007). This article was published more than two weeks before the Board banned the mascot. 73. Posted by Tom (February 16, 2007, 3:02 pm) to Naing, ‘‘RIP: The Chief.’’ 74. Posted by dntown (February 17, 2007, 3:51 pm) to Garennes, ‘‘Eppley Discusses.’’ 75. Posted by mbeesley (February 16, 2007, 3:33 pm) to Garennes, ‘‘Chief ’s Last Dance.’’ 76. You Said Anonymous Posting Is Allowed (February 18, 2007, 6:35 pm) to Mason, ‘‘What’s next.’’ 77. Posted by illinijd76 (February 16, 2007, 12:58 pm) to Garennes, ‘‘Chief ’s Last Dance.’’ 78. Happy Alum (January 18, 2008, 3:23 pm) to Anderson, ‘‘Council of Chiefs.’’ 79. Posted by Louie (February 16, 2007, 8:36 pm) to Garennes, ‘‘Chief ’s Last Dance.’’ 80. Posted by RegularGuy (February 16, 2007, 10:45 pm) to Mason, ‘‘What’s next.’’ 81. Posted by Brian (February 17, 2007, 6:08 am) to Mason, ‘‘What’s next.’’ 82. Posted by Alumni (March 13, 2007, 11:14 am) to Foody, ‘‘Trustees ratify.’’ 83. Posted by illinijd76 (February 17, 2007, 9:47 am) to Garennes, ‘‘Eppley Discusses.’’ 84. Posted by Dan Nelson – 1987 (February 17, 2007, 5:04 pm) to Vasanth Sridrahan, ‘‘All things Chief-Open Meeting Act,’’ Daily Illini (February 16, 2007). 85. Posted by Brian (February 16, 2007, 11:29 am) to Knue, ‘‘Let It Go.’’ 86. Roger Huddleston, a local home builder and the president of the Honor the Chief Society, quoted in Wise, 2003. Not only does the logic get twisted, it gets jumbled, too. ‘‘The NCAA is racist to call him a mascot, and to ban him reeks of ethnic cleansing. It’s far less disrespectful than state governments forcing the association of Native Americans with addictive vices like gambling.’’ Posted by Charlie (February 16, 2007, 1:44 PM) to Knue, ‘‘Let It Go.’’ 87. Posted by TheSquire (January 18, 2008, 12:01 pm) to Anderson, ‘‘Council of Chiefs.’’ 88. ‘‘Trustee Sperling acknowledged the heartfelt sentiments of pro chief people, saying he felt that way at one time, too, and is sad that it has to end, but that it is important to let it go and move on y Trustee Montgomery (newly appointed) y [stated] this is a MORAL issue and is about doing what is right,’’ Debbie Reese blog (March 13, 2007), http://nativeperspectiveonchiefilliniwek.blogspot.com/2007_03_ 01archive.html 89. ‘‘The school will retain the name ‘Fighting Illini’ – and remake ‘Illini’ such that it does not have any Native imagery or association. Whether they will be successful or not is a question and concern. y It is my preference that they get rid of ‘Illini’ too and begin anew with an entirely new sports team name, logo, and mascot,’’ Debbie Reese blog (March 13, 2007). 90. Quoted in Maiellaro and Spalding (2007).

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91. Prof. Antonia Darder, open letter to Chancellor Richard Herman (October 25, 2007), http://www.nah.uiuc.edu/mascot-news.htm 92. Maiellaro and Spalding (2007). 93. Contrasting the national with the local press, it seems clear that the farther away from Champaign-Urbana, the more support for the mascot dropped off. 94. Recent case of anti-Semitic content on Urbana Public Television, which city counsel argued had to be allowed legally (Monson, 2008b). For a comparison of the controversies over anti-Semitic videos broadcast on Urbana Public Television and the Chief Illiniwek mascot in terms of free speech versus hate crimes, see Fields (2008). 95. http://www.studentsforchief.com/. 96. In 1928, two new marches written for the University band, ‘‘Pride of the Illini March’’ and ‘‘March of the Illini,’’ were added to the alma mater, ‘‘Hail to the Orange,’’ and telescoped together to form a trilogy, the so-called ‘‘Three in One,’’ still used today. ‘‘University of Illinois Chief Illiniwek Auditions’’ (January 22, 1993). Manuscript, Chief Illiniwek reference folders, University of Illinois Archives. 97. Megan Myers quoted in Wool (2008). 98. Miranda Jimenez quoted in Wool (2008). In response, one person wrote, ‘‘You have arrogant types like Ms. Jiminez [sic] still whining and preaching about ‘‘white male elitists’’ – only now it is because the band music doesn’t suit here [sic] ‘‘taste.’’ Just who the bloody h–l is Ms. Jiminez? Clearly she’ll only be happy when people like her become the supreme and final arbiters of what can be said, played, shown, etc. on campus – in other words, the majority will kowtow to eltists [sic] like her. And by the way, Ms. Jiminez, the ‘‘white male elitists’’ (and their families) still constitute 70% of this country’s population – and are getting damn tired of being pushed around by minority groups who think they are the new royalty.’’ Posted by Old Illini (February 21, 2008, 11:40 am) to Wool (2008). 99. ‘‘Chief Briefs,’’ Daily Illini (February 22, 2007), p. 7A. 100. Posted by Brent (February 29, 2008, 7:39 am CST) to Andy Kwalwaser, ‘‘Chief referendum draws large amount of support,’’ Daily Illini (February 29, 2008). ‘‘The 78% in favor of the Chief is a good indication that the percentage would have climbed even higher if all students had voted. And students, that only proves what has been evident all along – this University’s Board of Trustees does not ultimately serve you first and foremost. They serve the almighty dollar that goes hand in hand with the NCAA. In this instance, the NCAA is our daddy.’’ 101. Posted by gdkgeo (February 18, 2007, 11:23 am) to Heckel, ‘‘Chief Portrayer.’’ 102. Posted by Julia (February 19, 2007, 1:13 am) to Mason, ‘‘What’s next.’’ 103. UI Chancellor Richard Herman, quoted in ‘‘End of an Era,’’ Alumni magazine, May/June 2007. 104. In the case of Algeria see, for example, Benjamin Stora (1992). 105. See Paxton (1972). 106. Hedges, War, pp. 80–81. 107. Note that this was written in 2003. 108. Letter by Morton Winston, University alumnus and Chair of the Board of Amnesty International USA, to Susan Granvenhorst, Board of Trustees chair, July 16, 1997, one day after Jay Rosenstein’s In Whose Honor? aired on national TV (quoted in 1998 faculty senate resolution).

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109. Trustee Roger Plummer at the time he issued the Plummer Report, quoted in Sharita Forrest, ‘‘‘No compromise’: Plummer’s report – Options are to retain or retire the Chief,’’ Inside Illinois, 21, 16 (March 21, 2002). 110. Report by North Central Association, the accreditation agency for the University, quoted in Heckel (2004). 111. Quoted in Wood (2003). 112. Cantor came closest to taking an unequivocal stand and was literally run out of town as a result. She is currently president of Syracuse University. 113. Four months after making this statement Chancellor Herman reversed his earlier position on the Homecoming policy discussed earlier. 114. Ebert quoted in Norman Denzin, ‘‘Redskins and Chiefs,’’ pp. 184–212 in his Performance Ethnography, (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2003) at pp. 205–206. The chapter title is ‘‘Redskins and Chiefs.’’ 115. Posted by NL (February 19, 2007, 12:02 pm) to Mason, ‘‘What’s next.’’ 116. Posted by BG the TB (March 01, 2008, 6:29 pm) to Kwalwaser, ‘‘Chief referendum.’’ ‘‘As an alum who once had a very long and enlightening conversation with a Native American over the fact that I was wearing a t-shirt with the Chief on it, I am glad to see this symbol retired. I ceased wearing anything with the Chief on it years ago, and I never understood the purpose of having a white guy dressed up as a Native American perform at sporting events. The Chief is representative of an era that is past and no longer has a place in the 21st century.’’ Posted by illinoisalum (February 16, 2007, 1:07 pm) to Knue, ‘‘Let It Go.’’ ‘‘In yesterday’s News-Gazette, in regards to the ‘Chief,’ Trustee Sodemann was quoted as saying ‘Unless you’ve lived here, you probably don’t fully understand.’ I have lived here, for almost 22 years – I was born and raised in Champaign. The University of Illinois has always been an important part of my community. I grew up loving Illinois athletics, and I grew up loving the Chief. It was hard for me to realize that the ‘Chief’ was wrong. As a child, coming to athletic events, I thought the ‘Chief’ was fabulous. The message I got growing up in this community was that the ‘Chief ’ honored and celebrated the culture of Native Americans. y I learned that the dance was authentic; I learned the chop. I learned a lie. It took a long time before I was willing to listen to the other side. But I realized that for me, as a Muslim, if there were a caricature of our religious leader dancing around at halftime, I would not feel honored. And I realized why the ‘Chief’ does not honor Native Americans. I have lived here, and I do fully understand – I fully understand that the Chief is wrong’’ (Imran Rashid, address to Board of Trustees, November 13, 2003). See also Craig (2005) and Dossett (2005). 117. 1998 Faculty Senate resolution. The resolution continues, ‘‘For over seventy years, University of Illinois students, faculty, and alumni considered the Chief an appropriate symbol for our great University. When the Chief danced at athletic events students, faculty, and alumni thought they were honoring the Native Americans who once lived here y [Some alumni] maintain that students at the University learn about Native Americans from the Chief. More recently, the University community has gradually come to realize that the image and performance of the Chief raise serious concerns. It is now clear that the Chief ’s costume and dance are not authentic. Native Americans tell us that Chief Illiniwek is a stereotyped image. In 1995 Joseph Gone, a Native American of the Gros Ventre tribe and graduate student in psychology wrote: ‘The Illini were Woodlands people – not

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Plains people – and as a result evidenced an entirely different material culture than the Lakota people whose clothing the current Chief dons. The Chief ’s dance was reportedly derived from a Lakota ritual known as the Devil’s Dance and taught to Lester Leutwiler by Sioux people in Colorado as part of a scouting project’.’’ The oft-repeated pro-Chief argument that the mascot educates whites about native Americans can be traced all the way back to the Boy Scout handbook. As such, it is directly related to playing Indian. 118. Posted by Heather (February 19, 2007, 5:31 pm) to Mason, ‘‘What’s Next.’’ 119. Posted by lrauch (February 18, 2007, 4:26 pm) to Heckel, ‘‘Chief Portrayer.’’ 120. Posted by Opinions (February 18, 2007, 1:18 pm) to Heckel, ‘‘Chief Portrayer.’’ 121. Greg Tafoya, Tewa people, Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico, email to Michelle Thompson, Board of Trustees (September 2, 2004). He continues, ‘‘Its time for your state, and your university to set an example by stopping the use of Native Americans (myth or factual) as symbolic mascots. Its time for you to stop living in the 1920s when racism was largely accepted. Its time for you to honor my people by admitting that this wrong. We deserve better than to be represented by stereotypical dances, outfits and war cries.’’ 122. Posted by RegularGuy (February 17, 2007, 3:02 pm) to Mason, ‘‘Whats Next.’’ 123. Posted by Kathleen (February 17, 2007, 6:28 pm) to Mason, ‘‘Whats Next.’’ 124. This is acknowledged, with no apparent understanding, in the following. ‘‘The Chief is a symbol, not a mascot as some would call him. He is our symbol. We created him.’’ Melissa J. Abel, email to Michelle Thompson, Board of Trustees (October 25, 2003). 125. Posted by l. crittenden (February 16, 2007, 2:10 pm) to Knue, ‘‘Let It Go.’’ 126. See Anderson (1983). 127. Anderson, Imagined Communities, p. 132. 128. Chief Ron Froman of the Peoria quoted in Zirin (2007). 129. For a longer and more detailed, yet in the end perhaps no more satisfying discussion, see Prochaska (2001), pp. 167–169. ‘‘What exactly is going on with ‘the Chief’, between the crowd and ‘the Chief’? Could there be some faint memory trace across the generations, some physiological synapse that is triggered? Nonsense, and yet many commentators claim to see some link, some connection between the crowd, ‘the Chief’, and native Americans. y The problem here is to link past and present in a historically satisfying manner, to connect event and structure, to link the individual with a larger collectivity, to combine a social analysis with a cultural interpretation. Look at it this way. The white conquest and defeat of Native Americans by whites during the nineteenth century, marked at the century’s end by the closure of the frontier, which in effect undermined the raison d’eˆtre of Manifest Destiny, constitutes a historical break or rupture of paramount significance that can be viewed as an original or primordial trauma in the Freudian sense. Trauma, for Freud, is characterized by continual return, the ‘return of the repressed’, which ‘acts-out’ but does not resolve the original traumatic event until and unless it is ‘worked-through’. Invented little more than a generation after the final defeats of Native Americans by whites, part of the cultural work Chief Illiniwek performs is staging this historical trauma. y Therefore, what is significant is not the invention of Chief Illiniwek in 1926 (production), but that

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he ‘took off,’ resonated with Illini fans then and now (reception). y The Chief ’s dance reinvokes the once-threatening Indian as noble and savage, and the resolution acts out white conquest as ‘anti-conquest’, that is, as pacific conquest: smoking a peace pipe in 1926 and walking arm-in-arm off the field with Penn, singing the alma mater in communal unison today. Key, however, is that the ‘Chief ’s acting out does not satisfactorily resolve the disjuncture between past Native American reality and present Chief Illiniwek myth. y The ‘Chief’ displaces but does not work through the original historical rupture or trauma; he can only continually return to ‘play Indian’ over and over at half-time. This is why ‘the Chief’ is a generic Indian rather than a historical individual. This is why he is ‘warlike’ and the team is named the ‘Fighting Illini’. This is why he wears Plains Indians Sioux regalia – the ‘noble savage’ apotheosized – rather than Woodlands Illiniwek clothing. This is why whites, preferably Eagle Scouts, and not Native Americans must play the Chief, for Chief Illiniwek is literally a story whites tell about themselves, part of their cultural construction of ‘whiteness’. Not only is Chief Illiniwek not a Native American, he is not about a Native American or even Indians generally, but about Indianness and how it figures as a constitutive element of whiteness.’’ 130. See above for discussion of Joan Scott on the evidence of experience (Scott, 1996). On the one hand, ‘‘I believe that if someone states they are being hurt physically, or mentally by consistently damaging the image of their culture, heritage and tradition, the abuser should stop the cycle of that pain. Why is that so hard to understand?’’ (Rhonda Hunter, email to Michelle Thompson, Board of Trustees secretary, May 12, 2005). On the other hand, ‘‘I can’t attend a U of I game without thinking of the Chief ’s appearance bringing a tear to my father’s eyes, and now it has the same effect on me’’ (Dean Hinueber, email to Michelle Thompson, Board of Trustees secretary, August 31, 2004). 131. Itazurakko! (February 19, 2007, 11:01 am) to Mason, ‘‘What’s Next.’’ 132. Tom Garza, ‘‘Some thoughts about the ‘Chief’’’ (December 4, 2003), http:// www.retirethechief.org/Letters/TG120403.html 133. Michael Be´rube´, former UI professor of English, blogging about a 1997 mascot performance, ‘‘Hail to the Chief’’ (March 31, 2005), http://www.michaelberube. com/index.php/weblog/hail_to_the_chief 134. ‘‘Seeking a Compromise – Chief Illiniwek. A Report by Trustee Roger Plummer to the University of Illinois Board of Trustees (March 13–14, 2002), http:// www.uillinois.edu/trustees/plummerreport/index.html. Two years later in 2004 the Board of Trustees reversed course yet again and resolved to arrive at a ‘‘consensus conclusion’’ of the mascot controversy, a position that even pro-Chiefers found confusing and contradictory. 135. Denzin, Performance Ethnography, p. 136. ‘‘I am sad to hear U of I will be retiring the chief. I thought him to be a reverent and respectful representative of a fine University that I am proud to call my alma mater. I guess I just do not understand at all why Native Americans find him offensive. He has never been portrayed as a comical caricature, and has always been presented in the very best light. Maybe it is better that he is retired – that way, the Illini tribe and their descendents can be completely forgotten about. Maybe it is better to not honor or remember a tribe of people who are obviously narrow-minded and have a skewed, self-serving agenda. I do not want my great university to be associated with such nonsensical people who

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cannot or do not want to comprehend an honor that has been bestowed upon them.’’ Posted by Mary (February 16, 2007, 2:30 pm) to Knue, ‘‘Let It Go.’’ 136. Posted by John (1999) (February 18, 2007, 11:18 am) to Mason, ‘‘Your Letters.’’ 137. Kara Holzgraefe quoted in Schenk (2007b). 138. Posted by mcdchi (February 18, 2007, 7:52 pm) to Heckel, ‘‘Chief Portrayer.’’ 139. Posted by Itazurakko! (February 19, 2007, 11:01 am) to Mason, ‘‘What’s next.’’ 140. Posted by karlyn1219 (February 17, 2007, 6:28 am) to Garennes, ‘‘Eppley Discusses.’’ ‘‘Why is it acceptable to have their Native American names and traditions associated with casinos (alcohol and gambling) but not with a great university such as ours??????’’ Melissa J. Abel, email to Michelle Thompson, Board of Trustees secretary (October 25, 2003). 141. Posted by mcdchi (February 18, 2007, 7:52 pm) to Heckel, ‘‘Chief Portrayer.’’ 142. Posted by J Skater (February 19, 2007, 1:38 pm) to Naing, ‘‘RIP: The Chief.’’ 143. Posted by LYN (February 19, 2007, 1:00 am) to Heckel, ‘‘Chief Portrayer.’’ 144. Local lawyer and pro-Chief contributor John Gadau, quoted in Wise (2007). 145. Quoted in Garippo, history of controversy, http://www.uillinois.edu/ trustees/dialogue/report_files/V.html 146. Berkhofer, White Man’s Indian, pp. 72–73. 147. Berkhofer, White Man’s Indian, p. 88. 148. Berkhofer, White Man’s Indian, p. 88. 149. Catlin quoted in Berkhofer, White Man’s Indian, p. 89. 150. Berkhofer, White Man’s Indian, p. 89. 151. Berkhofer, White Man’s Indian, p. 92. 152. After living with the Oglala Sioux for several weeks in the 1840s, historian Francis Parkman certainly did not view them as noble savages. See Berkhofer, White Man’s Indian, p. 95 153. Berkhofer, White Man’s Indian, p. 90. 154. Posted by Itazurakko! (February 19, 2007, 11:01 am) to Mason, ‘‘What’s next.’’ 155. Posted by Matt (February 18, 2007, 2:25 am) to Mason, ‘‘What’s next.’’ 156. Prof. Paula Treichler email to Board of Trustees (November 18, 2003). 157. Students for Farm Bot (February 16, 2007, 3:27 pm) to Mason, ‘‘What’s next.’’ 158. ‘‘An element that gets discussed at times y is the notion that Illini and Fighting Illini are necessarily tied to the fate of the Chief. I don’t agree. I acknowledge that the people of the Illinois or Illiniweh confederation have sometimes been referred to as Illini, especially since 1900.’’ ‘‘Seeking a Compromise – Chief Illiniwek: A Report by Trustee Roger Plummer to the University of Illinois Board of Trustees’’ (March 13–14, 2002), http://www.uillinois.edu/trustees/plummerreport/index.html 159. Quoted in Plummer, ‘‘Seeking a Compromise.’’ 160. Plummer, ‘‘Seeking a Compromise.’’ 161. Plummer, ‘‘Seeking a Compromise.’’ 162. Quoted in University news release, ‘‘NCAA okays names Illini and Fighting Illini: Chief Illiniwek tradition remains an issue’’ (November 5, 2005). 163. Posted by commonsense1138 (February 17, 2007, 11:30 pm) to ‘‘Text of UI announcement on Chief Illiniwek,’’ News-Gazette (February 16, 2007).

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164. The University appealed again, but the NCAA upheld its ruling in April 2006, which led directly to the mascot’s ban in February 2007. 165. The same applies to the Three-in-One music discussed above, which technically separate from the mascot is nonetheless associated with it in the minds of pro-Chiefers. 166. Suzan Shown Harjo had it mostly, but not entirely right, when she wrote, ‘‘Native people at UIUC want to get rid of both the name [‘Fighting Illini’] and the mascot, while the white folks on their side want to compromise by ending the career of the dancing mascot only. White folks on the other side, spurred by right-wing journalists, want to keep the name and mascot and get rid of the Indian protestors.’’ Harjo, ‘‘NCAA: Keep your eye on the ball,’’ Indian Country Today (May 26, 2005), http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id ¼ 1096410987 167. Eppley quoted in Garennes, ‘‘Eppley discusses.’’

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank Norman Denzin and Rich King for their support, and John Castree for his invaluable research assistance.

REFERENCES Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities. Verso: New York. Anderson, E. (2008). Council of Chiefs opens tryouts. Daily Illini, January 18. Bakhtin, M. (1984). Rabelais and his world. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Berkhofer, R. (1979). White man’s Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the present. New York: Random Books. Burford, C. C. (1952). We’re loyal to you, Illinois. Danville, IL: The Interstate. Craig, D. (2005). One-time supporter no longer backs Chief, letter to editor, News-Gazette, May 24. Deloria, P. J. (1998). Playing Indian. New Haven: Yale University Press. Dossett, S. (2001). Pain Chief causes changed opinion, letter to editor, News-Gazette, June 1. Ebert, R. (2001). Noble spirit more than just a mascot. Chicago Sun Times, March 6. Fields, B. (2008). UPTV and the Chief Controversies. The Public I, Summer, p. 4. Foreman, J. (2003). Ill-advised statements diminish UI chancellor. News-Gazette, November 16. Garennes, C. D., & Wurth, J. (2007). UI trustees approve resolution to end Chief Illiniwek. News Gazette, March 13. Garza, T. (2007). An honored tradition. The Public I, March, p. 6. Grodsky, J. (2008). ‘‘Chief makes a surprise return,’’ part of story ‘‘Seniors exit Hall as winners’’. Daily Illini, March 10. Heckel, J. (2004). Report critical of UI on Chief. News-Gazette, August 25. Hedges, C. (2003). War is a force that gives us meaning. New York: Random House. Hobsbawm, E., & Ranger, T. (Eds). (1983). The invention of tradition. New York: Cambridge University Press. Lydersen, K. (2007). School hears calls to end mascot’s act. Washington Post, February 2.

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Maiellaro, B., & Spalding, M. (2007). Parade’s ban of Chief logo lifted. Daily Illini, October 26. Monson, M. (2008a). New Chief Illiniwek portrayers announced. News Gazette, April 29. Monson, M. (2008b). Council unlikely to stop man from airing anti-Semitic views. NewsGazette, May 4. Morrissey, R. (2003). Chief Illiniwek turns into offensive foul. Chicago Tribune, November 16. Novak, R. D. (2007). Death of the chief. Washington Post, February 22, p. A19. Paxton, R. O. (1972). Vichy France. New York: Random House. Prochaska, D. (2001). At home in Illinois: Presence of Chief Illiniwek, absence of native Americans. In: C. Springwood & R. King (Eds), Team Spirits (pp. 157–185). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Root, D. (1997). White Indians: Appropriation and the politics of display. In: B. Ziff & P. Rao (Eds), Borrowed power (pp. 225–233). New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Rosaldo, R. (1989). Culture and truth. Boston: Beacon Press. Rosenstein, J. (1996). In whose honor? Indian mascots and nicknames in sports (film written, produced, directed by Rosenstein). Champaign, IL: Jay Rosenstein. Schenk, M. (2007a). Current Chief ’s parents: Whole thing is such a travesty. News-Gazette, February 19. Schenk, M. (2007b). Mood at UI game mix of anger, sadness. News-Gazette, February 19. Schmidt, P. (2007). Illinois Lawmaker seeks to punish NCAA for Chief Illiniwek’s Ouster. Chronicle of Higher Education, March 2. Available at http://chronicle.com/article/ Illinois-Lawmaker-Seeks-to/5464 Scott, J. (1996). The evidence of experience. In: T. J. McDonald (Ed.), The historic turn in the human sciences (pp. 379–406). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Slezak, C. (2004). Illinois’ leaders must step up, get rid of Chief. Chicago Sun-Times, September 7. Available at http://www.suntimes.com/output/slezak/cst-spt-carol07.html Spartz, M. (2007). Facebook postings alarm UI officials. Daily Illini, January 16. Stewart, P. (2003). Outsider was not impressed by Chief, letter to editor. News-Gazette, November 16. Stora, B. (1992). La Gangre`ne et l’oubli. Paris: La De´couverte. Thacker, P. D. (2007). Ugly turn in Mascot dispute. Inside Higher Education, January 10. Available at http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/10/mascot Wieberg, S. (2005). NCAA allowing Florida State to use its Seminole mascot. USA Today, August 23. Wise, D. M. (2003). My chief concern. Chicago Tribune, November 18. Wise, M. (2003). Squabbling Illini: Rallying cries lead to rift. New York Times, December 16. Wise, M. (2007). Illinois still on offensive. Washington Post, January 27, E01. Available at http:// www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/26/AR2007012601792.html Won, C. (2007). ‘‘Hostile’’ campus environment leads to demand for administrative action. Daily Illini, February 2. Wood, P. (2003). Chief protagonist. News-Gazette, November 16. Wool, E. (2008). Has campus changed since the Chief left? Daily Illini, February 21. Zirin, D. (2007). Chief concern: After resurfacing, Chief Illiniwek should stay retired. Sports Illustrated, October 30. Available at http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/ dave_zirin/10/30/chiefilliniwek/index.html

STAGING AN INTERVENTION IN A VIRTUAL DYSTOPIA: THE ONLINE FALLOUT OF THE RACE, POWER AND PRIVILEGE FORUM AND THE REMOVAL OF ‘‘CHIEF ILLINIWEK’’ Cassidy C Browning I was working on my Master’s degree in Theatre History and Criticism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) when the university’s controversial mascot, ‘‘Chief Illiniwek,’’1 was removed. The activism that led up to this action received a large amount of media attention, particularly in The Daily Illini,2 ‘‘the independent student newspaper’’ at UIUC. Comments on the newspaper’s website such as, ‘‘You individuals at The Native American House, in addition to the members of STOP [Students Transforming Oppression and Privilege], ought to be ashamed of yourselves. If you don’t like living in Illinois or the United States MOVE somewhere else!!!!!’’ found after the February 23, 2007 article, ‘‘STOP Responds to University Chief Decision,’’ were all too common. Although I later became involved with the STOP Coalition and other campus groups, my initial engagements with activism in the community were virtual.

Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 34, 137–149 Copyright r 2010 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-2396/doi:10.1108/S0163-2396(2010)0000034010

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At the time, the newspaper’s website featured all print content accompanied by a comment function. No registration was required to comment on an article or editorial; a valid e-mail address and agreeing that your posting was not spam were the only prerequisites. There was a line for a name to be entered, but it was often used as a title for the comment. Anonymity was not only possible, but the norm on these comments, although some individuals created and sustained avatars within and between threads. The Archives section of the site maintained the newspaper content as well as the resulting comments; however, the website, located at http:// www.dailyillini.com/, has recently been remodeled. Comments may be posted after current articles, but the Archives only feature the original newspaper content. From the time following STOP’s Race, Power and Privilege Forum (RPP Forum)3 held on February 1, 2007, until well after the removal of the mascot ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ the next month, I spent many hours posting comments on The Daily Illini website’s extensive racially and ethnically charged content. As I read the outpouring of anonymous hatred, blatant misrepresentation,4 and ignorance in the newspaper content and on the comment threads, I felt compelled to intervene. I simply could not tolerate the thought of a person reading the comments on The Daily Illini website and thinking that it was an accurate representation of the campus and community any more than I could abide others blindly spewing messages of intolerance. I specifically sought to disrupt the anonymity, polarization, and lack critical engagement which are unfortunately common in the Internet medium. Hence, I always posted under my full name,5 explained my thoughts in detail, and asked others to elaborate and defend their posts and, at times, the original article. My liberal inclinations were probably easy to glean from my posts, although I never simply proclaimed my stance; I made a concerted effort not to do so unless specifically asked, as it seemed that little resulted from such actions. I do admit than my emotions got the better of my objective intervention goals on more than one occasion. Not surprisingly, I became a target for pro-’’Chief ’’-ers and those who disliked the RPP Forum in particular, and activism in general. Dismissal and generic name-calling progressed into personal attacks and threats with my continued presence on the comment boards. While I was not the only target, during this time, I was rather singular because of my identifiable and maintained presence. Proof of my infamy on the UIUC campus – at least among activist circles – was demonstrated at the first STOP meeting that I attended. I entered the

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room of about 25 people, all of whom seemed to know one another. There was a bit of silence when I was recognized as a new person, and I was asked for my name.6 When I replied, ‘‘Cassidy Browning,’’ one member asked, ‘‘The Cassidy Browning?’’. I laughed a bit before confirming my identity, as it was clear that my reputation had preceded me. I was greeted warmly and praised for my posts on the comment boards of The Daily Illini. My online efforts yielded several research projects, including the one you are currently reading. Another path led me to a collaborative work on cyberbullying with a fellow UIUC graduate student from the Department of Human Community Development, Aimee Rickman. Her 2007 paper on cyberbullying defined the phenomenon as ‘‘the act of willfully sending or posting intentionally distressing, demeaning, defaming, manipulative, or threatening aggressive electronic messaging or information using the Internet to gain power through anonymous or misleading harassment or public humiliation.’’ Far from the Virtual Utopia it was once hoped to be (i.e., without race, gender, differing abilities, etc.), the Internet has proven to reproduce the same prejudices experienced in real, everyday life (Sharpe, 1999, p. 1093; Nakamura, 2008, p. 174). After all, the people posting on websites and creating characters on World of Warcraft were raised and exist in the real world. My intervention on The Daily Illini website was both motivated by and resulted in acts of cyberbullying, although I maintain that it was not a moot effort. As a feminist educator, I sincerely agree with bell hooks (1989, p. 51): Feminist education – the feminist classroom – is and should be a place where there is a sense of struggle, where there is visible acknowledgment of the union of theory and practice, where we work together as teachers and students to overcome the estrangement and alienation that have become so much the norm in the contemporary university.

Hence, the discord resulting from my intervention is anything but a sign of failure. I also see the union of practice and theory as a strength, not a weakness; after all, how can we agree with theory in classroom, and then leave it at the door? I feel that studying what occurred is important because, as Christina Elizabeth Sharpe (1999, p. 102) wrote in ‘‘Racialized Fantasies on the Internet,’’ ‘‘we continue to seek to regulate bodies and thoughts on the Net in the same ways we do in RL [real life].’’ Lisa Nakamura’s (2002, p. 61) book, Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet, echoes this sentiment and analyzes stereotypes from older media (film, television,

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books) onto new media (i.e., the Internet). Virtual actions and representations are vital subjects because they reflect – and inform – real life (RL) actions and representations. In this chapter, I will use examples from the online comments from The Daily Illini’s website to illustrate problematic trends surrounding the removal of ‘‘Chief Illiniwek.’’ These ideologies are served by the Internet medium, which facilitates cyberbullying. I will then extrapolate these ideas and apply them to the larger concerns surrounding subaltern studies programs, as well as more recent events on the campus. It is my belief that it is, in fact, because the Internet allows for anonymity and play not afforded in RL that behavior exhibited there is more authentic, as less censors and filters are utilized. This phenomenon is oftentimes referred to as the ‘‘hyperpersonal effect,’’ as coined by Joe Walther (Bans, 2008, p. 58). With the absence of physical proximity, accountability and culpability are practically nonexistent, which eases social anxieties. Sherry Turkle (1999, p. 643), a prominent member of the Internet Studies field, details how the fragmentation and anonymity of Internet identities allow experimentation and an overflow of passion that is not normally permitted in RL. We are free, to a certain extent, to explore, but that freedom is still grounded in RL. However, ‘‘It is not simply that we can be more ‘honest’ about race issues on the Internet because we are not accountable but that the personas we create (even if they begin as ‘us’) start to take on lives of their own in relation to those whom they encounter’’ (Sharpe, 1999, p. 1094). Identities are forged as much in opposition to as in alliance with others; the interaction between authors oftentimes results in a (false) dichotomy. This feeds the limited critical engagement, as posts consist of simplistic sentiments such as, ‘‘I completely agree’’ or ‘‘You couldn’t be any more wrong.’’ A particularly potent example of the problematic behavior on the comment boards happened in response to the presence of a member of the STOP Coalition who was actively involved in running the RPP Forum. This individual is commonly read as a Middle Eastern immigrant female, although she wears clothes unremarkable on the UIUC campus and has no distinguishing dialect. Regarding this individual’s actions during the Forum, ‘‘Jenna T.’’7 complained about ‘‘[t]he Muslim lady who can’t realize that she is ‘empowered’ to talk about American ‘racism’ while she wouldn’t be allowed to open her mouth in her native culture,’’ after the article ‘‘STOP Forum Lets Students Voice Concerns’’ on February 2, 2007. The individual which ‘‘Jenna T.’’ is referencing never spoke of her religion, and there was no visual indication that this individual was Muslim, except for the

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connotation of her phenotypic characteristics. This individual was wearing a head wrap that covered all of her hair and the top of her ears and twisted into a knot on the back of her head, which was seemingly being mistaken for a hijab.8 This type of head wrap is not, as far as I am aware or can find, indicative of Muslim identity. After my inquiry as to the accuracy of ‘‘Jenna T.’s’’ label of ‘‘Muslim’’ and reference to her ‘‘native country,’’ ‘‘Martin’’ posted, ‘‘she was dressed in traditional Muslim garb – not that creepy, one-eyed ‘total’ burkah, but something highly recognizable as such, nevertheless [sic].’’ After numerous posts by myself and others, ‘‘Martha’’ posted: [M]y favorite part of her (a couple too) many interventions [referring to my posts] was when she started to explain how it wasn’t obvious that a sadly dressed lady from the ‘‘open forum’’ was from wherever she was. Yeah, sure, it wasn’t obvious, not at all. After all, it could have been Armani, right? After all, a woman allowed to glance at the outside world through one little hole is more ‘‘oppressed’’ by a sports mascot than by her burk y, oops, sorry for being so insensitive, through her ‘‘Armani’’ dress?

‘‘Martin,’’ ‘‘Martha,’’ and ‘‘Jenna T.’’ were reading this individual in the manner in which they were comfortable reading her: as a woman oppressed by her culture and religion who should be happy with the better life afforded her in the wonderfully liberated United States. Susan Muaddi Darraj (2002, p. 298) directly addresses this mindset of colonial feminism in ‘‘It’s Not an Oxymoron: The Search for an Arab Feminism’’: American feminists, like the rest of the nation and the Western world, had accepted the flawed image of the Middle East and Middle eastern women without question. ‘‘Of course, they (meek and silent Arab women) are oppressed; we (liberated, assertive Western women with voices) must help them’’ [y] the tone of white Western feminism – with its books about ‘‘lifting the veil on Arab women’’ and Arab women ‘‘lifting the veil of silence’’ – was that Arab feminism was nothing greater than an amusing oxymoron [emphasis in the original].

These authors mark the woman as oppressed by her ‘‘native culture’’ while simultaneously oppressing and silencing her themselves. Ironically, they both denounce (what they assume is) the treatment of Middle Eastern women and criticize this particular woman for her deviation from those same expectations. ‘‘Jenna T.,’’ ‘‘Martha,’’ and ‘‘Martin’’ applied their own cultural expectations on the individual to co-opt and silence her. They exercised their power to judge this individual based on her appearance alone. As this individual was visually ‘‘other,’’ she was therefore from ‘‘there,’’ not ‘‘here’’; ‘‘there’’ being inherently worse than ‘‘here,’’ and so, she has

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been saved by being ‘‘here.’’ And as an ‘‘other,’’ she had no right to critique ‘‘here.’’ The construction of ‘‘there’’ as worse is important to U.S. interests and as well as the presence of U.S. troops ‘‘there’’; it was also important that this individual was both identified and maintained as ‘‘other.’’ When I posted arguments regarding the colonialism enacted through feminism directed at ‘‘Third World’’ countries, a (predictable) violent backlash ensued. It is worth noting ‘‘Martha’s’’ amalgamation of burquas and hijabs, which are two very different items of clothing, but which Americans – specifically American (colonial) ‘‘feminists’’9 – have an interest in keeping conflated. There are also important implications in ‘‘Martha’s’’ label of ‘‘sadly dressed’’ and sarcastic use of ‘‘Armani.’’ Posing ‘‘sadly dressed’’ as the opposite of wearing Armani sends a clear message about class and status: If you can afford to wear Armani, then you have more license to speak your mind and you are probably less oppressed. However, if you are an oppressed ‘‘other’’ (both signified by and a result of your ‘‘sad’’ clothing), than you do not have money or the privilege to speak against the imagined glory of ‘‘America.’’10 The individual in question was perceived to be Muslim because of the combination of her phenotypic characteristics and a head wrap, which was misread as a hijab. ‘‘Martha’s’’ invocation of a burqua (which was in no way similar to any clothing item that the individual was wearing) supports ‘‘her’’ argument about the oppressed nature of women in Muslim cultures better than the more socially acceptable hijab (although tensions surround both). ‘‘Martha’s’’ disinterest in specificity and accuracy is emblematic of ‘‘her’’ desire to stereotype others and maintain the position of superiority as someone from ‘‘here.’’ The removal of the ‘‘Chief ’’ mascot was complicated by its close ties to tensions surrounding subaltern studies. As an institution known for its engineering and science programs, the humanities at UIUC are generally an afterthought in comparison. The split between politics and academia is rooted in the fallacy that academia can and should be completely objective; hence, why the humanities and subaltern studies programs are viewed as illegitimate fields of study and any perceived political aim renders them suspect. This is particularly evident at UIUC, as its flagship programs are all in the sciences. The false dichotomy between the ‘‘real’’ sciences and the ‘‘tainted’’ and ‘‘fabricated’’ humanities is clearly felt on the campus and was evident in many posts. My Letter to the Editor about this imbrication was published on February 27, 2007, and assigned the title, ‘‘A Holistic Look at the Chief Controversy.’’ Instead of engaging with these intertwined tensions,

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‘‘Econ. Alum. (2007)’’ provided an excellent example of the trend my letter addressed: There’s nothing new about the substance of the courses offered by the Angry Studies departments. That is, there never was any [y] What is new now is that the beggars claim to be choosers. They are not happy with the many millions handed over to them, with no reasonable expectations of ANYthing in return. They are not happy with the dozens of courses (ridiculously overlapping, in a carnival of manifest waste and triumphant demagoguery) that they’re being overpaid for [emphasis in the original].

As previously stated, the performativity of online identities often yields polarization; either one agrees or does not agree with the opinion posted and ignores the intricacies of the debate. The individual responds accordingly, identifying with or defining themselves against one another. This creates two main camps and leads to group mentalities, and therefore, less open engagement with others; hence, why ‘‘Econ. alum’’ did not engage with my argument, but simply sounded off on their view of the problems within the humanities. This trend fed into the general railing against subaltern studies and ‘‘PC-ness’’ in the online forums. There was a building of privileged identities in opposition to all ‘‘others,’’ which, as seen above, were oftentimes lumped under the banner of ‘‘Angry Studies.’’ ‘‘Singer and Chief Fan’’ (2007) posted the following after the article, ‘‘STOP Responds to University Chief Decision’’ printed on February 23, 2007: Perhaps we should create a petition including not only the Chief matter, but also a provision according to which the University’s budget should not be wasted anymore on third-rate ‘‘pity departments,’’ producing nothing but ignorance, racism, and hatred. Imagine how many useful things could be done on this campus if we saved the hundreds of millions spent on ungrateful semi-professionals who’re always unhappy, whatever they’re given [sic].

The ‘‘real’’ problem, according to ‘‘Econ. alum’’ and ‘‘Singer and Chief Fan,’’ lay within the Angry Studies departments, who alone fabricated the ‘‘chief’’ controversy; without their baiting, there would be no issue with the mascot. These broad insults directed at the humanities and identity-based studies became personal attacks at times. After the February 3, 2007 article, ‘‘STOP Forum Lets Students Voice Concerns,’’ ‘‘Jenna T.’’ posted the following in response to one of my posts: Nobody will ever hire you because of your political views, distorted and shrill as they are in my view, or amazingly progressive and immaculately ethical, as they may seem to you. Proudly writing ‘‘I opposed the ‘racist’ Chief[’’] in your C.V. won’t get you anywhere.

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Newsflash: you need to actually be competent in something. Sorry if that is ‘‘sexist,’’ ‘‘classist,’’ ‘‘racist’’ or whatever. Life after graduation is not really consistent with the self-righteous cocoon you live in, right now [y] Perhaps you should spend a little more time in the library?

Another common mode for attack was gendered comments. Although I used my full name, I never identified any aspect of my identity other than that which could easily be found on the UIUC search engine (i.e., my major and degree). Therefore, although my sex and gender were never proclaimed, I was commonly infantilized and demeaned with feminine characteristics. ‘‘Silly little girl’’ was commonly used by the comment author ‘‘Martin’’ to demean me and my posts. In addition, other posters utilized gender to criticize me for deviating from their ideals of female students/citizens. ‘‘Martha’’ posted the following in a comment after the article ‘‘University to End Chief Performance’’ published on February 16, 2007: Frustrated, incoherent chicks like a certain Cassidy C. B. [y] hopeless virgins with no life, with no hope of a real life – will feel their worthlessness being cheaply vindicated for at least one lonely night [by the BOT decision to end the dancing of ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ at sporting events] [y] Look on the bright side, little girl. Whatever you do in life, there will never EVER be any insinuation that you would have slept your way to the top of that Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise. People will know better than that.

It is also interesting that a political issue – the ‘‘Chief ’’ mascot – was routinely sexualized, and that sexuality was used to police individuals and their views in tandem with gender. Similarly, another author was criticized for his lack of manhood by ‘‘Martin’’ on the comments following ‘‘STOP Responds to University’s Chief Decision’’ published on February 23, 2007. ‘‘Oh, man, sorry you’ve got such a small dick but, let me tell you, you could wear the outfit of five Chiefs, you still couldn’t satisfy any chick.’’ This also alludes to the presumed masculine prowess that the regalia is seen to bestow and the virility attributed to (and feared of) Native men. Failure at female-ness was utilized as an insult directed at me on more than one occasion. ‘‘Martin,’’ after ‘‘Dissention to the Forum,’’ printed on February 5, 2007, posted the following comment: To tell you the truth, and please don’t take this personally, I had ulcers which were more charming, I’ve met literally illiterate persons who had more common sense, I’ve sent out – in five stars restauraunts farts – which were so much more seductive than (the discourse of) certain persons at the ‘‘open forum.’’ One can guess, if not sense, when somebody’s looking hard, desperately so, for a husband. When it comes to the subject of old maids, I suspect some of the ‘‘open forum’’ protagonists may be called on one day on Oprah, to give their uniqiely authoritative insights on the subject [sic].

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As I had specifically asked on several occasions to not be gendered, it is not too surprising that it became a common mode of dismissal. However, it is still important that ‘‘Martin’’ identified the only possible motivation for participation in these events and causes (for assumedly heterosexual females) to be finding a male mate. For these insults to be effective, the assumption is that all individuals are participants in Western heteronormativity and that the ‘‘correct’’ performance of gender and sexuality is a paramount concern. Activists often face external questioning and personal doubts about the relevance of their efforts. Since the removal of ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ in March of 2007, many pro-‘‘Chiefers’’ have demanded, ‘‘What has changed? What did the ‘Chief ’ have to do with racism or our everyday lives?’’. There were numerous posts that were heartening for me throughout this intervention; one was posted under the name, ‘‘UIUC’’ after the February 7, 2007 Letter to the Editor entitled, ‘‘Dissention to the Forum’’: It’s amazing how dismissive and maligning people can be when they do not have to associate themselves authentically with the thoughts they spew. Cassidy, your willingness to explain these difficult constructs is extremely giving. Your continued presence on these boards has been inspirational in your clear understanding of humanity, and in the belief you show in the power information and reflective knowledge can play in building awareness, empathy, and social justice [y] Please be aware that you and the sentiments you have so generously expressed over the last week on these boards are very supported from many who do not wish to be thrown into the disrespectful fray that discussion on race has become on this campus [sic].

Needless to say, this post was mercilessly attacked and even attributed to me in the attempts to discredit the sentiments. Packing all dissenting voices into one corner was a common tactic to ‘‘other’’ and dismiss. However, the post gave me hope, as I hoped my posts did for others. As Maria Fernandez (2002, p. 41) wrote in ‘‘Cyberfeminism, Racism, Embodiment’’, ‘‘[b]y acknowledging the power of embodied, nonverbal practices, cyberfeminists can subvert and deploy established forms of discipline to form and strengthen positive, powerful alliances.’’ The virtual behavior and ideologies discussed in this chapter are evident in the RL vandalism of a recent art installation on the UIUC campus. ‘‘Beyond the Chief,’’ by Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne-Arapaho), an internationally renowned multimedia artist, consists of 12 outdoor signs identifying and remembering the campus and Illinois as Native lands. On seven separate occasions since the opening on February 18, 2009 to May 20, 2009, the signs have been vandalized, damaged, and most recently, several were stolen. These acts reinforce that which the piece is

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meant to disrupt: appropriation, entitlement, and forgotten histories. The signs physically exist in and around the cultural houses on campus – the Native American House, the Asian American Cultural Center, La Casa Cultural Latina, and the Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center – thereby violating these safe spaces and adding further significance to the transgression. Although many saw the activism surrounding the removal of the ‘‘Chief ’’ and the RPP Forum as creating discord, the goal was to bring harmony to a campus already in chaos. In this era of what Patricia Hill Collins (2004, p. 54) calls ‘‘New Racism,’’ it is very common for those speaking of existing systems of power and privilege to be characterized as imagining discrimination. Evidence of such systems is demanded, and then the evidence is commonly discredited as too specific or the hypersensitivity or imaginings of only one person. As individual rights for women and people of color are now in the law books, the United States has entered a dangerous conceptualization of our development: ‘‘post-sexism,’’ ‘‘post-racism,’’ and ‘‘post-discrimination.’’ Former, less ignorable, institutional discrimination is forgotten in our post-state of place and being. Cultural/historical amnesia masks complicity in these systems. ‘‘Legitimate’’ oppression has become impossible to claim and is often used against the non-privileged attempting to articulate their lived experiences. The President of the local NAACP chapter spoke at the RPP Forum during the public comments section. In his speech, he quoted Jonathan Swift, poignantly noting that University President Joseph White had recently done the same at the 2007 Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration: ‘‘There are none so blind as those who will not see.’’ The goal of my intervention was to help others to see, although I recognize my own need for glasses.

NOTES 1. I put the name ‘‘Chief Illiniwek’’ in quotes to mark that it is a fabricated mascot and not an actual Chief or an actual person. I feel that this is an important demarcation because of the appropriation of Native culture inherent in the former mascot as well as the common anthropomorphizing utilized to defend its use. 2. The Daily Illini has no official ties to UIUC, although it is the primary (and free) source for news on and about campus.

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3. The Forum was held in Foellinger Auditorium, which is on the main UIUC campus. It included a panel of UIUC administrators (President Joseph White, Chancellor Richard Herman, Provost Linda Katehi, Vice Chancellor Rene Romano, Dean of Students William Riley, and Faculty Senate member Vernon Burton) who attended to both listen and answer questions. The event was billed as ‘‘an open forum to discuss the presence of racism, power and privilege’’ on the campus and was attended by approximately 3,000 students, faculty, and staff and watched live online and on monitors set up throughout the campus by hundreds more. 4. Oftentimes, articles misreported facts and misquoted individuals. The misinformation regularly benefited the public image of the UIUC administration. 5. My full name allowed access to my e-mail address, department, major, and office phone number through the UIUC homepage’s ‘‘Directory’’ function. 6. STOP had experienced several breeches of trust and confidentiality just before that time, and so, the members were a bit cautious about newcomers. 7. I put all names of online comment authors (and any connected pronouns) in quotes to denote their performativity; the names are constructions of the authors and may or may not have any real connection to their actual identity. 8. I feel that this conclusion is reasonable given the recent (post-9/11) surge of interest/hysteria regarding Muslim identity markers. More evidence supporting this conclusion is included later in the chapter. 9. I put the word ‘‘feminists’’ in quotation marks because I feel that the term has come to signify something very different than I believe the philosophy supports. 10. This classist and racist mentality is reinforced by tensions surrounding Affirmative Action practices. Admission to UIUC is regarded as highly selective, and those thought to be present through Affirmative Action policies and scholarships are sometimes labeled as ‘‘inferior’’ students. These policies were in the news and discussed on the comment boards at length in The Daily Illini in the fall of 2007 (The Daily Illini Editorial Board, 2007).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Special thanks to all of my STOP colleagues, who were a family to me which I will never forget. Also, thanks to my professor, Shefali Chandra, who recognized my passion – and perhaps obsession – with this effort and encouraged me to write about it; the collaborative effort in her class with fellow students Emily Schell and Susan Johnson-Roehr was unique and wonderfully productive. As I continued this research, my colleague Aimee Rickman has been an essential sounding board and resource. And finally, thanks to my partner, who has been there through all of these stages and reminds me when it is time to let it go for the night and get some sleep.

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REFERENCES Bans, L. (2008). Same shit different world. Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, 39, 56–62. Collins, P. H. (2004). Black sexual politics: African Americans, gender, and the new racism. New York: Routledge. Darraj, S. M. (2002). It’s not an oxymoron: The search for an Arab feminism. In: D. Herna´ndez & B. Rehman (Eds), Colonize this!: Young women of color on today’s feminism (pp. 295–311). California: Seal Press. Econ. Alum. (2007). A holistic look at the chief controversy, February 27. Message posted to http://media.www.dailyillini.com/home/index.cfm?event ¼ displayArticle&ustory_id ¼ 0ddce232-b8e0-4859-8a89-78fa7cfb1544 Fernandez, M. (2002). Cyberfeminism, racism, embodiment. In: M. Fernandez, F. Wilding & M. M. Wright (Eds), Domain errors! Cyberfeminist practices (pp. 29–44). New York: Autonomedia. hooks, b. (1989). Talking back: Thinking feminist, thinking black. Massachusetts: South End Press. Jenna T. (2007). STOP forum lets students voice concerns, February 2. Message posted to http://www.dailyillini.com/home/index.cfm?event ¼ displayArticle&ustory_id ¼ 9ee4bf0113cf-4236-8ebc-404e506654b9 Martha. (2007a). STOP forum lets students voice concerns, February 2. Message posted to http://www.dailyillini.com/home/index.cfm?event ¼ displayArticle&ustory_id ¼ 9ee4bf0113cf-4236-8ebc-404e506654b9 Martha. (2007b). University to end chief performance, February 16. Message posted to http:// media.www.dailyillini.com/media/storage/paper736/news/2007/02/16/News/University. To.End.Chief.Performance-2724408.shtml Martin. (2007a). Dissention to the forum, February 5. Message posted to http://media. www.dailyillini.com/media/storage/paper736/news/2007/02/05/Letters/Dissension.To. The.Forum-2695503.shtml Martin. (2007b). STOP forum lets students voice concerns, February 2. Message posted to http://www.dailyillini.com/home/index.cfm?event ¼ displayArticle&ustory_id ¼ 9ee4bf0113cf-4236-8ebc-404e506654b9 Martin. (2007c). STOP responds to university’s chief decision, February 23. Message posted to http://media.www.dailyillini.com/home/index.cfm?event ¼ displayArticleComments& ustory_id ¼ c90b194b-7331-478a-95bc-6cb11576bf14&startRow ¼ 1 Nakamura, L. (2002). Cybertypes: Race, ethnicity, and identity on the Internet. New York: Routledge. Nakamura, L. (2008). Digitizing race: Visual cultures of the Internet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Sharpe, C. E. (1999). Racialized fantasies on the Internet. Signs, 24(4), 1090–1096. Singer and Chief Fan. (2007). STOP responds to university’s chief decision, February 23. Message posted to http://media.www.dailyillini.com/home/index.cfm?event ¼ displayArticleComments&ustory_id ¼ c90b194b-7331-478a-95bc-6cb11576bf14&start Row ¼ 1

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The Daily Illini Editorial Board. (2007). Race, power, and progress at forum?, February 1. Available at http://media.www.dailyillini.com/media/storage/paper736/news/2007/02/ 01/Editorials/Racism.Power.And.Progress.At.Forum-2690943.shtml. Retrieved on November 4, 2007. Turkle, S. (1999). Looking beyond cyberspace: beyond grounded sociology. Symposium, 28(6), 643–648. UIUC. (2007). Dissention to the forum, February 5. Message posted to http://media.www. dailyillini.com/media/storage/paper736/news/2007/02/05/Letters/Dissention.To.The. Forum-2695503.shtml.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHIEF ILLINIWEK? CONSUMING ‘‘INDIANNESS’’ IN THE SHADOWS OF MEMORIAL STADIUM Michael D. Giardina Social realism in this country is a television commercial celebrating America. – Joe Bageant (2007)

PROEM Looking back, I remember the moment, as a graduate student many moons ago (or, perhaps, it just seems like it), going to a football game my first semester at the University of Illinois and witnessing the much talked about halftime spectacle of its ‘‘embodied mascot’’ (King, 2007), Chief Illiniwek, performing (fake) ‘‘traditional’’ war dances. It was altogether too easy to get caught up in the pomp and circumstance of the moment: swaying back and forth with fellow students and alums alike as the marching band played the traditional ‘‘Three-In-One’’; experiencing the crescendo of emotion; joining in the sense of collective membership in some grand idea – school spirit, or whatnot. A sense of community prevailed throughout. At the same time, it was also really, really, unsettling, recalling the mesmerizing, unified, pridein-nation imagery running rampant throughout Leni Riefenstahl’s Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 34, 151–167 Copyright r 2010 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0163-2396/doi:10.1108/S0163-2396(2010)0000034011

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(2006[1936]) Olympia. And this was only the first time I had experienced the ritual performance in person. But a great many of the 52,417 in attendance that day had been coming to their Greek-columned church of Memorial Stadium to pay homage to the football gods their entire lives, especially students from the state whom had grown up always already with an eye on attending the university (of which was common). Had been living under the constant bombardment of mediated pedagogies continuously working to construct and frame ‘‘the Chief ’’ as an accurate, respectful, and honest depiction of Native Americans. Had been reiteratively negotiating these competing discourses in their daily lives ad infinitum. All of it resulted in a near-unflinching and unquestioned allegiance by many to a cultural ‘‘tradition’’ that was, but a ‘‘truth’’ that wasn’t. Because this truth was pure fantasy, pure cultural mythology. A lie believed, made true, out of its falsity (or perhaps its wikiality, as Stephen Colbert might have it): the real seemingly disappeared into the surrounding cornfields.

 Traversing the fractured landscape of cultural politics operative on the University of Illinois campus – and in the United States more generally – this chapter offers a series of narrative collages concerning both Chief Illiniwek and other mediated pedagogies of ‘‘Indianness’’ circulating throughout contemporary popular cultural formations. I write from the position of someone who was a student at the University of Illinois during the time when the Chief debates were ongoing and who is now a professor at the same institution in the post-Chief performance days. As such, it is unsurprising that I have friends on both sides of the Chief debate, creating a dialectic struggle that has no doubt informed what follows below. One thing, however, is clear: as both students and professors at the University of Illinois can attest, the Chief has always already informed the atmosphere of our campus environment.

CONSUMING MEDIATED PEDAGOGIES OF ‘‘INDIANNESS’’ February 16, 2007. Checking my email in the morning, I am surprised to find a note from the University’s Chancellor with a banal ‘‘MASSMAIL – Chief Illiniwek’’ subject line. To my amazement, the message – sent to all faculty, staff, and students – reads simply and in part: ‘‘A decision has been made

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regarding the Chief Illiniwek tradition. For more information, go to http:// www.uillinois.edu/chief.’’ When I follow the link, I’m shocked to find a press release, which begins: Chief Illiniwek Will No Longer Perform: NCAA to lift sanctions on Illini athletics URBANA – The University of Illinois today announced that Chief Illiniwek will no longer perform at athletic events on the Urbana-Champaign campus after this season’s last men’s home basketball game in Assembly Hall on February 21. As a consequence, the University will immediately become eligible to host post-season National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championship events.

After 81 years as the corporealized face of the University, and after decades of controversy and turmoil, heated debate and town hall dialogues, national media attention, and public celebration/derision, the issue is finally ‘‘settled,’’ written away to the dustbin of history with a two-page press release. All that was left to come was the intense backlash, and come it certainly did, in the form of campus protests, local news reports, and even in public comment sections of various blogs: Dark day for the Illini. The Chief was never considered a ‘‘mascot’’ by the students, but a symbol of the fighting spirit of the Illini. The dance was not over-done and provided a halftime reunion for students and alumni. Too bad that the primary moving force is the almighty dollar. Big deal about hosting NCAA events. I believe that the vast majority of Native Americans who would have viewed the appearance, [the] dance of the Chief, and the enthusiasm it provided to all who were there would have felt immense pride and joy in the celebration. DM – class of 1960.

Or this: It’s sad to see that an honorable tradition can be labeled ‘‘racist’’ by a vocal minority, and that by simply making the statement, it must obviously be true. Has all rational thought been removed from civil society? Soon it will become self evident that primates have all the rights of humans and plants have feelings too. Anon – Class of 1987.

Or this, posted on The Daily Illini’s blog by an intrepid reader: Nobody actually has legit descendence [sic] from the Illiniwek tribe, though. The Peoria’s claim is very negligible. It represents us [University of Illinois students, apparently] far more than them [Native Americans]. (quoted in Contorno, 2007, Emphasis added)

Or even these three ‘‘fan responses,’’ contained in the print version of the ‘‘alternative conservative libertarian’’ campus paper, the Orange & Blue Observer1: I was upset and angry that a tradition was taken away. There was no good reason to get rid of [the Chief].

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I am disappointed and angry. The Chief is a tradition of honor and loyalty. He is the pinnacle of what the school represents. [The retirement of the Chief] kills the spirit [of the University students] and is insulting.

Social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook correspondingly reveal the ever-unfolding story in real time, with dozens upon dozens of ‘‘Save the Chief ’’ groups springing up, and thousands of people joining. Caustic comments on the order of ‘‘F the Illiniwek tribes, this is our heritage’’ pervade, perhaps encouraged by the anonymity of online space. Others write that the Chief symbol ‘‘encourages unity and togetherness.’’2 I see several students in my class the Tuesday following the announcement wearing black Chief t-shirts and read in the campus newspaper of a plan to hold a candlelight vigil in his honor! (see Sturges, 2007). Other students plan public rallies before the final game of the basketball season. Sales of Illiniwekbranded apparel shoot through the roof as students, fans, and alums alike seek to hold onto a fading remnant of the(ir?) past (DesGarennes, 2007).

 March 31, 2007. The weekend before baseball’s 2007 Opening Day, Major League Baseball (MLB) hosts a ‘‘Civil Rights Game’’ in Memphis, Tennessee. One problem: someone did not give it much thought. As the editorial crew from Deadspin – considered by many the premier sports blog on the Internet – was quick to point out in a post sarcastically titled, ‘‘If The Indians Win, Do Native Americans Get Civil Rights?’’: In about a half an hour, Major League Baseball is going through with something they’re calling ‘‘The Civil Rights Game,’’ which was a really really nice idea y until Major League Baseball screwed it up about as badly as anything can be screwed up. Participating in the Civil Rights Game will be the Cleveland Indians, who have a redfaced caricature of a Native American as their mascot. It’s kind of like having a 9/11 benefit game, and asking Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [one of the principle architects of the 9/11 attacks] to throw out the first pitch. (Deadspin Editorial, 2007, p. 1)3

They go on to quote Memphis Bengal (2007, p. 1) of The Sports Frog as stating, The problem [with the game]? MLB invited the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cleveland Indians. Of the Chief Wahoo Indians. To a city that was on the Trail of Tears. With people in and near Memphis that are ancestors of that particular genocidal event. To a game that is supposed to commemorate one race’s struggle for equality and acceptance. With a team that sports, to a good chunk of the people that matter, a logo and name that is inherently offensive.

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Almost without fail, the national print media was largely absent from any criticism of the ‘‘historic’’ event, choosing instead to celebrate MLB for laudably commemorating African American achievement in baseball and to promote its initiatives for increasing African American participation in youth baseball.4 However, the New York Daily News – the fifth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the country – saved the day, ably referring to the game and its controversy as a ‘‘primer on how to inadvertently stage an ironic insult to a local and large population of Natives y Professional baseball apparently wants to pretend that Native Americans are all dead and don’t matter, like dinosaurs’’ (Bondy, 2007, p. 1). In what was a clear mea culpa, MLB decreed that both teams would wear ‘‘special’’ Civil Rights Game uniforms, meaning that Cleveland would not be displaying any representations of its Chief Wahoo mascot (which Zimmerman [2007] describes as ‘‘a grotesque caricature grinning idiotically through enormous buck teeth y [and] a reminder of the days when whites regarded native Americans as savages on the warpath, with scalps dangling from their belts’’). However, it was a wholly unconvincing moment of backpedaling. As pointed out in an article titled ‘‘Tribal outcry: Chief Wahoo walks the Trail of Tears’’ for Cleveland Scene (First Punch, 2007, p. 1): [Cleveland Vice President Bob] DiBiasio says there’s nothing demeaning about the Indians’ name or logo. ‘‘We are who we are. Our logo is what it is y When people look at our logo, they think of baseball.’’ Unless, of course, they don’t. ‘‘I don’t see baseball,’’ says [Pat] Cummins [of Tennessee’s Alliance for Native American Indian Rights]: ‘‘I see the exploitation and the disrespect toward an entire ethnic group.’’

When I email some the above snippets to a fellow colleague, who is an authority on Native American mascot issues, representations, and histories, she responds with an irritated yet unsurprising: ‘‘They should just hang a giant sign on the outfield wall that says ‘Colonial oppression and racial hierarchies represented here.’’’

 April 26, 2007. When The Daily Show with Jon Stewart – the preeminent fake-news program in the country – comes calling to your University to

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cover an issue, you know you have cringingly made it to the big time. Featuring such satiric-minded teˆte-a`-teˆtes as Leanne Howe, Professor of Native American Studies: The University made the absolute correct decision getting rid of Chief Illiniwek. American Indians are not dancing clowns; we are human beings. Asif Mandvi, The Daily Show: Okay, but what if the football team totally kicks ass?

Correspondent Asif Mandvi skillfully presented ironic musings on both sides of the debate that in many ways far out-paced any of the (allegedly) not-fake local or national news coverage afforded the University (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, 2007).5 Have we thus come to a point in American journalism where ‘‘fake’’ news is more insightful and critically oriented than ‘‘real’’ (i.e., not fake) news? Apparently. When questioned by Bill Moyers (2003) of PBS as to whether The Daily Show was ‘‘practicing an old form of parody and satire y or a new form of journalism,’’ Stewart replied with a keen sense of introspective humility laced with a degree of professional frustration: Well then that either speaks to the sad state of comedy or the sad state of news. I can’t figure out which one. I think, honestly, we’re practicing a new form of desperation. Where we just are so inundated with mixed messages from the media and from politicians that we’re just trying to sort it out for ourselves. [y] we don’t make things up. We just distill it [y] I can’t tell you how many times we’ll run into a journalist and [they’ll] go, ‘‘Boy that’syI wish we could be saying that. That’s exactly the way we see it and that’s exactly the way we’d like to be saying that.’’6 And I always think, ‘‘Well, why don’t you?’’7

In point of fact, as Fox, Koloen, and Sahin (2007, p. 222) conclude in their comparative analysis of The Daily Show to traditional broadcast television news coverage of the 2004 presidential election, The Daily Show’s coverage was ‘‘just as substantive as the broadcast networks’ campaign coverage.’’ Not only that, a National Annenberg Election Survey (Annenberg Public Policy Center, 2004) found that viewers of The Daily Show were ‘‘more educated and more interested in the presidential campaign than the average American and have higher campaign knowledge than national news viewers and newspaper readers – even when education, party identification, following politics, watching cable news, receiving campaign information online, age, and gender are taken into consideration.’’ Given the sad state of traditional media forms (i.e., print and broadcast), is it any wonder, then, as to how woefully uninformed we as a public are about Native issues? (Oh well, at least the President is up-to-speed about such issues, right?)



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(No.) George W. Bush, speaking at the ‘‘Unity: Journalists of Color’’ conference in Washington, DC, on August 6, 2004, was asked the following question by Mark Trahant, editorial page editor for the Seattle PostIntelligencer and former president of the Native American Journalists Association: ‘‘What do you think tribal sovereignty means in the 21st century, and how do we resolve conflicts between tribes and the federal and the state governments?’’ Although a complex, multifaceted question, one would hope the leader of the free world (elected or, Mr. Bush’s case, otherwise) could muster a response more nuanced than the following: Tribal sovereignty means that; it’s sovereign. You’re a – you’re a – you’ve been given sovereignty, and you’re viewed as a sovereign entity. And, therefore, the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities.8

Wait – what? Given sovereignty? That sounds a bit, what’s the word, imperialist, perhaps? As Jacqueline Johnson, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians remarked in the wake of Mr. Bush’s comments, ‘‘[Sovereignty] is not something that was given to us. As tribes, we see sovereignty as something we’ve always had’’ (quoted in Kamb, 2004, p. 1). Despite the contemptible lack of understanding of Native issues on the part of our former president, ignorance of Native issues has not always been the order of the day on the part of national political figures (just most of them, it would seem). In his passionate book, The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days that Inspired America, Thurston Clarke (2008) writes at length about the extent to which Bobby Kennedy’s campaign for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination forcefully engaged with critical issues concerning the treatment and condition of Native Americans. As Clarke (2008, p. 155) recalls, No issue outraged Kennedy more than the high suicide rate among Indian teenagers. When he announced that he was running for president he condemned what he called ‘‘the inexcusable and ugly deprivation which causes y young Indians to commit suicide on their reservations because they’ve lacked all hope and they feel they have no future.’’ He kept talking about Indians throughout his campaign, telling Indiana steelworkers and Nebraska farmers that the reservations were a national disgrace, and that after discovering that an Indian child had died of starvation on the same day he visited her reservation, [he said] ‘‘a little bit of me died, too.’’

Clarke, to his credit, extends an entire chapter to the campaign interactions between Kennedy and Native causes, pointing out that of the 70 public events held during the first month of his 1968 campaign, 10 were on reservations or at Indian schools.9 He also notes numerous personal instances of Kennedy’s dedication to and frustration with federal responses to Native

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issues and causes throughout the 1960s, including one incident at a reservation in which Kennedy, who had been given the name Brave Heart at the 1963 convention of the National Congress of Indians, ‘‘became so furious after seeing a library book with an illustration of an Indian scalping a blond girl that NBC News correspondent Sander Vanocur decided [Kennedy] was someone who functioned ‘in a near state of outrage’’’ over the conditions of poverty and injustice in the United States (see pp. 153–165). Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.’s, magisterial treatment of Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and His Times (1978), identifies the book in question as Evelyn Nevin’s (1952) Captive of the Delawares (a fictionalized biography of Frances Slocum), noting, In 1967 [RFK] persuaded the Senate to set up a committee to study Indian education. He went into the schools on the reservations and asked if there were Indian teachers and whether they were teaching Indian culture and history. He looked at library shelves to see what Indians could read about their own past. At the Blackfoot reservation in Fort Hall, Idaho, they turned up only one book on Indians – Captive of the Delawares, its jacket showing an Indian scalping a blond child. (p. 793)

The implication here is that the imagery adorning Nevin’s text performs a pedagogical function of standardizing knowledge within an educational environment. As Michael Apple (2004, p. 80) argues, It has become increasingly evident that the formal corpus of school knowledge found in, say, most history books and social studies texts and materials has, over the years, presented a somewhat biased view of the true nature of the amount and possible use of internecine strife in which groups in this country and others have engaged. Our side is good; their side is bad. ‘‘We’’ are peace loving and want to end strife; ‘‘they’’ are warlike and aim to dominate.

In his discussion of politicized knowledge and standardized ways of knowing, Christopher D. Stonebanks (2008, p. 259) reminds us of the ‘‘particular enigma of Thanksgiving’’10 and the normalized operations of power at play in many contemporary celebrations circulating around that particular holiday. By way of example, he points to the ostensibly banal grade-school exercise of making ‘‘stereotypical black and white Pilgrim hats’’ at a fall festival (an activity that I myself recall doing as a child in elementary school), and how ‘‘natural’’ it seemed for both teacher and child alike. Yet, as such an act has become discursively naturalized, it has lost any ties to its critical history: When Stonebanks (2008, p. 160) asked the students who supervised a Pilgrim hat-making activity at a community festival why they had chosen to do so in the first place, they responded that ‘‘it just

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seemed like the thing to do; it was what they could readily find; it seemed harmless; and, ultimately, it seemed normal’’ (emphasis in original).11 At the core of Stonebanks’s (2008, pp. 259, 265) example is the implication concerning the ‘‘profound considerations about the manner in which we view knowledge – how it is attained y how it is disseminated’’ and how it reproduces ‘‘the same injustice and miseducation.’’12 I do not believe it a giant leap to suggest that it was precisely these kinds of implications that Robert F. Kennedy was reacting to when he came across Captive of the Delawares that day in Idaho.

 About two months after the Chief retirement is announced, I invite a colleague to give a guest lecture on the sport-oriented marketing and promotion of Native American imagery throughout the twentieth century – including a brief bit about Chief Illiniwek – to my upper-level ‘‘Sport, Culture, & Advertising’’ class. While the lecture goes well at the start, there is a palpable mood change in the room when she moves on to her Chief material. During the question and answer period, students bombard her with questions, some confrontational in nature. Maybe, I think to myself, I shouldn’t have brought in the speaker y Perhaps the issue is still too ‘‘touchy’’ in the lingering wake of the decision y

But later, when the semester is over, I receive an email from a Latino student who was present for this particular lecture that changes my mind: On a final note before I graduate, I would like to let you know that I really like the fact that you implemented the ‘location branding’ section [in the course], and encouraged a discussion on the exploitation of poor, minority-based communities in the name of profit in places like Baltimore and Memphis instead of just talking about economic growth and corporate business opportunities like many other professors do. The second topic I most enjoyed was when you brought in the speaker to discuss the Chief. I think that section would be even better if it was extended for a larger discussion. The fact that you chose to have a discussion on the mascot issue at all was a sign of progress to me since most professors choose to leave it out completely. So, thank you for that – it was much needed.

 October 30, 2007. At homecoming last week, an old face resurfaced. That’s right, the ‘‘retired’’ Chief Illiniwek was on hand, as ‘‘[h]is likeness appeared on the side of a couple of floats, face-forward, fully framed in feathers’’ (Saulny, 2007, p. 1). It was in the name of ‘‘free speech’’ that the prohibition

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on the usage of the Chief logo and attendant variations was lifted. Per a University statement: The university values free speech and free expression, and considers homecoming floats, decorations, costumes, and related signage all representations of such personal expression. Therefore, Chancellor Herman has directed the Homecoming Committee to strike the existing policy from the homecoming float guidelines. (Saulny, 2007, p. 1)

While this pronouncement alleviated some of the campus tension caused by the potential re-emergence of the Chief, it raised another set of questions. As education scholar (and University of Illinois professor) Antonia Darder (2007) asked in an open letter to the Chancellor: If a float maker wants to use KKK imagery or a noose hanging from a tree on a homecoming float, is this now also acceptable under the auspices of ‘free expression?’ Or if a float maker wants to use images of people copulating or nude participants on a float, would this also be accepted as the freedom of personal expression? And if not, why not? Certainly if public nudity is considered immoral or at least inappropriate, why not public racism? [y] Historically, public institutional expressions of racism in this society have only changed when people had the courage, dignity, and love to stand against such immorality. With so many colleges and universities across this country showing real commitment and wherewithal in stopping the use of ‘‘Indian’’ mascots, why not UIUC [University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign]? How can such a prestigious university allow itself to behave so backward, in the face of so much suffering?13

Darder’s statement makes me think of the position of David Diehl, a lineman for the National Football League’s New York Giants (and an alum of the University of Illinois), who introduced himself during the pregame coverage of a recent Giants/Cowboys game as ‘‘David Diehl, from the University of Chief Illiniwek.’’ The remark, made during a nationally televised primetime game, received scant notice in the press, save for the occasional blog comment of support, such as ‘‘I was proud of Diehl’s proclamation. Obviously, I am on the side to Save the Chief. I think the Fighting Illini Indian is a dignified symbol of Native American ancestry. It should definitely not be looped in with Chief Wahoo of the Cleveland Indians’’ (Pivoney, 2006), or in the minutiae-laden ‘‘Page 2’’ area on espn.com (see Gallo, 2007). Diehl is known for his charitable involvement with numerous causes and was, according to a colleague of mine who remembers teaching him in a Speech Communication course, an excellent student.14 By all accounts, he is a sterling representative of the University of Illinois, both athletically and academically; an alum to whom others can point with pride for his professional achievements and community

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involvement. Yet what effect does his ‘‘from the University of Chief Illiniwek’’ statement have on those students vehemently opposed to the Chief ? Or on alumni who are ashamed of their alma mater for taking so long to retire the Chief ? Or on the reputation of the University as a whole? Or, just as importantly, on those who wish to see the Chief reinstated? [And then I think of the orange and blue University of Illinois fleece blanket folded up in my bedroom closet. There’s an embroidered image – dead-center – of the Chief on it. It was a gift from a friend who meant it in a wholly non-ironic way. As was the longsleeved Illini Basketball t-shirt from a different friend, also an alum, which likewise features the Chief ’s visage on the front. If asked, both would say they are in favor of reinstating the Chief, although it is more of a case of the Chief being a passing non-issue for them rather than some deep-seated commitment to retaining a piece of their undergraduate experience from yesteryear. Is their continued promotion of the Chief, passive or otherwise – through the wearing of Chief apparel or giving it as gifts – of any greater offense than David Diehl’s? Should I be calling him out for his actions just because he happens to be in the public eye? No. Unless I’m prepared to call my friends out first.]

CODA A year after Chief Illiniwek’s retirement as an embodied mascot – and some 40 years after Bobby Kennedy forcefully brought Native issues into the political mainstream – we find no new answers, just lingering questions, as mediated representations of ‘‘Indians’’ and ‘‘Indianness’’ remain in the forefront of our late-capitalist [sporting] epoch: Atlanta Braves, Chicago Blackhawks, Cleveland Indians, Kansas City Chiefs, Washington Redskins, North Dakota Fighting Sioux, Florida State University Seminoles, and San Diego State University Aztecs. The list goes on and on. As for the University of Illinois, ‘‘the Chief’’ issue remains imbedded within the daily flow of flotsam and jetsam. During the February 2008 student elections, a non-binding ballot referendum passed by a vote of 7,718 to 2,052 in favor of reinstating Chief Illiniwek; under the column from the Daily Illini’s online reporting of the issue (see Kwalwaser, 2008, p. 1), 111 comments were left by interested parties (although most devolved into petty name-calling; naturally, Godwin’s Law was broken by about the fifteenth post). In numerous other campus articles attending to the anniversary of the retirement, pro- and anti-Chief comments by students remained the order of the day, ranging from ‘‘It represents the pride we have in our school: honor, strength, and the heritage of the state’’ on one hand to ‘‘When you have a symbol that’s like a minstrel show, I find that problematic y I feel it’s

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dehumanizing’’ on the other hand (quoted in Wool, 2008, p. 1). In a similar fashion, the Council of Chiefs, which is composed of former Chief Illiniwek performers, partnered with the Honor the Chief Society to name a new Chief, so as to ‘‘ensure that there is always a student on [the University of Illinois] campus that, on instant, can perform the dance with pride and honor’’ (Anderson, 2008, p. 1; see also Wilson, 2008, p. 1). Moreover, and while the University ordered that Chief merchandise ‘‘be phased out by the end of 2007,’’ the University was recently in negotiations ‘‘to license the Chief logo to a company that specializes in selling ‘vintage collection’ merchandise’’ (Daily Illini Editorial Board, 2008, p. 1). Thus, and despite the official ‘‘retirement’’ of Chief Illiniwek, the conditions on the ground have but only slight changed, the decision still too fresh in the minds of some students, alums, and local citizens to move beyond and look to a new day. In the last analysis, where we go from here is anyone’s guess.

NOTES 1. To get a general feel for this self-defined ‘‘alternative conservative and libertarian’’ paper, the same edition featured a cover story on the ‘‘joys of abstinence,’’ a ‘‘Draconian Code of the Month’’ segment (in this particular issue, it was the University’s policies on tolerance, respect, sensitivity, hate, and hate speech), disgust directed toward ‘‘negative’’ Christian labels, and a backpage story on how ‘‘unfair’’ Affirmative Action is. Numerous other points included calling living wage laws ‘‘socialism,’’ reproductive rights ‘‘abortion,’’ and hate speech ‘‘anything that conflicts with liberal ideas.’’ In 2005, the pamphlet made news by raffling off an AK47 assault rifle on campus to raise money to pay for the publication of future issues of the thrice-semester pamphlet, as well as ‘‘raise awareness about the benefits of gun ownership’’ (Siemplenski, 2005, p. 1). 2. As of June 9, 2008, there are 104 Facebook groups dedicated in some fashion to Chief Illiniwek, including the 7,701-member ‘‘Chief Illiniwek Forever’’ group, the 4,333-member ‘‘We’ll Never Forget Chief Illiniwek’’ group, and the 4,953-member ‘‘Save the Chief’’ group. Of note, a pro-Chief Facebook group was involved in promoting ‘‘threats of violence against an American Indian student, and hate speech directed at all American Indians’’ in January 2007 (see Herman, 2007a, 2007b, n.p.). 3. Coincidentally, Deadspin’s founding editor is Will Leitch (2007), a University of Illinois alum who now writes for New York Magazine. On the day after Chief Illiniwek was formally retired, Leitch posted the following editorial comment on the website, which is a subsidiary of the Gawker Media group, that adroitly captured the apatheistic mood of those whom have tired with the Chief issue: Last night, as tons of teary-eyed Central Illinoisians will tell you this morning, was the final dance of Chief Illiniwek, the skipping, painted white-guy-dressed-up-as-Injun who

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has ‘‘performed’’ at halftime of our alma mater’s sporting events for the last 80 years or so. Like most alums—or at least the ones who have a hard time emotionally identifying ourselves with a college kid in war paint, or any mascot, really—we’re both kind of sad that a symbol of our youth won’t be around anymore and pleased that the whole "debate" will finally end and we can get on with our lives. Can’t we just be the Wildcats like any other university? It would be nice to have a dumb, innocuous mascot that nobody thinks or cares about. (http://deadspin.com/sports/college-basketball/the-lastnight-of-the-chief-238746.php)

4. The official explanation as to why Cleveland was chosen to participate in the game stems from its long history of pioneering African Americans on the ballclub, such as Larry Doby, who was the first black player in the American League (in 1947, three months after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier), and Frank Robinson, MLB’s first black manager (1975). While never expressl