The following is the transcript of a Foellinger balcony narrative from April 14, 2000. It is an unedited excerpt from the original Chief dialogue document.

I feel a deep sense of anger and humiliation that the University supports and publicly parades its representation of native people through Chief Illiniwek.

Deep rooted and stereotypes of Hollywood characters such as a Sambo and Mammy and other African American representations, it deeply degrades, and dehumanizes them and reduces them to a state of mockery and caricature and I believe that it should be promptly removed.

And I am aware that the University would like to make an effort and is conscious of the fact that they want to respect diversity and ethnic cultures that differentiate from the white mainstream culture at large. Coming to this University as a freshman, we were required to attend seminars to be able to recognize and respect people's ethnic, different ethnic backgrounds, different sexualities and at the same time hypocritically they support a representation that is not only faulty but is dehumanizing to native peoples and their culture.

I have taken the opportunity here to learn as much as I can about native peoples and their cultures. But at the same time there is limited opportunities, as an English student, there is only one class that I know of taught by Robert Parker that acknowledges the rich history of oral traditions and other contemporary poetry and literatures of native people.

And in the history department there is limited representation as well. As some speakers have spoken of today, that there is actually no cultural house for people to actually go and to learn and to become educated on native peoples and their culture. And I have heard the debates today and the dialogues which they have been coined and pro-Chief supporters talk about this rich history of pride and acknowledgment of University of Illinois and the state of Illinois' history. But at the same time there is a white male middle class, probably coming from the suburbs that is prancing around trying to imitate sacred emblems and rituals of native peoples.

And outside in the demonstrations there is actual mockery, Jesus Christ and the cross and being a religious person it is gut wrenching to think of Native American people, that they have to go through this day in and day out, the representations in popular culture that degrade and dehumanize them, at this time I am thankful again and I wish that the Board of Trustees would consider all voices heard and make the right decision to abort future use of Native American imagery for their mascot or symbol, whichever you would like to call it. Thank you.

See the U.I. Dialogue on Chief Illiniwek page for more transcripts and information.