The following transcript is from the 4/14/00 Chief Illiniwek dialogue "intake session". It is an unedited excerpt from the original U.I. document.

So I made it out to the Progressive Resource/Action Cooperative's teach-in this past semester and watched the film I had heard so much about. As soon as it ended, all that was running through my mind was Native American activist Charlene Teters' voice describing the horrified looks on the faces of her children when they saw Chief Illiniwek for the first time at a U of I basketball game.

The heartache I felt for those children soon turned to anger. I knew that I couldn't just sit quietly for the rest of my educational career while Native people were stereotyped and made a mockery of at every sporting event and on every piece of University merchandise.

I decided to turn my anger into involvement. I joined the PRC and have been organizing ever since. Instead of quelling my anger, it only increased when I realized our efforts, while gaining campus, national and international support, were following on deaf ears of the people who should have been listening the hardest.

So that's why I am here today, because maybe today you will understand what you haven't understood for the last ten years.

For over ten years, UIUC students have asked you nicely, pleaded with you to retire your Chief. Throughout these years, we have also screamed about you, the Board of Trustees and President of one of the most prestigious universities in the world. We screamed about how we, your students, desire a Native American studies program. And we scream about how you have failed to admit that as long as you have your chief, we will never have the reputable American Indian faculty and students necessary for such a program.

We scream about how demeaning it is for the chair of this board to embarrasses UIUC on national television by claiming that the Chief is culture as far as UIUC is concerned. We scream about the thousands of hours we invest in creating authentic, diverse cultural programming on this campus, and still, not only do you not praise us on national television, you do not attend our events or support us as much as you do your Chief.

We scream because the rest of the world must think we are all like you, more attached to honoring the culture of those people that you make little effort to retain at UIUC, than creating an environment in which all students can thrive, learn, develop and graduate with pride, not embarrassment.

In his book, "Lies My Teacher Told Me," James Loewen, a recent visitor to this campus, remarks that, "Native Americans are not and must not be props in a sort of theme park of the past, where we go to have a good time and see exotic cultures."

As we have been in the past and will continue to in the future as alumni, we now scream about how you fail to listen to the voices of your American Indian students when they tell you how much your Chief hurts them. Maybe if we non-Native students scream with them you will hear?

We scream because when you defend your Chief, you sound like racists, colonizers, a Columbus. We scream because Columbus is not our hero. We scream because your chief is not our mascot, symbol or mythological being. We are angry because we do not want reputable faculty and gifted students to reject teaching or attending UIUC because we are known as racists here.

We scream because although you have no obligation to educate UIUC's alumni, you are more concerned about making this campus an environment more conducive to their enjoyment of football games than conducive to our education.

We scream because you do have an obligation to honor the people, Native, Asian, African, Latino, Middle Eastern and Caucasian American or of mixed heritage on this campus. We scream because you have an obligation to us and you are not being honorable by not listening or responding in our demands that you retire Chief Illiniwek. Thank you.

MODERATOR GARIPPO: Again, if you will leave the statement on the stage. We would appreciate it.

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