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U.I. Dialogue narratives |
RetireTheChief
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.
MS. CATHY HARPER: I am a member of this community, I am not directly affiliated with the University at all. I have lived here for 20 years. I will probably live here until the day I die. My husband and I are raising three children in this community and it's important to me as a member of this community to not have the Chief as a representative of the University. My kids are involved in sports and we go to sport tournaments and meets in a lot of surrounding communities, a couple of these schools have an Indian mascot as their school, high school representative.I have noticed that at these meets there are hundreds of people walking across mats with a Native American's face on the floor. I remember reading about Charlene Teters doing an art exhibit where she had a mat with the U of I chief and she had a mat with Abe Lincoln, everybody walked around Abe Lincoln's face, but everybody proceeded to walk across the Native American representative symbol face on the mat.
And I think that is emblematic of the damage that happens to people's consciousness about other people, people are just trying to get in the door, they weren't trying to be disrespectful to another person, but in walking on the mat as a matter of course as a matter of fact sort of thing, it communicates to themselves and other people, mainly Native American people that they, that they can be walked on and not respected. So, I thought that was illustrative of what my concern is and I wanted to share it, since I had an opportunity to do it on camera.
See the U.I. Dialogue on Chief Illiniwek page for more transcripts and information.