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.

Simply put, Native people are saying it should be so. This alone should be reason enough. But since there is always backlash when oppressed people try to define for themselves what is right, we come to this now, a divisive, racially charged and painful fight.

So I ask again, why should the Chief be removed? How dare we, we as a people standing on soil that is stolen, the University of Illinois as a university that is predominantly white with no Native American studies department, say that the Chief honors Native people. How can anyone say this as we look at the history of rape, forced sterilization, genocide and a stripping away of basic human rights like self-determination? How can anyone say that this is an honor if Native people themselves are saying that the Chief does not honor, that it is wrong.

People clinging onto this tradition have benefited so much from this oppression, that they are blinded into thinking that they are doing good. It is white privilege, entitlement and racism that is blinding people. If this is really about respect, isn't respect about listening? Shouldn't we listen to the Native people who are saying that the Chief should be gone?

What if? What if the University of Illinois mascot was the Pope. What if the Pope was doing an acrobatic half-time dance for entertainment to an audience of non-Catholics? What if this revered figure was being reduced to being half-time entertainment and turned into a commodity so that this figure could show up on shirts and toilet paper?

What if this figure was totally dehumanized? What if people were protesting, saying that this felt degrading, that this felt hurtful and wrong? How hard would we fight to keep the Pope as our mascot then.

To me, there are parallels to draw between the respect that we give these figures. Most people have a context to understand that the Pope is not an inappropriate mascot. We grow up here with that context because the Pope has power. Because of the invisibility of Native history, most people don't have the context to understand how a white man dancing in Native costume is wrong.

I experienced something related being from a Hindu family. It is somehow okay to appropriate Hindu and Indian symbols and take them on as people's own thing, things like yoga, mehndhi, I see people wearing pants with Hindu gods and goddesses on their seats. Is this about respect? I see night lights and lunch boxes with gods on them, not made by Indians and certainly not benefiting them. Is this about respect? This is not respect, this is painful. This does not acknowledge a history of colonialism that ravages India and other nations to this day.

I want to end with this, this is not a game. This is not a fight to take up because we don't have enough to do with our lives. This is about real people. This is about real pain and real anger. What do the pro-Chief people have to lose if the Chief is no longer the mascot at you of UIUC? How will it really change their lives?

On the other side, what do Native and other oppressed people have to lose if the Chief stays? The struggle for Native people is real and about lives. Let there be a new tradition. Let it really be about respect. And let me close with this. We keep hearing that alumni oppose removing the Chief. Well, here I am, I am an alumni and I strongly support removing the Chief. Thank you.

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