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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.
UMEETA SADARANGANI: I am a faculty member at Parkland College here in Champaign, Illinois in the humanities department. I teach among other things Eastern cultures and nonwestern literatures. And I have been here in Foellinger Auditorium for much of the day listening to people speak about the Chief. And what I have been hearing from people who are for the Chief is that the main reason is we are fond of the Chief and we would like to honor him. And the people talking about why the Chief is a problem have many, many, many real reasons. It's not just, it's not just a symbol that they, that they value or despise, but it's about the effect that symbol has. If symbols weren't significant, we wouldn't really care if the flag was burned. We wouldn't care that people fly the Confederate flag. It wouldn't matter. But symbols are significant and they have real impact.So I want that to be something I hope the Trustees keep in mind, that the symbol has an impact. I am not speaking from prepared remarks. But just things that have come to me today.
One of the things I would like to say is that I am a South Asian Indian descent and I try to imagine what it is like to watch the Chief perform at a game for somebody who is of Native American descent. And I tried to imagine an audience of primarily white people watching a South Asian Indian perform a religious ritual or even a classical dance in the middle of a sports event, half-time. And there would be very few South Asians in the audience and most people have no clue what is happening, they just make a game of it. It would hurt. It would hurt terribly.
I once saw somebody perform in a sari just at a social, a performance, you know, an act that somebody put on. And it was horrible to watch this because this person didn't know how to wear a sari, didn't know what it meant, pranced around the stage and didn't really have any respect for the culture and didn't know the culture, wasn't from the culture. And it was horrible to watch. I went up and talked to that person, do you have any idea what this means to somebody in the audience who knows that culture, how painful that is? That was just a small thing. There were no, there was no merchandise available with that person's name on it.
And here I look around and listening today to the Native Americans, I got a much better understanding of what it's like for them to see the Chief, a revered symbol represented as the only representation of Native Americans. I have lived in this country now 16 years. I have got all of my higher education in this country. And nowhere in my academic education was there a teaching of Native Americans. It's just not part of the curriculum very much. So if all we ever see is the Chief and we don't get training about it anywhere else, we only get stereotypes, we don't understand the people. I think as an educational institution, the University of Illinois has a responsibility to educate accurately.
So, I just hope that the Trustees will take that into account. But especially take into account that this is not just a symbol. It is a symbol that represents living people. And they have something to say about it. And I hope the Trustees will listen to that. Thank you.
See the U.I. Dialogue on Chief Illiniwek page for more transcripts and information.