David Clark, July 13, 2004

Opinion: very anti-Chief

I want to thank you in advance for reading what I have to offer.  As an educator and scholar, and as a subject of the Sac and Fox First Nations from near Tama, Iowa, and descendent of the Potawatomi First Nations in Shawnee, Oklahoma, I support all efforts to retire Chief Illiniwek and the "Fighting Illini" name.  Like others, I use the term "First Nation" (Indigenous works, too) rather than Indian, American Indian, or Native American.  We are not "Indians" because we are not from India.  Referring to us as "native" Americans really is disconcerting (as well as imprecise) because anyone born anywhere in the Americas in this and the last century rightfully can (and countless many do) claim "native-born" status.

With certainty, the name "Fighting Illini" is an uncomplimentary designation for the descendants of the First Nations earlier removed from what became the state of Illinois because it focuses only on aggressiveness and offers no context for the conflict or fighting.  "The Chief" undeniably is racist.  It is a red face re-formulation of nineteenth-century black face.  Both the name and the symbol (or mascot) are symbolic manifestations of the lingering residue of European and (later) American semantic imperialism and racism.  The label "Fighting Illini" is an oppressive and patronizing name for the Kaskaskia and Cahokia (whose present-day descendants are citizens of the Peoria-Miami First Nations located in Miami, Oklahoma) as well as other subjects of First Nations coercively displaced or forcibly removed from their lands by the terrorists who occupied their homes.  Rather than engage in serious research, and serving ongoing colonialism, most academic historians have imposed the name "Illini" on these diverse peoples.  Countless students and UIUC athletic team fans have uncritically accepted the authenticity of the name "Illini" as a signifier for now vanished First Nations.  Used alone and only in reference to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and its athletic teams, "Fighting Illini" has no redeeming cultural or social value that could make it a name to feel proud about.  Think about it: English-language words synonymous with "fighting" include squabbling, rioting, and brawling, as well as offensive, belligerent, pugnacious, quarrelsome, and evil.

Thus, the name "Fighting Illini" is culturally demeaning.  It, and its symbolic counterpart, Chief Illiniwek, are one-dimensional symbols that nourish what my colleagues at the University of Kansas, Cornel Pewewardy and Michael Yellow Bird (following Joyce King), have termed "dysconscious racism"--an uncritical habit of the mind that justifies inequity and exploitation by accepting the existing order of things as given.  To valorize images of the "Fighting Illini" without soberly recognizing the degree to which the United States sought--and seeks--to summarily conquer, displace and remove, and control First Nations peoples cultivates dysconscious racism.  Numerous scholars have written about its effects.  Any institutionalized violation or manipulation (e.g., exploitation) of individual or group identity can be understood as a clear elucidation of oppression.  UIUC in many ways is a powerful institution that exploits the identity of the Peoria and Miami (and other) First Nations.  Oddly, UIUC also manipulates the identities of the First Nations located still today on the northern and southern Plains (in western Oklahoma and in north-central Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Montana)--the First Nations earlier made popular by wild west shows and Hollywood motion pictures.  This all is the subject of a vast scholarship.  Many scholars also have written about the role of empowering and disempowering images in shaping the identities (the many heterogeneous individual conceptualizations of self) among Indigenous young people.  Once the idea is formed for a young person that she or he belongs to a devalued group (and in today's media-saturated culture this idea does not take long to form), then every subsequent event and encounter is processed through this lens.

Of course, these observations located in scholarship could undergo further empirical testing.  Perhaps UIUC could fund research to "discover" what comes to mind for the citizens of First Nations in Illinois and Oklahoma when they hear the name "Fighting Illini" or observe the dancing and antics of Chief Illiniwek.  It would be interesting to ask these Indigenous peoples how respected and appreciated, or smeared and sullied, they feel in their many relationships with Euro-American society.

Democracy-loving peoples everywhere ought to reject oppressive and racist labels and symbols, history and thinking.  We should critically engage with and examine these things, rooting them out wherever they exist, forcing them to survive or perish in the aftermath of serious, critical interrogation.  In their place at UIUC, we could substite American Indian studies and a vigorous, well-funded effort to recruit and retain First Nations students, faculty, staff, and administrators.

If you are a parent or school teacher seeking additional resources on the general matter of symbols, antics or behaviors, and labels that associate athletics with First Nations peoples, you might start here:  http://people.ku.edu/~tyeeme/mascots.html

David Anthony Tyeeme Clark, via the web.