Guenther also said he and Illinois coaches were convinced that another university's coaching staff had leaked unflattering personal information about recruits to a Web site. He would not name the Web site or the university, other than to say it was not a Big Ten program.For non-sports fans, that is particularly unsubtle code for Notre Dame.
Next, two of our basketball players were involved in a car accident near campus, where it seems that the driver left the scene, and then left his passenger in the car even though he had a severe enough concussion that he was admitted to the hospital in critical condition. Shockingly, the driver has been released from the team, so that "he can focus all of his attention on the physical, emotional, academic and other related issues he will face in the coming weeks", according to a university statement. You may properly interpret this to mean "deal with numerous legal problems, likely because his blood tests from the night in question will not come back clean".
Still, with all these distractions, the big news is that the University is ditching its mascot, Chief Illiniwek, in response to pressure by the NCAA banning UIUC from hosting post-season tournaments in any sport. The two students who play the Chief at games have sued the school on freedom of speech grounds, but will likely be laughed out of the first court not presided over by an Illini fan, wherever that may be. For goodness sakes, no one has a "right" to dance at halftime for a university, it is a privilege they grant that can be taken away at any time. They own the floor after all. As to the NCAA, they are allowed to control how many sports-based scholarships a school can offer for various teams, and fine coaches for criticizing referees. Needless to say, in the grand scheme of things, the number of scholarships determines how many players get to pretend to get an education, whereas a mascot is a trivial symbol. Besides that, freedom of speech grounds have no power against the NCAA, since they are not a public institution, and thus immune from first amendment challenges last time I checked. Remember, kids, the first amendment applies to laws passed by Congress, and through supreme court verdicts to the other branches of the federal government and later the states as well. Beyond the issue of rights, of course, is the issue of what is right. Even if the students had an inalienable right to dress up like an oppressed minority and dance around during halftime ( a right thankfully not granted in the Constitution by the founding fathers), it doesn't mean they should. A great deal of life is spent having the right to do something but the wisdom not to. Someday, the locals might better appreciate this.
It's important to remember why Native American mascots cause such a problem in the first place. We may like to speak of Native Americans like we do soldiers, as caricatured bold, noble warriors, or as environmental heroes living in balance with the land, but up until the previous century we as Americans spent most of our time committing genocide against them, signing and violating treaties while forcing them inevitably westward toward the least hospitable land the USA has to offer. One of the first acts of biological warfare in history, after all, was giving blankets infected by smallpox patients to Native Americans. Against this backdrop, it is unspeakably insensitive for Caucasians to then dress up like them, in part because there aren't enough Native American students at the university to form a constituency with any power on campus. Imagine Germans deciding to dress up like Orthodox Jews and dance the hora, all while complimenting our dedication to education. Simply put, it wouldn't go over very well. The dominant group in any society is limited in the ways that it can portray others: thus blackface and various immigrant impressions are frowned upon as being hurtful. The view from above is different than the view from below, and angry white people would be well served to remember this fact. It sucks to have one's speech constrained by societal pressures, and we have to live with the fact that while blacks, Hispanics, and in this case Native Americans can mock Caucasians, we will be favored in education, hiring, access to institutions of power, ease of getting loans, favorable treatment by legal authorities, and all the other perks of white skin. Note that this is what makes complaints about nicknames like "Fighting Irish" null and void: the name was given to the team by actual Irish people. As for cultures that are no longer extant (Vikings, Spartans, Trojans), it's enough to note that they weren't the victims of genocide, and left us too early to interact with anyone from the USA.
What makes this issue something of a sick joke is that there is virtually no benefit to the Illini name for Native American students, even though it could easily provide a teachable moment. Students on campus, and the various alums and hangers on, don't know jack squat about the Native American population of the region. If they've heard of the Peoria, Kaskaskia, or Cahokia, it's only through the names of some of the local geography. If they "honor" Native Americans, it's not from having taken the trouble to meet them; rather it has to do with venerating some cartoonish notion of tall gentlemen with well-tanned skins wearing leather and feathers saying "How". Needless to say, it doesn't involve educating themselves about Native American culture, religion, or history. It doesn't involve learning about the present day plight of the NA community. It doesn't even involve the simple step of going to a powwow, even though one is held in June in nearby Taylorville. Basically, the University pretends to care about NA traditions, the fans speak in platitudes, and everyone gets to feel good about the fact that they are very socially conscious racists. I don't think UIUC is particularly unique in this respect. If anything, we are hurt by the fact that the Illini were driven out of the state hundreds of years ago by the Iroquois and other tribes, and thus the university lacks any recognized group to which they can pay what amounts to blood money as political cover. I can't blame tribes lucky enough to hook up with a local university if they get something from it, but in a perfect world every university would put forth more effort to treat the local NA population decently, not just schools known as Chippewas (Central Michigan), Seminoles (Florida State), or some other tribal name.
I have to say the opinions on this topic shock me sometimes. The Chicago Tribune, hardly a bastion of liberalism, supported ditching the chief, even though they weasel-worded their way through their editorial. John Aravosis of Americablog, famous for liberal gay-rights activism, came out pro-Chief, much to the consternation of most of his readers. The latter is an interesting case: as a gay activist, he is rightfully worried that the anti-PC backlash inspired by removing the Chief will ricochet back on all minorities, including his own cause. Still, his argument seems dead wrong in my eyes:
The NCAA, and others, just killed a perfectly respectful tradition that actually reminded Illinoisans of their heritage and made us proud in our school and our state (and frankly, reminded us of our state's native American past, something that is going to be remembered less now as a result of this action). Our mascot was killed because of the caricature that others ascribed to it, not because of the caricature it was - which it was not.The tradition was hardly "respectful", in that the veneration for the chief was respect for a caricature, not actual Native Americans, about whom the fans know nothing. The "reminder of our past" is frequently invoked but so much bullcrap, since the Chief invokes halftime more than heritage, and most people are too busy cheering along to really ponder any bigger issue than whether to purchase nachos or a pretzel after their upcoming trip to the can. The mascot, furthermore, is a caricature, a white dude dancing like some other white dude's interpretation of some other white dude's somewhat informed idea of Native American dancing. If they wanted it to be serious, they should choose someone who knew what they were doing, like an actual Native American raised in the traditions of fancy dancing.
Aravosis is also angry that the Sioux tribe, who provided some of the Illini regalia, wants it back. For one thing, this should show how hollow the claims of honoring the Illini are. It's like honoring Jews by using elements of Moroccan culture. They are in the same region, after all, but totally different nations of people. Moreover, if the current generation thinks the representation is hurtful, then it is, because they are the ones being hurt, not him. They get to make this call. At the moment, the local NA groups are anti-Chief, and their opinion is the one that persuaded the NCAA and the only one that matters. My guess is that in a generation's time, this will look only slightly less offensive than another local team, the Pekin Chinks, who finally changed their name in 1981, dumping their coolie attired mascot in the process, over much howling from the locals.
In the end, all the people who will "mourn" the loss of the Chief, frankly, are idiots. Mourn lives lost in war, mourn your lost opportunities in life, mourn for those who suffer in this world. Don't mourn for a frickin' sports mascot! Mascots are symbols in the grand scheme, emblematic of something but devoid of substantive meaning, unlike the people who are being offended by having their culture trivialized, which serves to trivialize them as well. Sure, I'm sure many people have happy memories of the Chief, but guess what? They get to keep those memories until death or senility! No PC liberals will be taking those away any time soon, so what exactly are they mourning? If it's the fact that their kids won't get to see a white dude pretend to be a Native American, have no fear, it's already in numerous places on youtube and other video sites (no link will be provided). No, it's not even that noble. They are mourning the loss of a connection to their childhood, because they are too frickin immature to grow up and be an adult. It's like losing one's blankie or bottle; it sucks, but you move on. I hated giving up my bottle when the time came, but I was 3, and transitions are tough at that age. Adults should know better. If people want to relive their childhoods because it makes them happy and harms no one else, more power to them. If it harms someone else, though, or interferes with them leading a batter life, then it really is an impediment that they need to work past. Sports are fun, a way to experience a community and bond with other people, but they are an abstraction whose influence over day to day life should generally be a bit limited. if you put sports in front of your interactions with family or close friends, then you really are a crappy excuse for a human being, no two ways about it. They are fun, but at some level they just aren't real. People are real, and need you more than the athletes you idolize who will never know your name or really give a squat back.
We need not even go into a discussion of the nature of "traditions", on which topic Fiddler on the Roof should have laid all debates to rest. As I said once before here, slavery was once a tradition. "A wrongheaded tradition is not justified because it is longstanding; all that it indicates is that sometimes people are way too slow to change." We often do things because we have always done them, but that in no way morally justifies them. In some ways, it is a cheap attempt to evade morally evaluating one's actions, blaming one's current failings on the past. Unfortunately for that kind of argument, every action we take is a new moral choice, and being wrong before in no way justifies being wrong again.
What's truly sad is that the university will almost certainly lose money in the short run from their decision. Just to spite it, alums and fans are going to hold back donations that will contribute to numerous students' education, all for the sake of a quasi-racist mascot. If nothing else demonstrates misguided priorities, this is it. The whole point of a University is as a center of learning first, a community second, and an athletic endeavor thirty-seventh or so. Anyone who withholds funds that would otherwise pay for a fraction of a scholarship, or a science lab, or books for the library in the name of the Chief is worthy of nothing but contempt and derision. After the Chief is gone teams will still play, but more importantly students will still learn, and the university will go on, and that is a good thing all around. All the spiteful will get for their efforts is the support of their friends and the loss to humanity in all the ways their money would have been better spent. It almost makes one wish for a God just so people like this could be appropriately punished. In the end, people matter. Symbols don't. It doesn't take a college education to realize it, just a sense of perspective, but those often seem to be in short supply. Thankfully, in four years time, the student body of the University will only have vague stories in their head of the silly halftime ritual they used to do at halftime, and they will chuckle at the overheated geezers in the stands who talk about how things were back in the day, dismissing their elders for their backwardness as every generation inevitably does to its forbears. It can't happen soon enough in this case.
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