Path: vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!prairienet.org!jwason
From: jwason@prairienet.org (John Wason)
Newsgroups: uiuc.classifieds.personals
Subject: Re: aclu and chief illiniwek
Date: 8 Mar 1998 00:46:41 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Reply-To: jwason@prairienet.org (John Wason)
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Xref: vixen.cso.uiuc.edu uiuc.classifieds.personals:5383In a previous article, bdunne@students.uiuc.edu ("Bryan C Dunne") says:
>Let me ask you:
>
>If a school's mascot were say the "Fighting Irish".... oh wait, there is
>one. Okay, let's try a professional sports team called the "Celtics"...
>oops, one of those too. How about a breakfast cereal with a leprechaun
>called "Lucky Charms"... dang, one of those too. And I don't hear me and my
>kin here or in Ireland complaining.
>
>Remember, he's our university symbol. The Chief means something to the
>students, staff, facuty, and alumni of the U of I. Don't take him away.
>
>
>Bryan Carolan DunneAre you HONESTLY suggesting that the Irish don't complain because they're somehow bigger, more reasonable, more generous-spirited people than Native Americans?
Or could the disparity in perspectives somehow lie instead in the theft, degradation, and genocide perpetrated on Native Americans BY the Irish, among others?
Native Americans, African Americans, and Jewish folks are just a tad more sensitive about mindless parody and crass exploitation of themselves and their ethnic backgrounds and cultures than are Caucasians of various ethnic persuasions. As Kate Hellenga expressed so well a few posts back, it's about historical - and current - differences in power and the ability to exploit, discriminate, persecute.
Actually, while Irish Americans may enjoy being mascots, I have a feeling that their counterparts in northern Ireland wouldn't take too kindly to being made mascots by the English. Just a hunch on my part.
On an issue like this Chief Illinwek thing, there will always be opposing viewpoints. And I'm pretty sure that it's fairly rare when a proponent of one position convinces someone on the other side. But it makes me sad that, with all the information available nowadays about Wounded Knee, slavery, and the Holocaust (actually, each of the three groups singled out argues persuasively and with justification that it has had a Holocaust of its own), there is still so much insensitivity and ignorance about the basic issue of respect for one's fellow human beings, of ALL colors and cultures. What the hell is a school mascot, when compared with human beings who feel degraded and exploited by it? I don't see how ANYONE can argue in favor of maintaining the stupid mascot.
John
Wed Mar 18 00:32:35 CST 1998
Look around you. Do the people you hang out with look the same, hold the same opinions, smell the same, eat the same foods, speak the same language, all that? Get out there and mix it up! dannyman has spoken.
Seriously though, if you know me you may have heard me refer to Evil Asians
- and you know who they are, or
you are, running about in a big damned Asian group speaking the same Asian language, worshiping the same Christian
God, wearing the same damned baggy pants!
Evil Asians are just more visible in Allen Hall you see.
I'm just thinking like this because I just come from the Eusa Nia room - room o' black people, discussing some concern or another. I was the only white guy there, which is fine by me, coz unless there's other white folks about, I tend to be the white guy.
You see, I was talking to that cute girl I saw in my History section, the one who dropped the course, and is married ... well, anyways we had coffee together, and we talked about things, and one thing that was mentioned was my practice of not associating with any one group. I made the comparison between having a single peer group you always hang with, and can always fall back on, to being married or not. I haven't a girl, or a peer group to fall back on. I have computers, Regina suggested, yeah, but that'll give ya hand cramps after awhile ya know?
What am I married to? Myself, I reckon ... trying to gather my ideas together. Some folks are married to pleasure, and while I gladly indulge I'm always distracted by my own interest in something else, getting the mind a workout, I reckon. Some obsessive compulsive thing.
The benefit? I learn a lot. the downside? Definite risk of proud arrogance, or of becoming lost in my own self-awareness and losing track of who i am to who I think I am. Living in a fantasy world adrift and cast off from others.
Of course, it keeps me exotic. dannyman's always got a quaint notion or two.
This keyboard pains me. later.
13 March
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