Save the Cheerleader, Save the World

I wanted to welcome myself back to the happy hunting ground of the blog by commenting on the University of Illinois' decision to "retire" Chief Illiniwek after next Wednesday's home basketball game.

Personally, I cannot believe the school held out this long. On another level I cannot believe that there are so many students, alumni, and fellow Illinoisans that are so outraged by the fact that the state university finally did the right thing and banished the chief to Redskin Island.

Lets be blunt here, Chief Illiniwek is some suburban white kid from Wheaton or Highland Park who wears 10 cent makeup and birkenstocks and shows up for 5 minutes at every game to do toe touches and signal "touchdown." That is all the Chief is. Oh yeah, and a ridiculous racist symbol that was outdated around the time black face became outdated.

Illinois fans will claim the NCAA had no right to tell the school what to do. I would tell you that its sad that an organization that can't even crown a football champion has to remind schools of what is right and what is racism.

Illinois fans will say that the Chief is actually a part of the band, and that the school should not have been a target. As a former band member I would respond that all of the band members crying today that the chief is gone, would have thrown him under the bus in .2 seconds if the NCAA made the decision to ban the band from postseason performances as long as the chief was a part of the band.

Chief apologists will say that the student who is the chief has to take a class and learn about native american culture and dances and that the dance is authentic. I would point out that a) there were no touchdowns in 17th century Native American land, that doing toe touches reminds me of a cheerleader after Dee Brown hits a 3, and that the fact that I took a class on Modern African History does not mean I am capable of running a diamond mine.

The bottom line is that the chief has become an absurd symbol of the over the top racism and disrespect still directed towards native americans in America. There is no other race- NONE- where this would have been respected. Can you imagine the Tennessee Blackies with their masot, Big Jim, or the Arizona Zapatas with a sombrero and poncho wearing mariachi band member with a bottle of tequila in one hand at basketball games? Jesse Jackson would have visited those schools while he was still in the womb.

Meanwhile, Illinois finally did the right thing, which is more than I can say for Jamar Smith