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Death of a Mascot


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Joe travels to the University of Illinois campus to get the reactions from both sides on the controversy of Chief Illiniwek.
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11 responses // Death of a Mascot

  • i love him.
    he''s the funniest person on earth
    =]]
    loveyou__darling
  • "North Ditka" and "Oprahhoma"... hysterical.
    YROKffolohcin
  • so glad u did this! i have some friends over at u of i and have heard lots about this issue. intersting points on both sides.

    BUT ''dissing the red man'' ? i felt pretty offended when i read that. ''RED man''??? sounds like you''re reinforcing the stereotype there. too bad. :(

    but what do i know :) good thing the movie was funny
    natsfan1000
  • Very funny. Great pod Joe
    AROC
    • AROC
    • 11 months ago
  • while i applaud joe and his efforts to shine some light on this issue, i am appalled, but not shocked at the responses of the people that he interviewed who were in support of keeping the mascot around.

    people...white people, it's obvious that you don't get it. can we not take a look at history, and remind ourselves what was done to the native americans. you remember, being killed off by newly introduced infectious diseases, being pushed off of their lands by the military, basically, slowly being eradicated all in the name of Manifest Destiny, and the person who's portraying the mascot isn't even native american.

    sure, while most of you know what it's like to be discriminated against, i'm sure very few of you know what's it's like to have any of the aforementioned happen to you. you don't see any Jewish derived mascots, and you know why that is? because they wouldn't let that kind of BS happen!

    it pains me to see any college/pro mascots that are derived from one person's culture. it's really upsetting and degrades us as a society. i'm glad that the Illinois mascot had to leave. go back to choosing something less offensive, like animals, or are all the good ones taken?
    barium
  • you took the words out of my fingers barium!!
    phukna
  • http://current.com/items/88794343_urban_navajo
    My student would love some feedback on her new video Urban Navajo... http://current.com/items/88794343_urban_navajo
    dbocaz
  • Joe, your funny as hell, the people who got rid of the chief can go to hell with Hitler, haha
    CrazyDave
  • native people are still fighting for equality, and having white people define their culture to the rest of the world (via this "chief") is adding insult to injury. dancing is spiritual for most tribes, and having people outside of that culture take it, misrepresent it, and use it as entertainment during a game is oppressive. this video took a very entitled, dominant, and white american approach to the issue. i wish it had been posted by a native person with first hard experience of being on the other side; it would have made for a much more informing, and useful piece.
    cvazquez
  • I've grown up in Champaign-Urbana and the Chief was a huge part of my childhood. I will readily admit that I got chills when he came out for his last half time performance. I was pretty upset when I found out my favorite team would no longer have a mascot. I'll admit that from the viewpoint of someone who didn't grow up as a Big 10 or Fighting Illini fan, the Chief could look a bit cheesy, especially after watching this video, but look at Brutus Buckeye from OSU. What kind of a mascot is that? At least we are looking up to an actual human that deserves honor.

    Also, how is it that the Florida State Seminoles are able to keep their name simply because they pay off the Seminole tribe that is still around? I don't know if you've seen too many FSU fans, but their costumes are far more 'offensive' than some of the Illini fans. Just because there is no Illiniwek tribe in existence anymore doesn't mean we should deny this opportunity to make the Chief more historically accurate.

    Yes, there will always be those idiots like the kid in the $3 headdress in the video that had no idea what he was talking about. There will always be those people that ruin it for the rest of us and make it look like the Illini fans are really mocking the Illiniwek tribe but I assure you that is not the case.

    Overall, I think there are definitely things about the Chief do need to be changed, but he should not be erased permanently. I think that his uniform (that was made by a troop of boyscouts) needs to be re-evaluated along with his dance routine to make everything reflect the true nature of the Illiniwek tribe. If you anti-chief people are claiming we are not respecting 'your' people (even though most of you live your everyday life like every other Westernized American) then you need to help us make the change instead of just ignoring the problem completely and leaving us with no mascot.

    We need a happy medium people!
    smashuri
  • Being native i think teams using us as mascots is really a great honor but they go way tooooooooooo far on their performance of a native act, please! If they do it outta respect then it's cool.
    Maybe their were exterminated and that is why the illinioihfaihihe what ever y'all call the tribe, i'm sure they have a true name, that is whay they don't exist. It's not our choice that we live "westernized society" remember, we were forced, add isult to injury!
    Why native mascots?
    ulakai2

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