Cultural insensitivity vs. school tradition.
Then the Fightin' Whities arrived.
"We're turning the tables," said Charlie Cuny, 27, team founder and member of the Oglala Lakota Nation. "We're saying, "Look at it a different way.' "
The Fightin' Whities is an intramural basketball team of American Indian students at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. Its players have watched in frustration as folks around Eaton, a farming community north of Greeley, have debated the high-school mascot since early January.
The team decided to inject some provocative satire into the stalemate, and response has been overwhelming.
On Monday, the phone was ringing off the hook at the office of Native American Student Services on the UNC campus, where members of the basketball team hang out.
Hundreds of people want Fightin' Whities T-shirts featuring the team's mascot - a 1950s-style caricature of a middle-aged white guy with the phrase, "Every thang's gonna be all white!" Reporters from the New York Times, CNN and network news stations want to interview the Indian students about their protest.
"We were just trying to make a statement on campus," said Solomon Little Owl, 29, a member of the Crow Nation and director of Native American Student Services at UNC. "The point is: How does it feel to be made fun of?"
The basketball team's official name is "Native Pride." But team members opted for the "Fightin' Whites." The name has evolved to the more in-your-face "Fightin' Whities."
Teammates agreed that mascot debates have grown predictable, often bogging down in conflicting arguments over the need for greater cultural tolerance and the importance of tradition.
The UNC team hoped to use humor to illustrate just how blinding cultural bias can be.
John Nuspl, superintendent of Eaton School District, is not amused.
On Monday, Nuspl said mascot protesters are unfairly targeting his tiny district. "It's their problem. It's not our problem," the superintendent said angrily before ushering a reporter to the door.
"I think it's silly. I don't care. Who cares? It's a non-issue," agreed assistant principal Bill Mondt.
Yet some Native Americans are offended by the school's mascot - a caricature of an Indian with a misshapen nose, wearing a loincloth and eagle feather. Dan Ninham, a member of the Oneida tribe and a doctoral student at UNC, formed a committee of Greeley-area residents in January hoping to convince Eaton school officials that the Fightin' Reds mascot is degrading to American Indians.
Nuspl has refused to meet with Ninham's committee to discuss the Reds.
Doug Chamberlain, Eaton High School principal, called an assembly in late January to tell the school's 450 students that some people oppose the mascot. He said he encouraged students not to respond if protesters showed up.
"Everybody has a right to their own opinion," Chamberlain said Monday, sitting in his school office, which is decorated in a cowboy motif of red bandanas, boots and horseshoes.
Students said they stand by their mascot.
"I don't think we should change it. It's been part of the school for a long time, and it's not supposed to be offensive," said Nikki Winter, 16, a cheerleader and chairman of the junior class. "It's kind of stupid that we've been attacked like this."
Her friend Tyler Tollefson, 16, agreed. As for the Fightin' Whities, he admitted, "I thought it was pretty funny."
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0203140197mar14.story?vote2331842=1
From
the Chicago Tribune
By Meg McSherry Breslin
Tribune staff reporter
March 14, 2002
URBANA -- A new report to trustees at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign says the board has two options regarding the controversial
Chief Illiniwek mascot: vote to retain it or vote to retire it.
Setting the stage for a possible resolution to the issue, Trustee Roger Plummer
issued his report on the fate of the symbol to a packed meeting with pro- and
anti-chief enthusiasts on campus Wednesday.
In the report, "Seeking a Compromise--Chief Illiniwek," Plummer
concluded no compromise could be reached. He said his colleagues should soon
vote on whether to keep the 75-year-old tradition at the state's flagship
university.
Plummer spent nine months interviewing more than 50 individuals and groups with
differing opinions on the chief. He concluded after those meetings that neither
side would be satisfied with a compromise.
"The positions staked out on all sides of the chief issue ... make the
development of a solution acceptable to dedicated and determined pro- and
anti-chief individuals or groups virtually impossible," Plummer said.
He recommended that if the board decides to retain the chief, it should work to
reverse the "marginalization" of the chief over the last several years
by making changes that make the mascot "less offensive" and build
other programs around it to revitalize the tradition. He said that if retained,
the chief's dance and image should remain, along with the terms "Fighting
Illini" and "Illini."
If the board should decide to retire the chief, including the dance, trustees
should allow for a transition plan and work toward a retirement that is an
"honorable one that does not demean, devalue or apologize" for the
decades-old tradition. He said if the chief is retired, the symbol should be
"memorialized in perpetuity" and there should be separate recognition
for the role Native Americans have played in the state's history.
Plummer, a University of Illinois alum, has previously stated he supports the
chief but said he listened to both sides of the issue with an open mind.
On Wednesday Plummer refused to say how his colleagues should decide, stating
that he would withhold his personal views until the full board votes in the
coming months. However, Plummer said he worries about the impact of the
controversy.
"The university is not well-served when we have an issue that's creating so
much turmoil on campus," he said.
Chief Illiniwek is typically portrayed by a student who paints his face, wears a
headdress representing the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe and dances at football and
basketball games.
Advocates regard the chief as a cherished symbol and Illinois tradition, but
faculty groups, national church organizations and many advocacy groups have
denounced it as a demeaning caricature that offends Native Americans.
The board of trustees hoped to end the Illiniwek controversy in 1990 when it
passed a resolution reaffirming its use as a symbol of Illinois athletic teams.
But opponents, often including Native Americans from across the country,
continued to push for its elimination.
A campuswide dialogue was held on Illiniwek last school year, concluding with a
70-page report prepared by a former Cook County circuit judge summarizing the
varying opinions but reaching no conclusion. That report ended with a question:
"Is there no possibility of a compromise?"
Board Chairman Gerald Shea asked Plummer to search for that compromise. The
chairman praised Plummer's report as a thorough examination of the issue and
said he hopes to see a final vote in July.
Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune