Of Mascots and Malcontents, Part 2

by Matt Kaufman

A couple years ago I wrote a piece called "Of Mascots and Malcontents" about the campaign to abolish any school mascots, team names, etc. deemed politically incorrect — including Chief Illiniwek, symbol of my alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Having covered that subject once, I didn't really plan to do it again. But frankly, after the latest developments, I just couldn't resist.

I'll get to those developments shortly, promise. But first, the background.

The Chief, portrayed for nearly 80 years by a student who performs at halftime during sporting events, isn't your typical mascot; in fact, we Fighting Illini fans don't call him a mascot at all. (We prefer "symbol," if you please.) He doesn't do tomahawk chops or utter war whoops: He comes out in authentic American Indian garb donated by the Sioux, does a stirring dramatic dance, then walks off as the crowd keeps respectful silence till he's gone.

It's the nature of a tradition that you love it first and foremost because it's your tradition — your own, your family's, your hometown's, and yes, your team's. So a non-Illini naturally isn't going to have the sentimental reaction to the Chief that someone like me (an Urbana native as well as a UI grad) will have. But you don't have to be a fan to recognize that you're watching a tribute, a lovingly preserved ritual. You may not share the love, but you can hardly fail to notice it.

None of which, naturally, has stopped a vocal anti-Chief movement from arising, dedicated to the proposition that the Chief — like all American Indian characters, everywhere — is an insult, a mockery, a racist caricature who somehow creates a "hostile environment" on campus.

Mind you, no one can find evidence at the UI of Chief-spawned racial hostility toward American Indians, or any other minority. But that does nothing to temper the movement's fervor. For more than a decade, they've heckled and leafleted and boycotted. They've solicited endorsements from the likes of Jesse Jackson. They've tried to drive away athletic recruits. They've complained to every academic body in sight (as well as the Justice Department), and even tried to strip the UI of its accreditation.

What they haven't done, however, is persuade most people of the merits of their cause. Which brings us to what's new since last I wrote.

Last fall, some members of the UI board of trustees tried to dump the Chief, seeking to rush the motion through with hardly any notice. But the appearance of trying to pull a fast one just made the public madder when they found out, and the motion was quickly tabled. That, in turn, led to a student referendum this spring, which produced an unusually high turnout and a landslide endorsement (69 percent) of the old honored symbol. After all the haranguing they'd done over the years, it was pretty clear the anti-Chief people just weren't going to win in the court of public opinion.

But they weren't about to let that stop them. For where persuasion had failed, they still had a time-honored campus tactic at their disposal: The Temper Tantrum.

A few weeks ago, anti-Chief protestors staged a 60s-style sit-in, invading a campus building and refusing to leave till their various demands were met. Now most of us learned at a very early age that grown-ups were not impressed by this sort of thing. But in academia, the normal standards you were raised with don't apply: Throw a fit on campus and say you're motivated by a Great Cause like Fighting Racism, and all the alleged grown-ups who are supposed to be running the place take it not as the mark of (as our parents or grandparents might put it) spoiled brats, but of Committed Crusaders Fighting Social Injustice.

And so it was here. The UI's lame-duck chancellor — another politically correct type — quickly caved; not only did she decline to administer so much as a spanking (no criminal charges, no academic penalties), she rewarded the tantrum by meeting several demonstrators' demands. And that included setting up meetings between anti-Chief students and state legislators.

Now legislators, you'd like to believe, might actually be grown-ups, if only because they don't have time to waste on temperamental children. Alas, among their ranks was one Emil Jones, a Chicago Democrat with a knee-jerk reaction to claims of "racism" — and who happens to be president of the state Senate. And Jones, it turns out, could throw his own tantrums.

Right after meeting with the students (and never bothering to meet with the other side), Jones demanded that the Chief be dumped immediately, or else. He let it be known that he could slash UI funding, and that if the trustees didn't play ball, he'd find a way to make sure they'd lose their jobs. For good measure, he threw more fuel on the fire by likening the trustees to "segregationists."

As you'd expect, anti-Chief forces were delighted, crowing about the "powerful ally" they'd made and declaring it was just a matter of time till they won their cause. But it looks as if — just as with the rushed trustee vote a few months ago, but to a greater extent — they've produced the opposite result. The far more numerous pro-Chief folk are aroused, and the people who didn't have a strong opinion before are turned off by arrogant and infantile antics.

This will have an impact on the people who actually make decisions. If Jones tries to make good on his foolishly public threat, he's likely to find his fellow legislators dealing him a stinging rebuke; they may even pass their own pro-Chief resolution. And the trustees — though they're appointed, not elected — are also unlikely to ignore public sentiment. If they could've quietly buried the Chief just to shut up the protestors, they might've done it. But with so many people on the other side now awake and agitated, that's not liable to work. My hunch: After the trustees vote on the Chief in June, he'll still be standing.

And that — apart from the Chief's merits — is at is should be. That's not because the majority is always right or should always rule. It's because, to be blunt about it, acting like bullies and brats should never be rewarded.

In short, it's because the world should be run by real live grown-ups who know how to behave themselves and expect everyone else to do the same. And radical as this notion may sound, that even includes college campuses.

Copyright © 2004 Matt Kaufman. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.

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