The Paradox of Honoring Chief Illiniwek
Walk a mile in my shoes.
Freshman year at the University of Illinois (UIUC), I started walking down Two Paths (A & B) running in parallel in my life, along which a suburban privileged white boy (me) intersected with Native American culture (sort of):
PATH A, The Chief Illiniwek Path, started when I attended my first Illini football game. I had no prior knowledge of Chief Illiniwek, and I was totally unaware of what was going to happen that day. At halftime, I was astounded when I saw an Indian (so I assumed) clothed in ceremonial dress emerge from inside the marching band and perform an authentic dance on the football field. I had never seen anything like this before and was shocked by my emotional response. It was as if I was ambushed by a surprise baptism and bonded with the Legend of Chief Illiniwek, right then and there.
But in that glorious moment reveling in the Chief’s performance, I (We) never asked the question, “What do Native Americans think about this?” It was instant acceptance as I was swallowed up in the Tribe of True (Illini) Believers all around me.
The years passed: graduation, marriage, career, kids.
PATH B, The YMCA Indian Guides/Princesses Path, started when my son and I joined the local YMCA‘s Indian Guides Program. Our “tribe” had eight dads and their sons and we met monthly at a dad’s house. Activities included a pledge, song, craft, Native American story, and snack. We wore headbands and both the dads and sons took made-up Indian names. We went on weekend campouts in fall, winter, and spring. I did this with my daughters in the YMCA Indian Princesses Program. It was all about one-on-one time between dads and kids. We had fun while we respected the Native American heritage.
But, I (We) never asked the question, “What do Native Americans think about this?”
The years passed: America changed, Native Americans changed, I changed.
While working as Director of EnterpriseWorks (EW) at UIUC, I received a call on February 16, 2007, from the Vice Chancellor’s Office letting me know there would be an emergency Board of Trustees’ meeting and they wanted to use our conference room at EW. I had no idea at the time what the purpose of the meeting was. The Trustees arrived on a Friday morning and assembled in the conference room behind closed doors for two hours. When they emerged, Chairman Lawrence Eppley announced “Chief Illiniwek would be retired.” Also, I found out the YMCA had discontinued its Indian Guides/Princesses Program four years earlier in 2003.
I had been walking Two Paths all these years — Chief Illiniwek and Indian Guides/Princesses — as a True Believer, but admittedly in willful ignorance that both the University and the YMCA had been appropriating revered symbols of Native American culture for the use and entertainment by white people. I stopped walking the Two Paths that day. The thought of a young UIUC student from suburban Chicago dancing in the middle of the football field every Saturday didn’t make much sense to me anymore.
The truth is, Native Americans have never been happy with the White Man’s appropriation of Indian culture, no matter how well intended. If we could convene a hypothetical People’s Court, we could give each side a chance for their closing arguments to the question, “Who gets to decide what actually honors and conveys respect to its indigenous peoples?” It might go something like this:
WHITE MAN: “We thought we were honoring the chief; we thought we were preserving Native American culture; we thought we were bringing the dignity and the history of Native Americans forward.”
NATIVE AMERICAN: “Our hearts were saddened and humiliated at the site of the White Man ‘playing Indian’. You must not forget that you brought hundreds of years of death, destruction, confiscation, and relocation upon us to the brink of our extinction. The White Man has either not been listening to us, or did not care to listen.”
Today, I still go to the YMCA and each time there I pass a picture on the wall of my youngest daughter when she was in the Indian Princesses Program. I always tap the picture to signal, “I love you,“ in remembrance of the good times we shared back in the day.
But, when you truly love something and want to sincerely honor it, in this particular case we must all ultimately understand that imitation of the Native American is not the highest form of honor the White Man can bestow.
But rather paradoxically, it is to LET GO of the practice of imitation and leave it in the past.