[Peace-discuss] ACTION ALERT: Arraignment for Mark Nepermann Tomorrow

[E. Wayne Johnson]

Neil,

I am not sure if you are kidding or not.

Although I am not part of the CHIEF Yesterday-Today-Forever Crowd, I am 
familiar with them and
understand how they think.

They would perceive the backwardized spelling of Fighting Illini as 
Incredibly Offensive,
since many of them would associate backwards stuff (backwards writing, 
backwards music)
with Satanism and Evil.  The rest would just think that somehow the 
artist is making fun of the Fighting Illini.
Even I perceive it that way, but I rather enjoy it because I dont like 
the Fighting Illini either.  My favourite
version of the fight song, which they are generally walking worthy of  
is:  We're laughing at you , Illinois, for the game
you just blew, Illinois..."

But, if you drive around in Urbana, you will find that there are still a 
lot of vehicles with pro-Chief stickers and
lots of pro-Chief T-shirts around town.  And more than half of the 
student body was pro-Chief at an recent referendum on campus.
90% of those people are Not anti-Native American.  They just like the 
Chief.   Some how he brought some
meaning into their otherwise miserable and pathetic lives.  They miss 
the Chief and they are sick about it and mad as hell
about it.  The boys got some free tickets to a miserable and pathetic 
basketball game of the UofI against puny little
Eastern Carolina or some such backwater liberal arts college.  Eastern 
Carolina almost beat Illinois but failed
because they played even more poorly than Illinois did. It was my first 
Illinois basketball game in 35 years (since 1973).  I got
enough of Illinois basketball that I can make it for another 35, thank you.

But the thing that I noticed most clearly was how many people there were 
with "CHIEF" sweatshirts, and the mournful cry "Chief...?" at the time 
in the
ridiculous event when Illiniwek was supposed to do his dance.   The most 
surreal part for me as a virtual foreigner, an unwilling observer in 
this pageant
of despair, was the absolute impotence of  the crowd do anything about it.

There is an Anti-Chief crowd and a Pro-Chief crowd that is by necessity, 
Anti-(Anti-Chief).  Now, if the same 5-neuron guy who had thought up
the character of Chief Illiniwek had thought of a Dancing Bear instead, 
it would be the animal rights crowd vs the Pro-Dancing Bear crowd.

There is no way one can bring in a potentially offensive exhibit like 
"Beyond the Chief" into this bruised situation and not get a negative 
response.

But actually, I do think that Heap of Birds is far from innocent, and 
the coyest being displayed is a Heap or maybe just a Crock.

So what it says about the population is that it is made up of people.

Wayne






On 7/2/2009 12:49 PM, Neil Parthun wrote:
> The actual display was the following:
>
> A sign that had "FIGHTING ILLINI" spelled backwards and the text below 
> "Today your guest is (different Native tribe)" -- the different Native 
> tribes being the tribes that were in Illinois.
>
> So, I don't see how it could be unambiguously anti-Chief.  And "in yr. 
> face" is really ridiculous when one looks at the history of his art 
> pieces.
>
> From the News Gazoo:
> Heap of Birds, who is 54, has exhibited internationally and at major 
> museums, among them the Smithsonian Institution and the Denver Art 
> Museum – where his outdoor "Wheel" sculpture is valued at $500,000. He 
> exhibited as part of collateral events at the 2007 Venice Biennale, 
> one of the world's premiere international art exhibitions.
>
> The artist, also a professor of American studies at the University of 
> Oklahoma, has created seven or eight "Native Host" series of signs for 
> other cities, including New York. None has been vandalized or stolen 
> except in Urbana, where the public art exhibit was titled "Beyond the 
> Chief."
>
> In each venue the "Native Hosts" signs name American Indian tribal 
> nations that once lived there. Robert Warrior, director of the UI's 
> Native American House, American Indian Studies and curator of the 
> exhibit here, said one thing the signs do is mark "in specific ways 
> previously unmarked and unnamed removals" of American Indians.
> --
>
> They were only vandalized here in Urbana.  What does that say about 
> our population here?
>
> Anyway, I'd write more but I've got to be out at the courthouse for 
> the first hearings on this case.
>
> Solidarity,
>   -N.
>
> Neil Parthun
>   Sports/politics writer, UC-IMC || www.ucimc.org <http://www.ucimc.org>
>
> "Early in life I had learned that if you want something, you had 
> better make some noise." - Malcolm X
>

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