I looked around me and saw orange, a sea of orange. I looked down at my white T-shirt and realized that before I attended another Illinois football game I had to buy an orange T-shirt. I learned other things at that first football game too, like the words and motions to crowd cheers and how to hold my arms while the Chief danced at half time. Looking back at the football games I went to my freshman year (way back in 2006,) I understand why so many students here at the U of I still do not agree with the board of trustee’s vote to retire the controversial Chief Illiniwek mascot— they (as I did,) look at the controversy from the wrong viewpoint. When news hit that the Chief officially retired my freshman year, I rushed to the bookstore to buy paraphernalia with the Chief on it. I, like so many of my friends, did not understand why the University would take away our mascot.
I’m not writing this to sway you readers one way or another on the mascot controversy; a superabundance of literature exists on that topic. If you are interested in that topic, I suggest you visit this.
Instead, I want to describe a Facebook invite I received last week to buy a T-shirt for Unofficial.
The front of this shirt reads: “Unofficial St Patricks Day 2010.” Underneath that there is a picture of the “Chief” holding up a beer bong of sorts. The back has a picture of a One World pizza box in the middle with two beer cans that have a feather on them, showing that the beer belongs to the “Chief,” the back reads: “Chief Illiniwek: U of I’s Unofficial Mascot is far from dead… he is just passed the f**k out.”
I was stunned when I saw this shirt, and even more astonished that people wanted to buy a shirt like that. This T-shirt completely and blatantly disrespects the retired Chief Illiniwek mascot as well as American Indians.
This Friday, March 5th 2010, is Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day, and the Urbana-Champaign campus won’t be a sea of orange, but rather, a sea of green. It is my hope that those deciding to take part in Unofficial this year, join the sea of green with T-shirts that respectfully represent our University.
Excellent post Rachel. How low some people will go.
A nice, eloquent post – it’s incredible that so many offensive T-shirts get made, especially those associated with institutes of higher learning, touting the principles of tolerance.
Despite its offensive nature, I love that the t-shirt uses an empty One World pizza box…I miss that place.
What people have to remember is that we are college kids. I’m a student at the University and, while I never saw these shirts last year, I think it’s funny. We respected the Chief, but people above us decided that we didn’t. They took him away from us, and I’m still angry to this day. Even being part Cherokee, I find nothing offensive about having a Native American mascot. I think it’s awesome to be able to keep the spirit of the Illiniwek tribe alive and famous. Never, until the NCAA took the Chief away, did I ever hear one disrespectful remark about him. Only after he was retired did students begin to come up with things like this t-shirt in an effort to show that Chief is not dead in our hearts. While, yes, this shirt is “pushing it”, it’s the college student’s way of dealing with something that we’re angry about.