Wampum

What's worse?

John 'Bigot' Aravosis tries to hide the truth regarding the regalia:

PS And they want us to return the outfit the mascot wore, an outfit that the chief of a tribe sold to the university, and not for a necklace of beads 300 years ago - it was a fair deal for $3500 in 1982, and the outfit wasn't historic, it was made by the chief's wife (there's some dispute about the feathers in the headress being special, fine, return the feathers if they can find them). Enough is enough, they got their piece of flesh - at least keep the outfit in a museum. Their chief knew what he was doing, he even came to the university to celebrate the sale.

First, this explains how the school obtained the regalia:

http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2007/02/racism-power-and-privilege-at-uiuc-in.html

The regalia worn by the student who portrays Chief Illiniwek was bought from an Oglala man in the 1980s. He was destitute at the time. His family wants the regalia back. A few weeks ago, the Executive Committee of the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council passed a resolution calling for the end of Chief Illiniwek, and for the regalia to be returned to them.

Second, Aravosis says: "they got their piece of flesh"

Hmm. Think he's referring to SCALPING?!

Obviously!

And when these two points were posted in the comments by Ed Sikov ( http://edsikov.com/ ) ?

ARAVOSIS ERASED THEM!

So, if you're keeping score...

Snickers ads that mock bigots? BAD!!!

Racist Native American mascots? GOOD!!!

THANK YOU.

I was banned from commenting at Americablog when I demanded John logically defend his bullshit.

He only cares about gay issues, apparently. Misogyny and defamation of people of color is not important in his world, it seems.

This is not the first time Aravosis has done this. The man is a misogynistic bigot who regularly trashes any and everyone. I don't know why the big-time bloggers defend him. One can only assume it's because Aravosis says what they all think. I'm glad you pointed this out. Frankly - I stopped reading him more than a year ago for these very reasons.

Wow, that whole exchange is just astonishing. Being from the South, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that football is thicker than water, but it's incredible that someone who is so attuned to anti-gay bigotry has such a tin ear that he thinks dressing up some white boy in "redface" and having him prance around a football field somehow "honors" Indians. On the plus side, it looked like the comments were running about 98% against him (not counting the ones he deleted, of course)

I love that...BUT WE'RE HONORING YOU DUDE!! jeje

Redskins? Redskins?! Or all the stupid bases on which prejudice rests, I should think an overt naming of phenotype would be the most obvious. Except for those who wouldn't even be allowed in the door, due to their "dysfunctional" female bodies, but still.

What's next? Call Alexandria's or Maryland's teams the Palefaces? The Whiteskins? Or maybe "the Weasels", given their inability to recognize their own rule of law when it applies to a sovereign nation.

These team names (and some place names around the country) are indefensible. Slander of Native Americans is an acceptable form of racism in the USA. That acceptance crosses political, cultural and ethnic lines. That the football team in DC is called the Redskins says everything we need to know about how widespread, commonplace and automatic this form of racism has become.

In my research of the Abramoff scandal it has been amazing how many reports, posts and comments included some swipe or outright attack of Native Americans.

Back in 2003, Co-op America published this article about the issue and what folks can do to support Native American groups who seek to end the commercial use of their images.

By the way, a good secondary boycott target for the Redskins would be FedEx/Kinko's which has bought the naming rights for the football stadium.

Well, once Pandagon comes back up, one of the B-list blogs will have said something. I wrote it, published it, and then serveritis struck. But it's there!

This has been discussed at dailykos as well...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/17/13912/6824

According to the poll at the Kos diary, 40% of Kossacks so far do not believe that getting rid of Chief Illiniwek was the right thing to do.

40%.

DKos suffered a significant exodus of progressives over Kos' response to the Pie Fight ad, and significant attrition on other occasions. Which is not to say that the site's traffic has suffred: not in the slightest, AFAIK. But there has been a proportionate increase, it seems to me, in the number of people who think that "Bush sucks" is the sole requisite content of a progressive political philosophy.

Which is by no means intended to denigrate the important contributions of remaining progressive DKos regulars of the Meteor Blades mold. But that 40 percent doesn't shock me.

It doesn't shock me either, Chris. One year ago I posted regularly at KOS - I really enjoyed the discussions - heated or no. People took the time to express themselves - passionately yes; but without a great deal of rancor. That has changed - and comments that I would classify as definitely not progressive seem almost the norm these days. In point of fact - I've read many things that made me stop and catch my breath. It's a pity. During the march on Washington KOS was the place to be for expressions of inclusiveness and bonhomie. But as you say - and considering what I've read there lately - that 40% is not surprising. I will say it's quite disappointing, however.

I'm not sure why it is that non-NDNs (even self-proclaimed "progressive" ones) gets so virulently defensive over this issue. I was being facetious when I said football is thicker than water; it has to be more than that. Maybe they know in the depths of their consciences that they are wrong and it makes them feel sick and guilty, and the resulting anger has to go somewhere. Or maybe they just cannot fathom (and thus would prefer to simply ignore) the genocide that marked the invasion and conquest of this Hemisphere.

The new link for John's racist post:

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/02/university-of-illinois-drops-its-mascot_16.html

And Aravosis erased all of the comments.

Luckily, you have 'clean sheets' to add your views, before John makes his own "outfit" out of them.

I can think of a few bloggers who would agree with the "fuck you, John" statement just on principle.

But that's just little ol' me.

and little ol' me also.

Having perhaps the only blog on the internet that was formed largely from people who were banned from Aravosissy's comment threads, I feel ya. (Background) I was NOT one of the angels expelled from John's paradise of progressive insight. I drifted away voluntarily when he started trashing all his visitors for criticizing him over his pandering to Katherine Harris. There are plenty of so-called b-list sites way better than AMERICAblog from a number of perspectives. John only rises above the mediocre when he is blogging about gay issues. A perfect example of the principle that how good a blog is is in no way related to how many hits it gets.

BTW: What constitutes an A or B list blog traffic-wise?

As a member of The Unruly Mob SadButTrue speaks of, I can vouch for the fact that John has thrown away a lot of extremely good contributors with his attitude. It's the "never wrong" approach that has this country in the shape it's in.

Paul V, there's no official definition that I know of. Looking through the TLB Ecosystem will give you an idea of who the most-linked and most-read political bloggers are, for what that's worth.

MB, I can easily understand why you think the "but I'm HONORING you, Dude" cartoon is "excellent," viewed from the perspective of the Chief Illinwek controversy. You're right, it is excellent from that point of view. But with all due respect, I see that cartoon as endorsing a stereotype; it's using the racist character's fatness as a symbolic way of indicating his grossness and stupidity.

Amp, I can honestly see your point, and there's a peculiar irony as American Indians suffer from obesity and its associated conditions (heart disease, type II diabetes) at rates much higher than other ethnic groups. As a cartoonist, do you think he was possibly looking first for a larger canvass on which to put his messages (Go Savages! Kill Em!), and the naked "beer-belly" worked to his advantage?

I know that all anti-fat stereotyping is bad and hurtful (I'm fat myself), but are there any times when it's less so? (I personally wasn't offended by the image, as I don't identify with beer-swigging, half-naked sports fans, fat or not.)

As a cartoonist, do you think he was possibly looking first for a larger canvass on which to put his messages (Go Savages! Kill Em!), and the naked "beer-belly" worked to his advantage?

I'm sure that was an advantage of using a fat character for this cartoon. But that doesn't make it okay, in my view, any more than I'd feel that Chief Illinwek would be okay if it turned out that the dancer wearing the costume honestly felt that he was dancing only to indicate respect for the Illin tribe of Indians.

If the only issue had been space for writing, there are a lot of ways the cartoonist could have approached this without bringing in anti-fat stereotypes. He could have decided to make the character more barrel-chested than fat, for example, and then repositioned the character's right arm so that it wasn't blocking so much of the trunk area. So yes, making the character extra-fat was convenient, but it wasn't mandatory.

(Another solution would have been to make both characters about equally fat, and to have drawn the fat in a less "isn't all this flesh yucky" drawing style.)

This cartoonist is obviously a skilled cartoonist - meaning, he knows how to draw well and to set up a gag. Even if he (she?) didn't think through this consciously, it's no accident when a skilled cartoonist draws a negative character with mounds of very fleshy, jiggly fat, with lots of hair tufts. The point isn't just to gain space for lettering; the fat is supposed to help readers understand that this is a stupid, slobby person. (The beer in hand and the buck teeth serve the same purpose).

I know that all anti-fat stereotyping is bad and hurtful (I'm fat myself), but are there any times when it's less so?

Well, I try to keep it in perspective. I'm not going to stop enjoying "The Simpsons" because of all the anti-fat jokes it uses, and I don't blame you at all for blogging this cartoon, considering how perfect it is for the subject under discussion. And there are clearly some jokes that are worse than others; the anti-fat ideology in the cartoon we're discussing is just run-of-the-mill, reflexive anti-fatness. Compared to something like Mike Myer's "Fat Bastard" character, where the point is to display fat as being as gross as possible, this is obviously pretty mild.

So yeah, there's degrees of badness. But with that said, it's still bad, in my opinion. (I don't think you disagree!)

All right. I am going against the current here. I am a long time sports fan. As a rule, teams are named after something local that deserves respect. If not, it is something generic that demands respect (tigers, bulldogs, etc.)
I always enjoyed the local names better. Where else can you enjoy the "fighting redfish".
And naming your team after a local tribe would seem to be a show of respect, not derision.
You don't name your team for something that is deemed inferior.
I have read John's blog, and he has claimed in the past to not even like sports. So I don't know why he inserted an opinion.
But we are getting too pc. And I'm a long-time liberal, from the viet nam days. If we can get rid of the bs that is an albatross around our necks, the masses would be clamoring to jump on the liberal bandwagon. Instead, we give the right wing nut jobs ammunition to fire up dumb-a$$ rednecks.
I am married and have three children. But you can call me any name you wish, if it inspires at least one more person to vote against the current nazi regime. That is where the battlefield is. One step at a time.

Morning David,

Indians are always told to take their issues off the table, for their own good.

Thanks for visiting.

Also, I might respectfully point out that Indians are not animals. And if the person or group you choose to "honor" empathically does NOT want the "honor," isn't it just basic common courtesy to listen to them?