The University of Illinois Board of Trustees exhibits a similar pattern of racism and classism at all its campuses. The issue of the Chief Illiniwek mascot at the Urbana Campus is similar to the Maxwell Street issue at the Chicago Campus. Both are the result of stereotyping, exploitation, and a colonialist mentality.

University of Illinois trustees perceive a Manifest Destiny that God (or his anointed King, Richard Daley) intends Maxwell Street to be under the control of university bureaucrats, to seize the value of the land into the superior and deserving coffers of university bureaucrats and favored real estate developers, while inferior poor people lose their homes, businesses, jobs, and culture --it is all right to destroy anything and anyone who gets in the way of expansion.

(University bureaucrats really do think in those terms! See for example: Universities and the New Manifest Destiny Organizing Principles for Strategically Realigning American Research Universities.)

In Chicago, U of Illinois will be needlessly destroying one of Americans most important Blues landmarks and the living culture that survives from it.

• "The "blues" are more than just music, they are a central part and expression of the development of African American identity and existence. Change is an inevitable part of the historic process, destruction is not. A Maxwell Street Preservation District will be a wellspring of cultural expression, a rich tourist attraction and a source of educational and research opportunity. - Congressman Danny K. Davis, 7th Congressional District, Chicago
• Maxwell Street has the same value for Blues historians as the Pyramids have for archeologists. Destroying World Heritage is a crime against mankind. - Eric Paul-Hus, Drummondville, Quebec
• U of Illinois administrators see poor minorities trying to make a living as street vendors on old Maxwell Street. They label them as criminals, potential rapists. They never go to Maxwell Street to eat a Polish Sausage, buy a blues tape, get fitted for a zoot suit, or visit with the people there. I've offered to take UIC administrators and professors for tours of the area. They have refused. They are doing ethnic cleansing. Maxwell Street was here over a hundred years before UIC came to this neighborhood. UIC is not willing to live next door as good neighbors. Like the Europeans did with the Indians, they want to push them out. This is old fashioned 1960s style urban renewal equals 'Negro removal'. UIC decision-makers have no knowledge of the people there and no concern, no respect for them -- their culture or hardships. -- Steve Balkin, Vice President of the Maxwell Street Coalition

• It takes Native American symbols ands mocks them during halftime football events. - Brooke Anderson <baanders@uiuc.edu>

• It keeps us locked into a certain stereotype, of our people being looked at as a noble savage. It distorts the music and dance of our people, it's an exploitation of our spiritual, cultural, and intellectual property. - Vernon Bellecourt

 Why is U of Illinois doing this?

• Having a caricature of a Native American as the University's mascot and symbol encourages and promotes stereotyping of Native People. Images such as the "Chief" create a one-dimensional picture of Native Americans. These images undermine the self-determination and dignity of a people with a complex history and an active contemporary life. When any racial or cultural group is presented as lacking diversity and individual personality through caricatures and stereotypes, racism and cultural supremacy are at work - even if those doing the stereotyping feel it portrays positive characteristics. These symbols come straight out of America's past, from a time when racism was tolerated. The symbols were racist then and are racist now.
• The symbol has been denounced by the United Indian Nations of Oklahoma, Women of All Red Nations, the American Indian Movement, Wilma Mankiller, the Lakota Times, Jesse Jackson, Sports Illustrated and many more.
• This inappropriate use of the highest political position a Native person can hold with their tribe as an enhancement to an athletic spectacle illustrates the attitude of the dominant society toward Native Americans. What stands between Native people and self-determination isn't more money or federal programs but the whole "Manifest Destiny" mentality. The very social conditions of Native Americans today are a direct result of this mentality. It is in this way that the Chief Illiniwek does impact Native American lives.

- from <http://www.prairienet.org/prc/anti.html/qa.html>

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