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War Chant has been retired
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<blockquote data-quote="mattcoldagelli" data-source="post: 1326480" data-attributes="member: 11524"><p>Let's look at it in reverse. </p><p></p><p>We got rid of the Chief, and in doing so, made either an implicit or explicit case to the NCAA that "Chief Illiniwek" and "Fighting Illini" are separable entities. As has been pointed out in this thread, "Fighting Illini" predates the Chief, is not a term referring to an actual Native American tribe, and was created as shorthand/trendy phrase for student soldiers. In short, the Chief and his surrounding trappings (logos, etc.) were the things that brought the Native American connotation to the school's teams, and without him we revert to the origin of the term, which is essentially just a demonym (along the lines of "Hoosier" or "Sooner").</p><p></p><p>Wouldn't keeping around the most overtly Native American thing we had undermine this case?</p><p></p><p>To be frank, I don't share the worry about the activists that others have expressed. With minor exceptions (getting the logo removed from, say, toilet paper), they did not achieve their aims in all their years of protesting the Chief. The NCAA made that happen. </p><p></p><p>Now, I don't trust the NCAA to get even the simplest thing correct, but we also don't need to be handing them ammunition to fire in the wrong direction, which is what the War Chant is.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="mattcoldagelli, post: 1326480, member: 11524"] Let's look at it in reverse. We got rid of the Chief, and in doing so, made either an implicit or explicit case to the NCAA that "Chief Illiniwek" and "Fighting Illini" are separable entities. As has been pointed out in this thread, "Fighting Illini" predates the Chief, is not a term referring to an actual Native American tribe, and was created as shorthand/trendy phrase for student soldiers. In short, the Chief and his surrounding trappings (logos, etc.) were the things that brought the Native American connotation to the school's teams, and without him we revert to the origin of the term, which is essentially just a demonym (along the lines of "Hoosier" or "Sooner"). Wouldn't keeping around the most overtly Native American thing we had undermine this case? To be frank, I don't share the worry about the activists that others have expressed. With minor exceptions (getting the logo removed from, say, toilet paper), they did not achieve their aims in all their years of protesting the Chief. The NCAA made that happen. Now, I don't trust the NCAA to get even the simplest thing correct, but we also don't need to be handing them ammunition to fire in the wrong direction, which is what the War Chant is. [/QUOTE]
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War Chant has been retired
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