(Name-mce) ListServ Intolerance surprisingly inhabits some American college campuses

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 (http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/) Intolerance surprisingly inhabits some 
American  college campuses
George Benge
Gannett News  Service
— On the eve of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, open season  has been declared on 
Native Americans and other people of color at settings  where intolerance and 
hate might least be expected — at some of our foremost  American colleges.
“I have a dream that one day little black boys and black  girls will be able 
to join hands with little white boys and white girls as  sisters and brothers. 
I have a dream today.”
Sadly, Dr. King’s message of  equality and love for all races has not 
connected with some students at the  University of Illinois, Tufts University and 
Dartmouth College.
At  Massachusetts’ Tufts University, deemed “one of the premier universities 
in the  United States,” a vile Christmas carol titled “O Come all Ye Black 
Folk” (“Sung  to the tune of ’O Come all Ye Faithful”) was published in The 
Primary Source, a  “Journal of Conservative Thought.”
At Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H.,  loftily described by its president as 
“at the forefront of American higher  education since 1769,” a recent cover 
of The Dartmouth Review featured a large  and offensive illustration of a 
Native American warrior holding aloft a grisly  human scalp. A tasteless, cliched 
headline with the illustration said, “The  Natives are Getting Restless.”
The most dangerous climate for people of color  exists at the University of 
Illinois/Urbana-Champaign, where the mission is to  “serve the state, the 
nation, and the world by creating knowledge, preparing  students for lives of 
impact, and addressing critical societal needs ...”
A  Native American student, whose name is not being used here to protect her  
safety, is starting spring semester at Illinois fearful and anxious after her 
 life was gruesomely threatened in a posting by another Illinois student on  
Facebook, a popular social-network Web site.
University of Illinois athletic  teams have a controversial and demeaning 
mascot named Chief Illiniwek, and the  threatened student has been an activist in 
the fight against the Illiniwek  mascot.
On Dec. 2, 2006, on a page titled “If They Get Rid of the Chief I’m  
Becoming a Racist,” an Illinois student wrote: “Apparently the leader of this  
movement is of Sioux descent. Which means what, you ask? The Sioux Indians are  the 
ones that killed off the Illini Indians, so she’s just trying to finish what  
her ancestors started. I say we throw a tomahawk into her face.”
The  hate-mongering Facebook page was yanked from the Web site after the 
threats were  made public.
Campus police are investigating. University Chancellor Richard  Herman 
castigated the Facebook threats as “dangerous and racist” and said he  “will not 
tolerate such violent threats.”
In an ideal world, the campus  police and chancellor would steer their 
investigation and outrage toward the  true source of the tension and intolerance — 
the university’s powerful Board of  Trustees.
I placed a phone call to trustees chairman Lawrence C. Eppley to  get his 
reaction to the Facebook threats and to ask him if, and when, the  trustees were 
going to dispatch Chief Illiniwek to mascot hell.
Instead,  Thomas Hardy, executive director of university relations, returned 
my call. He  answered my question in quintessential university-speak:
“The board of  trustees is the entity that is going to make a determination 
one way or another  about the future of the Chief Illiniwek tradition. The 
board has a consensus  process under way and will continue. There is no timetable 
affixed to that  process. At some point, the board will make a determination 
about what to do  with the Chief Illiniwek tradition.”
Let us pray that the board of trustees  concludes its foot-dragging, 
mind-numbing, politics-driven “consensus process”  in the very near future.
Doing so before an innocent Native American — or  anyone else — is injured 
or killed at Illinois would be just fine.
George  Benge, a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, writes commentary 
on  American Indian issues and people for Gannett News Service.
He can be  
reachhttp://www.muskogeephoenix.com/opinion/local_story_014145708.html/resources_printstoryed  at Gannett News Service, 7950 Jones Branch Drive, 
McLean, Va. 22107 or via  e-mail by _Clicking  Here_ 
(mailto:gbenge at gannett.com) 

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