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I bet Ralph Englestad is rolling in his grave.....Standing Rock leaders say they won't change stance
By Stephen J. Lee, Herald Staff Report
Published Wednesday, November 28, 2007
UND's Fighting Sioux nickname represents only a “slice” of what the Lakota and Dakota people were, and it must be changed, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said Tuesday in Grand Forks.
“It's part of who we were, not who we are,” said Ron His Horse Is Thunder during a two-hour news conference in UND's American Indian Center sponsored by the Campus Committee for Human Rights.
He and three other leaders of the Standing Rock Nation, based in Fort Yates, N.D., were invited to UND by campus Indian leaders to talk about their concerns about the Fighting Sioux nickname and logo.
Four leaders of the Standing Rock Nation spoke at UND American Indian center Tuesday, left to right; David Gipp, Jesse Taken Alive, Avis Little Eagle and Ron His Horse Is Thunder. All four spoke about the recent developments concerning the university's use of the Fighting Sioux nickname and logo. Herald photo by Jackie Lorentz.
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UND President Charles Kupchella (left) and Tribal Chariman of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
Ron His Horse Is Thunder
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Standing Rock and Spirit Lake in Devils Lake are the two Sioux tribes based in the state.
Standing Rock Tribal Vice Chairwoman Avis Little Eagle, former Chairman Jesse Taken Alive and United Tribes Technical College President David Gipp, a tribal member, also spoke. The news conference was “not a debate,” said Lucy Ganje of the human rights committee, but an opportunity for tribal leaders to express their concerns.
The context was last month's court settlement with the NCAA, in which UND was given three years to win support for the nickname from the Standing Rock and Spirit Lake tribes.
It's not coming from Standing Rock, His Horse Is Thunder said. He said he travels worldwide and runs into harmful and ignorant stereotypes of Indians all the time, such as “Do you still live in teepees?”
The UND nickname and logo “perpetuates that stereotypical image,” he said. “It's just a part of who we were and doesn't give them the encompassing image of who we are.”
Indians include physicians and lawyers who are contributing to American life and are not simply historical artifacts clad in “buckskins and headdresses,” remembered most for “fighting the cavalry,” he said.
“If that's all we wanted to be, we wouldn't come here to UND,” His Horse Is Thunder said. “We come to expand our horizons . . . to become part of the modern world.”
Kupchella talks
to group
UND President Charles Kupchella could not attend the news conference Tuesday because of a scheduling conflict, he said. But he arrived to have lunch with the four tribal leaders and to talk with them afterward.
Early in his tenure at UND, Kupchella proposed considering a nickname change but was hauled up short when UND benefactor, the late Ralph Engelstad, threatened to stop construction of the new hockey arena that bears his name. The state Board of Higher Education, also pressured by Engelstad, stepped in and ordered UND to keep the name.
On Tuesday, during a brief interview, Kupchella pointed out it is the state board and not UND that must rule on the nickname and logo.
And his time as president now is “measured in months,” Kupchella said before sitting down to a lunch of wild rice soup and sandwiches with the Standing Rock officials. He will step down in June.
Asked if the idea of changing UND's nickname is viable, Kupchella said, “Anything's possible.”
But talking about such possibilities wasn't on his agenda Tuesday, Kupchella made clear. “What I'm looking for is a discussion on how to structure some kind of dialogue and that is where we are,” Kupchella said.
There are about 400 American Indian students among UND's 12,500 student population, and 20 percent to 25 percent are Sioux, said Leigh Jeanotte, director of the American Indian Center.
Gipp said when he attended UND from 1965-69, there were about 40 American Indian students on campus. He loved attending UND hockey games in the old, unheated “barn” and still would rather go there than to the new Ralph Engelstad Arena, which he called “that $100 million monstrosity sitting across campus.” Gipp said he's never visited the new Engelstad Arena.
He “went along” with the nickname and logo until deciding in 1994 that it had to be changed, Gipp said. And now is the time, he said.
“We will bring North Dakota into the 21st century, kicking and screaming, but we will do it,“ Gipp said, winning applause from the audience of about 50 people.
His Horse Is Thunder suggested a replacement nickname that would focus on a North Dakota hero, Teddy Roosevelt.
“I would ask the UND alumni, the state board of Higher Education, . . . to take a look at changing the logo and choose an image that all of North Dakota could be proud of,” he said “We have the perfect logo: North Dakota Rough Riders. . . . Who could object to that? It is talking about bravery; it is talking about courage. I think everyone could agree on that.”
Taken Alive said that, by his count, 12 of the 17 members of the Standing Rock tribal council have voiced disapproval of the Fighting Sioux name and logo. Two have declined to voice an opinion and at least one has voiced support for it, he said.
Support three decades ago by a Standing Rock tribal leader was voided by broken promises from UND officials about how the name and logo would be used, His Horse Is Thunder said.
The history of broken treaties and battles between the Sioux people and the U.S. government goes back more than a century, and the nickname controversy is part of “the decolonization,” of the Sioux, Taken Alive said.
His grandfather, a combat veteran in the South Pacific during World War II and a teacher, told him of the pain he experienced seeing signs saying, “No dogs or Indians allowed,” in McLauglin, S.D., decades ago. His grandfather taught him, “We're not supposed to make fun of other people because the Creator said that,” Taken Alive said.
He urged UND officials “to make this the last chapter of mimicry and mockery of us as human beings.”
White people have to realize “how damaging it is to be treated as a mascot, as a logo,” Taken Alive said. “This is a new millennium. It shouldn't be cowboys and Indians any more. We shouldn't have to defend who we are.”
Avis Little Eagle said a turning point for her was working as a journalist covering - and participating in - a demonstration several years ago against Indian nicknames during a professional football game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Washington Redskins. “People were getting hit with beer cans,” she said. “They were spitting on us because we dared protest against their sacred mascot.”
She said she sees the same sort of angry, violent attitudes from UND fans in Internet postings, on blogs and other electronic media sounding boards on the nickname issue.
For her it boils down to a simple issue. “What it's about is human dignity.”
The Standing Rock officials said it appears that recent overtures by UND nickname supporters appear to be attempts to buy their support.
About a year ago, UND alumni privately raised about $1 million - within a few weeks - to fund a scholarship endowment aimed mainly at Sioux students, said Jeanotte, director of the American Indian Center. Four or five UND students received the scholarships, which amount to $7,000 to about $11,000 per year, per student, he said. Although enrolled members of the Standing Rock and Spirit Lake tribes get priority in consideration of receiving the scholarships, other Indian students also have qualified, he said.
His Horse Is Thunder characterized the scholarship and a more recent offer to put up a plaque to Standing Rock military veterans in the Engelstad Arena as attempts “to buy” Standing Rock support for the Fighting Sioux nickname.
Gipp said that while the scholarship seemed obviously an attempt to get Standing Rock approval for the nickname, “it didn't work.”
