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[source: NativeNews; Sun, 13 Feb 2000 15:33:35]

From: Catherine Davids
To: ishgooda@voyager.net
Cc: XColumn@aol.com, drewada@umich.edu, jreilly@umich.edu
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 13:57:20 -0500
Subject: Re: Michigamua

        Ann Arbor, home to the University of Michigan, is a beautiful Big Ten
campus-city: an academic, cultural, and sports mecca.  It is the hometown
of Bob Seger who memorialized Main Street in a hit song.  Buildings are
an architectural wonder combing church and secular designs.  Streets and
sidewalks teem with people representing ethnic nationalities and
religious denominations from around the world.  There are no borders
here.  City and campus are one.
        Traditions like the annual Naked Mile Run (winter) and the Great Spring
Pot Festival (smoking, not cooking) are warily tolerated.  Like most
college towns this one is loaded with all kinds of traditions, societies,
organizations.  There is never a reason to be bored in Ann Arbor.
        The UM has an affirmative action program and mission of
multiculturalism.  Documents and speeches by campus administrators
demonstrate that the campus-city has zero-tolerance for anything (or
anybody) that interferes with human and civil rights...anything that
denies people equal access and opportunity.  In the last eight days the
UM has become increasingly embarrassed by its own contradictions of "do
what I say, not as I do."   Broken promises and treaties are an all too
familiar sound to American Indian students and Students of Color
Coalition members who have taken an action being heard around the world
via electronic newsletters and by those in mainstream press who are not
afraid to speak the truth...no matter how much it bothers advertisers and
mainstream society.
        The Michigan Union is a four-story structure nearly a city block long
housing a plethora of student organizations,  The center structure of the
Union is called The Tower and it conceals the Tower Societies: a group of
secret organizations.
        To get to The Tower one takes the elevator to the fourth floor.  SOCC
members are stationed outside the door leading into the staircase which
houses the secret society's rooms.  To gain entrance you are announced
and led up several flights of stairs to the very top room which houses
the Michigamua society.  The room has been occupied by the SOCC for eight
days.  Michigamua members call themselves 'the wolves."  SOCC members
call themselves "human rights activists."  SOCC has hung an American flag
upside down, the international distress signal for "help"  from one of
the windows.
        There is nothing to prepare a visitor for this room known as the Wig
Wam.  It is a lot smaller than imagined.  It is approximately 20 feet
long and 15 feet wide.  Everything in the room is a bastardized insulting
devotion to American Indian culture and tradition.  The ceiling is a
wall-to-wall painting against a deep sky blue background.  In the center
of the ceiling...a huge wolf: Michigamua's mascot.  Each of the four
sides represents a difference scene: horses, wolves, corn (maize), and
nature.  In one corner the year of 1902 is emblazoned, and in its
opposite corner is an eagle.  The block "M" decorates the other two
corners.  Cedar shingles line all four walls for a few feet and from
there to the floor is cheap wood paneling.  Fake birch bark logs frame
all the windows and create framed spaces on the walls.  A huge wood
conference table (reminiscent of the middle ages) takes up most of the
floor space.  The walls are decorated with: a stuffed moose head, a
stuffed owl, and very old snowshoes,  A cigar store Indian and a section
of a totem pole have been turned into lamps.  A statue of an Indian man
wearing a full feathered headdress sits in the middle of the table.  The
students have inventoried each item.
        SOCC members found American Indian items tossed recklessly into corners
and it is obvious these items have never received quality care.  Age-old
photographs of Michigamua members are in terrible condition...ripped and
left to rot.  A glass case contains approximately two dozen arrowheads.
Another case contains Michigamua lapel pins that wives of members
returned, as part of a memorial, after their Michigamua husbands died.
        SOCC members found photograph albums full of Michigamua hazing episodes:
initiatees are blindfolded and shirtless, holding onto the fake birch
bark logs while Michigamua members paint Greek fraternity, and other
organizational, logos on their skin.  Alcohol containers are prevalent in
these photographs.  Women attended many of the parties held in the room.
        The fake birch bark log on one wall are decorated with words written in
red paint which were left to drip...to symbolize blood...that Michigamua
members are blood-brothers as determined by one of their so-called sacred
rituals.  The words read: now this is the law of the jungle - as old and
as true as the sky and the wolve that shall keep it may prosper, but the
wolve that shall break it must die and the creeper that girdles the tree
trunk, the law runneth forward and back for the strength of the pack is
the wolve and the strength of the wolve is the pack - this is the law of
the jungle."  As one visitor was heard to say yesterday after reading
this several times, "I think this is what mumbo jumbo must really mean."
        A bronze plaque pays tribute to Fielding Yost as "Great Scalper Yost."
A wooden plaque shaped like Michigan uses Hollywood created monosyllabic
words "always fight-um"  Photographs of past members, like President
Gerald Ford, deteriorate on the walls, behind falling-apart frames with
glass so dusty it is difficult to recognize the people.  It is, however,
a huge plaque dedicated to deceased Michigamua men that is the most
disturbing for it perfectly demonstrates that from its inception,
Michigamua was meant to dehumanize and mock American Indian people and
their culture by engaging in minstrelsy-era stereotyping.  The top reads:
Braves of the Tribe of Michigamua Called to Happy Hunting Ground."  Small
plates carry the names of these dead white men: Squaw Teaser Lloyd,
Silver Tongue Halderman, Limping Duck Gaines, Gaudy Blanket Robertson,
Buffalo Cow Pierce, New Moon Cleaver, White Weasel Lothrup, Heap Think
Wenlsy, and Wattapatimi Gundy."  There are a lot more names but you now
have the idea that Michigamua men were (and continue to be) engaged in
ceremonies, rituals, and name-giving to create insulting and demeaning
"little red sambos."
        Approximately thirty years ago the American Indian community asked that
Michigamu's rituals be brought to a halt.  The Michigan Department of
Civil Rights supported the American Indian students and their community.
Michigamua members agreed to cease these rituals and to get rid of the
offensive objects.  Nobody ever checked to make sure they kept their
treaty.  They didn't even bother.  They just took their rituals from
public view and put them behind closed doors hoping to forever seal their
secret society's bigoted practices.  For any Michigamua member, past or
present, to state that they did not know this was going on, or that they
did not know the items existed, is an insult to intelligence.
        The SOCC is comprised of many students representing all four medicine
wheel colors of humanity.  On Saturday the room was full of American
Indians, African Americans, Chicano/a, and Asian men and women, students
and community members, of all ages.
        The students are in their eighth day of occupation.  It is obvious that
before taking this action they versed themselves in University policy and
procedure and they probably know more about it than do University
administrators.  The space feels somehow...almost okay...because an
American Indian elder conducted a spiritual ceremony to cleanse the
environment, but only the removal of all the items, and a fresh paint
job, will truly make the space clean and whole again.
        The room is quiet because SOCC members envoke a traditional way of
conducting themselves.  If you want to speak, you raise your hand, and
wait to be acknowledged.  Nobody interrupts.  Nobody swears or calls
names.  Nobody has to speak loudly.  Each person's ideas and concerns are
thoughtfully considered.  There are no arguments.  It is a
back-and-forth, give-and-take atmosphere conducted with dignity and
respect.  Discussions create realizations.  Each of these students wants
to hear what others think...the interest is apparent on their faces and
they listen quietly.  The students are calm, rational, logical,
intelligent, courteous, pleasant, dedicated, passionate, and determined.
When they get up to stretch their legs they do it quietly so as not to
disturb others.  They are, most assuredly, not fanatical or revengeful,
but rather they are joined by a solidarity of human rights.  They
recognize bigotry when they see it and are not afraid to confront those
who would protect the cherished Michigamua tradition of racism.
        These students are looking at the short-term and long-term consequences
of their occupation.  They believe in the teachings of Ghandi, Martin
Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chaves, Red Cloud.  The students have been called
vulgar names by some campus administrators (and leaders) and they have
restrained from behaving in a similar style.  They are considering what
is best not only for themselves but for future students as well.  They
are considering the climate of the campus today and the climate of the
campus forever.
        American Indian people walk through life knowing they carry seven
generations of their ancestors with them at all times and that each step
taken must consider the seven generations to come.  SOCC members
represent what is best among their generation: to have a purpose, to be
knowledgeable, and to courageously defend civil rights.  They present
great hope for the future.
        Critics will say that SOCC is"causing trouble."  No they are not.  They
are merely responding to the trouble caused by broken promises and
ongoing ignorance and bigotry.  Critics will say, "who do they think they
are?"  These students do not have to think about who they are.  With
great clarity they know who they are.  Cynics will say, "they're just
trying to make a name for themselves."  No.  They are earning their names
by living up to the ideals and principles instilled in them by all their
relations, past and present.  They are earning their names so that one
day their names will be spoken with respect and their children will learn
from humane deeds performed today.
        University officials clearly are at a loss as to how to present
themselves to SOCC.  A community member noted, "it is an insult to the
intelligence and dignity of these students that University officials are
not acting on behalf of their well-being...that they can't come up here
and have a dialogue."
        The University has recently made the decision to rid itself of the
grotesque "maize-colored halo" surrounding Michigan Stadium.  Critics (by
the thousands) have loudly complained that the "halo" is an eyesore.  It
is a shame that most people are more interested in how the stadium looks
then in the racist actions of a student organization.  Surely if the
University can divest itself of the grotesque halo then it can divest
itself of The Tower Societies...forever.  Let's hope that the University
of Michigan's underlying theme is NOT 'you can judge us by our cover."

Catherine Davids
Flint, Michigan
 

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