UIC TRIO Upward Bound

Incredible!

Words of intellectual inspiration!

This video will enhance your understanding or what is a true intellectual.

"They want the art, but not the people."

In what ways can we make critical connections from this video to our communities here in Chicago?

Check this out!

The gentleman that is dancing is called a Men's Fancy Dancer. All of his eagle feathers in his regalia are generally earned through community involvement. (We purposefully utilize the word "regalia" rather than "costume" because this is very offensive since regalia is connected to ceremony and honoring our ancestors and our communities, not for entertainment.)

Here this Men's Fancy Dancer, who is also a Native American rapper, is dancing to honor the lives of the r***d, murdered, and missing Native American women. What many people do not know is that Native American women are r***d, murdered and missing by percentage of population of all ethnic groups in US AND CANADA! However, Native Americans are rarely ever included in these ethnic data studies.

To note, Native Americans by percentage of population also encounter the most police brutality and other socio-cultural issues. It is very interesting how Native people are the first inhabitants of the Americas, yet we know very little about their history and culture, which in part is due to the lack of integration of this knowledge in the school's curriculum. This is very true of other ethnic groups as well!

Think more about what you can do to implement or initiate the change of this. We all can play a role in this.

This video briefly highlights why tribal recognition by the US Government is salient for the tribal member's survival and also the physical displacement of these tribal members from their ancestral land, which was due to the US Government seizing their land to sell to the highest bidder.

The US Government had paid the State of California to exterminate Native Americans during the Gold Rush Era, in which all crimes that the Anglos (Whites) committed against Native Americans during this process (ie. r**e, murder, etc.) was legalized without legal repercussions. Thus, INSTITUTIONALIZING & LEGALIZING RACISM AND MURDER.

This combined with several other major events have culminated to create the legacy of the marginalization of Native people in their homelands that leads to present day, such as the highest rates of police brutality and r***d, murdered, and missing woman per percentage of the population and racist mascots that remain embedded in our mainstream society.

This same model of marginalization has been implemented with other ethnic groups such as Blacks and Latinxs (Latinas/Latinos). Think more about this and come up with some examples.

(Marginalization explained: In this case, marginalization is racial discrimination that leads life chances and experiences that are less than that of whites that is reinforced throughout society and institutions [ex: schools, jobs, prisons] to purposefully maintain white supremacy across society [ex: representation in government, voice in legislation, etc.] to maintain a white majority across society [ex: voice, representation, etc]. )

Think of examples TODAY that demonstrate the marginalization of people of color in our American society.

Imagine being one of the very first women from your country to join a Female Football Club, especially given the social environment that these women come from.