Imagine, if you will, that a family member, is currently in the intensive care unit of a hospital on life support. Doctors assure you the condition is nearly 99.9% fatal, and that while they can’t explicitly say so, they assume the patient is likely suffering from mild pain, at the very least, and severe anguish at worst. What is your initial reaction to this situation? Would you do the humane thing and suggest that they pull the plug? Would you hold out hope and pray for that .1% chance? I’m guessing that for most of you reading this article now that you would likely choose the former option.
The University of North Dakota has a similar patient on life support—the Fighting Sioux name. This is a death that has been forthcoming since the very beginnings of the lawsuit against the NCAA several years ago. Instead of admitting the (sometimes outwardly) racist undertones of the name and finding a new, non-offensive mascot/name, the State Board of Higher Education decided to shove a ventilator down the throat of that Sioux head seen everywhere at the Engelstad Arena.
Just as the patient in the first paragraph suffers, a fairly sizeable group of our student body continues to feel the effects of racism, ignorance and intolerance from other UND students, alumni and members of the Grand Forks community. That group, in case it wasn’t clear from the above sentence, is made up of the Native American students on campus. Statements I’ve heard from people around the campus and the community are unjust, ignorant and borderline abhorrent. I’ve heard jokes, stupid comments, and the use of Ralph Englestad’s supposed second-favorite derogatory moniker (after the Fighting Sioux, of course) to describe Native Americans that doesn’t deserve repeating.
I’ve long held the belief that this campus community and the greater Grand Forks and Minnesota/North Dakota community at large don’t deserve the Fighting Sioux nickname. Claiming you “honor” the “tradition” of the Sioux is half-hearted at best when you turn around and make comments relating to the very real problem of alcoholism on American Indian reservations. I can’t tell you how many people have said that the reason why the name change should not happen is because of its “tradition.” If I place a flaming bag of crap on your front doorstep every day for a week, would you appreciate my reasoning to continue doing it in the days and months to come being based on the “tradition” I’ve now established?
A friend, for whom I respect greatly, told me a few weeks ago that if/when the Fighting Sioux name is changed, he would not donate to the university in the future. I’ve heard several alumni make the same claims. Are the alumni of this University as stupid as they claim? Basing your monetary donations not on the educational experiences you had during your tenure at this school but instead on the sporting events that you spent 1/64th of your time here attending is preposterous.
President Kelley, Chancellor Goetz, SBHE President Smith—it’s time to pull the plug. This battle has gone on for far too long. If you were to reach out to native students on campus, you’d realize that the Fighting Sioux name does a lot to propogate a racist attitude amongst students and other community members on campus. I’ve experienced this myself as a member of the Jewish community on campus.
This week I am the featured guest on the Airplane Geeks podcast. I can’t thank the A. G. guys for having me on their show enough. It was a lot of fun to “talk shop” for a little over two hours with such a distinguished and wide-ranging group of individuals.
During the “guest” segment of the show, I discussed the work I’m doing as part of my Masters degree in Education at the University of North Dakota. For those of you interested in what I’m doing, in the space below you’ll find several links that I’ve come across over the past few years relating to my thesis project:
For those interested in an interesting, yet long and academic read, my Honors thesis (PDF warning) provides a general overview of the basis for and type of program I’d like to run.
The primary studies from the 1960s and 1970s mentioned in the podcast are from Federal Aviation Administration educators Lee Conway and Mervin K. Strickler.
The Conway study can be found here.
Strickler’s study can be found here.
Both are excellent and informative reads.
Now, I’m always open to suggestions and offers of funding. If you are interested, I can be reached at martin.rottler (at) gmail.com. Thanks for the read!
A few weeks ago, I read a restaurant review in the Grand Forks Herald from the (all-too-affectionately named by my family) Grand Forks Grandma. The restaurant itself was inconsequential, but the subject matter and greater topic of food and its relation to this city made me cringe. The restaurant, serving Mexican food in a small town outside of Grand Forks, was noted by the GFGrandma as to serving a “selection of gravies” with several dishes. The anger and frustration brought up by this complete disregard for any and all Latin American cooking brought back a flood of culinary memories of my ongoing five year sentence in North Dakota.
First things first: let me correct the all-too-common misconception noted above. Any Mexican restaurant worth its margarita salt would know that there’s no such thing as “gravy.” Instead, this “topping” is normally called “chili.” Unfortunately lost on the Mexican restaurants here, the color has much to do with the ingredients and spiciness of the food and not by which to properly accentuate a poor excuse for enchiladas. An excellent Mexican restaurant would be able to serve this “gravy” on its own, with or without something for it to cover. After experiencing lackluster Mexican at two well-known (and, who the hell knows why–well liked) restaurants here in town, henceforth to be known as Helladiso and Mexican Municipality, I’ve been incredibly disappointed in this city’s judgement skills when it comes to dining–especially from a cultural perspective.
While it would be perfectly easy for me to overly generalize about Grand Forks and its lack of culture, I’d be telling a lie. Grand Forks and the greater region as a whole does have a prevalent Norwegian/Swedish culture. This culture is one of strange foodiness–one that offers a unique blend of a bland copy of the tortilla/pita and fish soaked in poison. Having experienced actual Norwegian and Swedish cuisine on numerous occasions, I’m apt to wonder where we went wrong here in this Norwegian-descended part of the United States. Of course, any countryman that moves from a place with some of the greatest fish in the world (seriously…the salmon I ate in Norway was about the best I’ve ever come across) to a place prevalent with walleye is already handicapping themselves.
Unfortunately, Americanized Norwegian food is not the only thing subject to being bland and potentially poisionous. These terms instead seem to apply to most of the restaurants in this city, which tells us that lacking taste/spice and potentially dangerous foods are in-demand here. This makes sense, especially across the “cultural” restaurant span of the city. Just like Mexican Municipality, the Large Fence buffet and its other Asian-themed restaurants offset foods that would normally be spicy with their blander, inbred cousins. In addition, anyone who’s visited these restaurants is apt to know that they feel closer to death after a few trips through the buffet.
While I’d love to see the city drenched in Siriracha and littered with jalopeno peppers, I doubt it’ll happen in the time I have left in this city. Regardless of what I might want or think, this part of the country seems to be set in its “chips and sauce” ways (sauce? really? There are any number of images conjured up with this name, none of which are very appetizing.). I guess those of us craving food in places where people won’t order the “SALSA RO-JAH” will just have to continue escaping elsewhere. After all, one can dream, can’t they?
While in high school, I sang in a choir with a director that did an amazing job at connecting the music we sang with life’s passions. This video gave me a reaction similar to the one I felt years ago:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion.html
For those of you that aren’t familiar with TED, you really should head over to TED.com and have a look around.
