DO THEY OPEN THE CONCERT WITH A WAR-DANCE?

There's a new ritual, presumably after the conductor takes the stage, but before the lights go down.

Before every play, concert or official university meeting at NIU starts, students and staff hear a statement read aloud.

In less than 30 seconds but in distinct succession, a speaker acknowledges that “we,” the university or the individuals occupying it, are on the traditional lands of the Peoria, Kaskaskia, Piankashaw, Wea, Miami, Mascoutin, Odawa, Sac, Mesquaki, Kickapoo, Potawatomi, Ojibwe and Chickasaw Nations.

While the statement hopes to pay homage to the original occupants of the university’s land, many who listen to the statement aren’t aware of its history nor of any of the actual tribes mentioned.

Authors of the statement Natalie Joy, associate professor in the history department, and Melissa Adams-Campbell, director of the undergraduate program and assistant professor in the English department, hoped the statement would be a conversation point into their larger goal of spreading awareness for NIU’s indigenous population.

“We really hoped that this would be a starting point, you know, something that wouldn’t, you know, wouldn’t just be read, and I’m glad to hear it is being used, but that it’s also a beginning of a longer process of decolonizing the university to really grapple with what that means,” Joy said.

Presumably, nobody is going to get into whether the Kaskaskias colonized the Ojibwe or the Northern Aztecs colonized the Ho-Chunk, or lead a chant of "from the river to the sea."  It's performative, and the decolonization is symbolic only.

Perhaps another recent campus fad provides a clue: the “land acknowledgment.”

It is commonplace to hear student leaders and senior college administrators begin public events declaring the campus is located on (or “occupies”) land that belonged historically to indigenous people.

These declarations are often ambiguous, though some insinuate the land was “stolen” or acquired unjustly.

Some schools, such as the University of Washington, even sought to require all faculty to include a land acknowledgment in every course syllabus.

But if the land on which the university rests was acquired unjustly, then why not give it back — or least pay back rent to the descendants of the indigenous tribes?

Look, I promise to behave myself.  I will not bring a small Wisconsin flag to break out during the reading to note the redrawing of state boundaries.

Cold Spring Shops headquarters is on land that was in Wisconsin Territory before Illinois became a state. We recognize the labor applied by those settlers marking the trails that contemporary Illinoisans use to visit Lake Geneva, the Dells, and Door County, and to watch their teams get owned in Green Bay.