Thread by @AliNahdee

I was already angry when I saw the video of the students harassing Nathan Phillips. Then when I found out he was the same man who was harassed on my former college campus (Eastern Michigan University) I was seething. I'm sorry these boys thought it was okay to do this to you.

This especially upsets me because the reason he was harassed and attacked at EMU was because the university used to have a Native mascot (they were the Hurons, now they're the Eagles) and several male students were throwing a frat party dressed up in red face and warbonnets.

When Mr. Phillips saw this and said something, they screamed at him and threw beer cans at him. I remember this so vividly not only because it was a literal hate crime committed against a Native man on my campus, but because I had an experience with a racist professor there.

And my experience with said professor was also over the former Huron mascot, which was (at the time) still used by the EMU marching band and was still on some jackets, coats, and shirts. A student came into class wearing one of those shirts, and my professor asked the class if...

we knew what it was. I said, "An Indian mascot?" and he spoke over me and dismissed it immediately. No sooner did this happen, two white boys in my class were talking about how "Indians are okay with the mascot, it's white people who have a problem with it."

I made direct eye contact with the boy who said that and glared at him, but went about the rest of my day. However, that evening, I read an article online that directly rebutted the "White people are the only ones mad about Indian mascots" argument in light of the man who went to

a football game with the severed head of the opposing team's Native mascot on a spike. So, I took that article and forwarded it to everybody in class and said (paraphrasing) "To the two men in class who made that comment, this article explains why you are wrong. Also you have a

native student in your class who was deeply upset by your comments, we're being graded on professionalism in here, maybe you ought to keep that in mind. That is all."

My professor responded by literally threatening to have me expelled if I "abused the mass e-mail feature to

share any little rants or tantrums I had," and then forwarded my e-mail to other professors to make fun of me. One of those professors had me in her writing classes and she told me about the e-mail and told me to immediately go to the Department Head about this.

The Department Head seemed pretty sympathetic to my case, agreed that he shouldn't have done that, said she would talk to him. I'm unsure of what was said but the professor ignored me for the rest of his class. One of the boys e-mail me saying he was part Cherokee (of course) and

the other tried to whitesplain to me that "there are bigger issues for Natives to worry about other than mascots," to which I promptly told him that he doesn't get to decide which Native issues are more important, among other things.

My evaluation of this professor was not kind. I'd hoped to never take another class of his, but needed to in order to graduate. The first day of class he walks in wearing a Hurons jacket. I took a picture of it and sent it to NASO, and he never wore it in class again.

Unfortunately, since he couldn't be racist in class, he upped up the sexual harassment part of it and included a very graphic sexual term on a final exam, which I also sent to the department head. She said she'd talk to him again. I don't know if she ever did. I was just happy to

be gone.

Getting back to Mr. Phillips, his attack had happened (I want to say) the semester AFTER the e-mail incident with my professor. And I remember wanting so badly to e-mail him again and tell him "See what happened to him? Don't think you're not part of the problem."

Also when Mr. Phillips was attacked on Campus, I remember messaging the EMU Women's Center asking them to take this opportunity to really talk about how native mascots and caricatures can lead to violence against actual natives, ESPECIALLY against native women. It took them three

weeks to respond to me, and it was only after I was so angry that I called them out for not considering the abuse of Natives enough of a women's issue. They said they are "taking these things very seriously" and I told them to prove it. We had some correspondence, eventually they

decided to create a Native Feminisms course to do some damage control. The course ended up being more of a book club than anything because the professor really didn't seem to know what to do with it and was visibly uncomfortable whenever I shared my experiences with anti-native

racism and the pain it's caused me. I also found out later (from this professor actually) that the Women's Center considered the mascots discussion "more of a RACE issue and not a WOMEN's issue). But that's a story for another time because this thread is long enough as it is.

Seeing Nathan Phillips disrespected AGAIN, by more racist white students, brought up all of these memories. And if it's painful for me to look back on all of this I know it must be painful and humiliating for him as well. And I hope he is getting all the love and support he needs

I was considering writing the Catholic School that the boys are from but it seems that everybody already made sure their concerns were heard. It's just a shame that Natives literally do not have to do ANYTHING except stand there, pray, beat the drum, and STILL be tormented.