If you’ve been losing sleep over Marquette University’s seal, the weekend should bring sweet dreams.
For those unfamiliar with the fiasco, seeds of worry were sown shortly after the private Jesuit research college’s founding in 1881.
It featured an artwork of Father Jacques Marquette, the emblem’s creator during a 1673 voyage.
Original 1869 painting Jacques is standing in a canoe. He faces an American Indian, who’s gesturing toward the mighty Mississippi.
Jacques also points out the same.
In the boat are also two tribesmen, who sit with oars.
“Pere Marquette and the Indians”, oil painting (1869) by Wilhelm Lamprecht (1838–1906). Original is located in Marquette University’s Raynor Memorial Library. Marquette and Louis Jolliet were the first Europeans to explore & map the northern Mississippi River Valley. pic.twitter.com/niOBYoqKJV
— Explorers Podcast (@explorerspod) April 8, 2020
Prejudice comes in many forms, even circles. The official seal was of the 360° sort, and only the lower left half featured a piece of the painting.
Some characters were therefore removed. Marquette, posing as a native paddler with his paddle.
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
[C]ritics say the way in which the scene was cropped to be put in the seal leads to a misleading depiction of the power dynamic between the Jesuits and their Native guides — one rooted in the mindset of settler colonialism.
Indeed — a brouhaha boiled because it appeared the white guy was the one giving directions.
“What did the image in the…seal indicate about the relationship between Jesuits and the guides who led them through an unknown land?” the Sentinel asks. “What did it mean that the viewer sees Jacques Marquette’s face but not the guide’s?”
Since 2005, there have been cries for a shift. Things have heated up in recent years.
The activism by Native students came to a head on Indigenous People’s Day in 2020, when protesters occupied the university’s administrative building, Zilber Hall, for two hours, led by the university’s Native American Student Association.
Among the students’ demands were that the university increase enrollment among Native students, provide more support for those students, and change its seal, said Alex Liberato, a 2021 alumnus and former president of the Native American Student Association.
That year — compliments of a crew ordained by President Michael Lovell — a review of the seal began.
The committee pulled from expertise across the university’s campus and the broader community, including Jesuits, administrators, Native students and faculty, Native community members, and experts on history, English, business and law.
According to the college the art is irredeemable
[T]he full painting…is still problematic in how it uses a composite image of a Native American when there were multiple tribes that Father Marquette encountered on his journey. It is misleading to show one Native individual and does not reflect the diversity among those living on Marquette University’s land.
A new insignia is now available.
The top-half: Diagonal lines, and a Christogram.
The Sentinel has the following to explain:
On the left, seven red and gold stripes represent the seven heroic brothers from the maternal side of St. Ignatius of Loyola’s family. Jesuit Order was founded by Ignatius. The monogram of Society of Jesus, with the rising sun shining down upon the land below, is located in the upper left.
As for the bottom, it’s now a river and three rice stalks — “a staple commodity for Native nations.”
Marquette University, which has taken the place of Fr. Jacques Marquette, on its official seal with a “land acknowledgement”–a woke declaration that Marquette’s campus rightfully belongs to native people “who remain [Marquette’s]Today’s hosts are on the ground.” https://t.co/NWtPLoMYYC
— Dan O’Donnell (@DanODonnellShow) March 1, 2022
Better?
It’s not the first time MU has nixed tribal tributes. It retired the Warrior in 1993 as its mascot.
As you may know, there’s a lot of that goin’ ’round:
Foul Bawl Cleveland Indians announce a name change
Major University Accuses Its Own Mascot of White Supremacy, but Now Everything’s ‘Okay’
Is this Racism of Trees Portland School Takes a Break from a Proposed Mascot Because of Its Terrible Ties
The College announces a Fierce New Mascot: An Asexual Social Justice Warrior Who Has Been Victimized By Climate Change
Woke Fail: University Evicts a Slaveholder’s Statue, Still Puts His Name on Every T-Shirt
Alex, Marquette alumnus is inspired
“Just to think that we could do this, and change, quite literally, the history of the university — that is just something I will forever cherish.”
“We…sought to create a seal with a sense of history, purpose, pride, and healing that supports the efforts of institutional change, progress, and reconciliation,” he says.
Regardless of racism, the emblem’s original upper half could’ve certainly used a change.
According to Marquette, officials weren’t even sure what the words on the logo meant:
The phrase on the prior seal — Numen Flumenque, purported to mean “God and the River” — is not rooted in the Jesuit tradition.
We’re living in strange times: Someone somewhere decided that to honor a group by saluting them as a symbol of strength or success…is to dishonor them.
How do you get recognition? You can erase them all.
It’s a brand new day of enlightenment, and it seems we’re having to figure it out as we go.
-ALEX
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