Heroic leadership is harder than it looks

Here’s another blog I found in my digital files back when I was working for Spirit Lake Consulting. Check it out!

Dr. Erich Longie over the years has been sometimes my boss, always my friend and today he is my hero. After many years of battling against it, the Fighting Sioux nickname has been retired.

Now, I am not Sioux, I haven’t lived in North Dakota for over a decade and I don’t even really follow football (yet, I call myself an American, yes, pathetic, I know). So, why do I care so much about the Sioux nickname. To be completely honest, I don’t care about the Sioux nickname all that much, although I do agree that a race is not at all an appropriate mascot for a team. It is disrespectful and offensive to me, personally, if I think about it, which I rarely do.

Erich is my hero because he showed such perseverance standing up for something he believed passionately. In an article in one issue of the Miniwakan News, Erich made the comment that, because he was against racism and determined to show the moral courage to speak out against it, “I was against the logo before I even knew the logo existed.”

It’s been a long battle. If you read Erich’s blog, Dakota Hoksina, you know that he has written a lot about his struggles against the logo issue, his revulsion for what he perceived as the “divide and conquer” tactics taken by those trying to win tribal support for the logo, his views on the connection between the logo and racism and much more.