An Army of Normal Folks - Be A Mankiller (But Don't Kill Nobody)

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

For Shop Talk, we bring you Wilma Mankiller's powerful commencement address. No joke, this lady is Coach Bill's spirit animal!Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, everybody. It's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks. Welcome. Thanks. To the shop. Don't hurt my ears, bro. Is that hot in the mic? Yeah, that's all right. Is it? We're having fun. That's what matters.

Welcome to the shop, Alex. Hey, what's, did you say the number already? 87. Yeah, 87 numbers. Come on, Bill. Yeah, there's tight ends and receivers, and I know you're going to say one that I'm going to be like, how can I remember that? Dave Casper.

Dave Casper. Yeah, he's my favorite tight-in ever. And Travis Kelsey. Travis Kelsey. I don't know. I remember that. There it is. Travis Kelsey.

Okay. By the way, how are it? It was your weekend good? Yeah, I'm doing well. Good. Actually, a really cool event in Oxford. You guys may want to think about this for your own communities, too. So, like, the, basically, like, the community service office at Ole Miss, they put on an MLK dinner.

Really? And it was like 350 people there Friday night. Wow. It was probably two-thirds black. Yeah. And the rest of white and like Muslim. It was, yeah, it was incredible. Just like, we need more.

Muslim? Yeah. MLK was like that. I know, but it was kind of like an interfaith. I love that. Yeah, like MLK focused service thing. That's very cool. Yeah, we need more events like that in our community that bring every stripe of American together.

No doubt. It's super powerful, you know, the speakers, you know, reflecting on MLK. And actually for us, I think we spoke about this last year. Like, I think the two of us had even no idea that MLK Day was originally meant as a service day. Right. I'm actually participating in a service day. We're recording this on MLK Day at Ole Miss the rest of today. Really?

Yeah. So they're organizing that too. Like, they're actually doing a good job of doing those two events. But I'm plugging for the future for our local service clubs, we need to make MLK Day next year. A service day. A service day. Honor its original intention. Yeah.

That's a good idea. Yeah. you're a bloody do-gooder, Alex. They also plugged the Army at the event, which was super nice of them. Who did? Thank you, Ole Miss. They made it as like one of their, they let me have like a booth and put a flyer at every chair, and then they said... Did people come by?

Yeah, we got some good people signed up. That's pretty cool. Yeah, your alma mater's doing right. Yeah, that's awesome. Good for them. All right, so, uh, Shep Talk, Wilma Mankiller's commencement address. Um... You have no idea who Wilma Man Killer is, Bert.

You're about to find out. No, but who would ever marry a name, Willa, woman, I mean, first time you screw up and do what dudes do to upset a wife. I mean, it's in her name. I mean, I read an article. You're forewarned. I read an article about her, and they didn't mention her killing anybody. Okay, cool. It's from December 18, 1992, Wilma Man Killer's commencement address at Northern Arizona University.

We'll read it and talk about it. I think it will find it. vastly interesting right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?

I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind games is the story of NLP.

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It's Bill Courtney with an Army and Normal folks. Back for Wilma Mankiller, commencement address at Northern Arizona University, December 18, 19, 92. And there's something, another one of these things Alex dug up for us to ponder, peruse. and hopefully be inspired by. And Bill has no idea what's coming, which is a lot of fun. Absolutely no idea what I'm about to read. And if you wonder why there's a ton of prep and a lot of stuff we do, some of these, the reason there's no prep is because I want to share with the audience the revelation.

Your own surprise in real time. Yeah, I want it to be organic, normal, natural. So here we go. as if there's something natural about someone named Wilma Mankiller. Oh, my goodness. Okay. I ran into someone at the hotel this morning who asked me about how to address me, since my credit card has Wilma Mankiller Principal Chief.

Wilma Mankiller, Princess. Is she a First Nations person? Keep going. Yeah, now I understand the Man Killer thing. All right. I think some people still have a little trouble identifying with a female principal chief of an Indian tribe. It reminded me the first time I had to address the issue. I went to a very prestigious Eastern College to do a panel on Indian economic development,

and this young man picked me up the airport to take me to the university. He asked me, since principal chief is a male term, how should I address you? I just ignored them and looked out the one of the calls. I want to meet Will I'm a man killer already. I just ignored him and looked out the window of the car. And then he asked me if he should address me as chieftains. I continue to look out the window and then he thought he would get silly and cute. And he asked me if he should adjust me as chief at.

All right. First of all, this young man picking up a woman named man killer, screwing with her in the back seat. What an idiot. I finally told him to address me as Miss Chief Mischief, Mischief. So he went out to the university, and his young man was one of the people who got to ask the panel questions.

His question to me was about my last name. Mankiller is my maiden name. And way back in Cherokee history, Mankiller was like the keeper of the village, like the equivalent of a general, or someone who watched over a village. And this one fellow liked the title so much, he kept it as his name.

But that's not what I told this young man. I told him it was a nickname and I'd earned it. So somewhat back east, there's a young man who's wondering what I did to earn my last name. I'm not going to give the standard advice about going out into the world because many of you have already been out in the world

and worked, been involved in your community. What I'd like to do is encourage you in whatever you pursue and wherever you go from here to get involved What I've seen, I think in the United States, not just in my community, tribal community or rural community, but in the United States in general is a trend for all of us to think that somebody else is going to solve our problems for us. Holy crap, I love Willa mankiller. That's unbelievable. She around still? I was just pulling out my phone to look at it up.

I keep going. I want, we got to do something with her. All right. She continues. It was interesting during the last year watching the presidential election and being aware of the daunting set of problems we face in this country, economy, education, health care, problems in inner city, and everybody expecting someone else to solve them. In the presidential election, no matter who was chosen for a candidate, people were counting

on this one man to be able to articulate a clear vision. for the future and then take care of all the problems for the country. Just don't think it's going to happen. Even in my own community, I've heard people talk about the environment, housing, homelessness, or any of the problems that we have. Well, they're going to solve that problem. In American society, it's always they, they're going to solve the problem. And I want to know who they are.

Who is? This woman and I are absolutely. So sadly, she died in 2010. She did. And I'm guessing you stole all of your stuff from her. I've never even heard of her, but she did die? Yeah. Wow.

But like I just read this like Obama and Bush and a bunch of people provided statements for her memorial service. Like she had made a real impact. I always tell our own people that I don't know who they are referring to. To me, the only. people who are going to solve problems are ourselves. People like you and me, this is like reading our own narrations. We have to personally take charge and solve our problems. I do not think a great profit is going to come along and save this country or save us and deal with all the problems in a vacuum. We all have to take part. So I would encourage you to get involved. You will be

immensely rewarded by getting into public service or by doing small things around your community and trying to help others. The other advice I have to give you, do not live your life safely. I would take risks and not do things just because everybody else does them. In my generation, someone who had a big impact on me was Robert Kennedy, who in one speech said, some people see things the way they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not. I think that is where I hope many of you will be. People that question why things are and why they have to do them the way they have always done them. I hope you will take some risk, exert some real leadership on issues, and if you will, dance along the edge of the roof as you continue to live life.

Wow, what a great line. Finally, I just want to make a couple of comments about where I see our country going in general. I just came back from the Economic Summit in Little Rock, Arkansas, which was an intense two-day session focused specifically on how to stimulate the economy, both short-term and long-term. I was encouraged by the number of diversity of people there, Republicans and Democrats, people from every sector of the business community and every sector of society, talking collectively about how to get the country moving again. I think one of the things we have to do as a nation, besides addressing specific issues

like the economy, health care, education, inner cities, and that sort of thing, is we have to examine the extent to which we continue to have stereotypes about one another. I think it's very difficult for us to collectively and symbolically join hands and begin to move forward in solving this country's problems if we continue to have these stereotypes about one another. There still exists in this country many negative stereotypes about black people, Latin people, and Asian people. God knows there are terrible stereotypes about Native Americans.

These have to be overcome before we can move forward. Sometimes I sit down with a diverse group of people in Oklahoma to work on some problem that we all have in common. It is almost like sitting down with people who have some kind of veil over their face or something. We all look at each other through this veil that causes us to see each other through these stereotypes. I think we need to lift back the veil and deal with each other on a more human level in order to continue to progress. The minority population of this country is dramatically increasing, and that is a fact. Alex wants you to know guys to know. 43% of the population is non-white today,

and American is projected to have a majority-minority population by 2045. In other words, by 2045, America will be no longer majority white. If we continue to have this increase in minority population, we need to find ways of dealing with each other and working with each other in much better ways because it affects everybody. I do not think we can say that what happens in Detroit does not, somehow affect all America because it does. I would urge all of you who are here today,

both graduates and families, to examine the extent to which we hold these stereotypes about one another. And finally, I would hope my being here and spending just a couple of minutes with you today would help you to eliminate any stereotypes you might have about what a chief looks like. Oh my gosh, I wish you was still around.

I swear. This would, I would, I'd go to wherever the world she is and do something with her. She is awesome. Well, we got to figure out how to create more content from this too. Yeah, no kidding. Cool with the future. She's phenomenal. And, I mean, what else is there to say on this shop talk other than here we are preaching basically what this chief has surmised in a rather short commencement address?

Well, what I should have put together before this, which I didn't, is, you know, a lot of reservations have, like, real issues. I mean, it's like, it's like the inner city. It is. You know, when, you know, especially alcoholism is rampant and the schools are terrible and I think there's health issues. Unemployment's 27 or so. So she's saying this in, like, one of the most challenging environments in America that it's still up to an army of normal folks to solve these problems. Well, I mean, she hit on, like, everything we hit on. Who's they?

It's on us. we have to serve, and when you do serve, you find out that these stereotypes that's into divot us get broken down, and we have to do that as well. I mean, honest of goodness, she's like the poster child for, maybe we need to just like put her face on a t-shirt. I mean, just calling an army. A little man killer. Yeah. A woman a man-killer, join the army. Seriously. In fact, could we please make that t-shirt? I don't look at it. Find her face. to see who owns her rights.

Be a man killer. Her family's okay with it. Join the army of normal folks. So that's number one, that's a good idea. It is a good idea. Number two, is she actually written an autobiography, if you want to dive deeper on her called Man Killer, a chief in her people.

I want to read it. It's a book? Yeah. Okay. I'll buy it. I'm going to buy it and read it. Seriously, this is one of the coolest ones you've thrown out there for me. I love it.

All right, everybody. I think we're going to end the shop talk 87 this way. Be a mankiller. Be a mankiller. Join the Army of Norma. Not literally just to protect our buds legally. Be a Wilma mankiller.

You know, be a mankiller. Go kill the problems in your community. How about that? There it is. Just be a mankiller. Be a mankiller. Join the Army of Norma folks. If you like this episode,

read to review it, do all the things we ask you to do every time. Subscribe to the podcast. Six local service clubs are now, launch people. Yay. Yay.

All meant to make service easier. Only 33% of Americans say they are serving right now at the level that they want to. And actually, a line I've been starting to use recently bills, which obviously means 67% aren't. Our countries and our communities' problems get worse, and 100% of us are frustrated. And so these local service clubs are all designed to make service easier for everybody. So they're going to be in Oxford, Memphis, Wichita, Atlanta, Ozaki County, and Northern Duchess County, New York. And then... Ozaka County's Milwaukee.

Yes. Which actually is an Indian name, Ozaki. Look at that. Native American. Oh, geez, sorry. Gosh, you're so politically incorrect. Daughter feather. Yes.

But it is Native American or First Nation. She's Louise. I have a lot of respect for the Native Americans and the First Nations. I'm not sure. Maybe I vaguely heard the First Nation term, but not much. I got to be, I got to know more about that. First Nations. Yeah, I get it.

they were before. Yeah, they were the first nations. Yeah, I like that. But they were all, the tribes were all their own nations. Yeah. Look, I get to be Mr. Ergner at this time. So it was the only, it was the un-united States, pre-Europeans. Yeah.

All right, shop talk number 87, before I put my foot on my mouth anymore. Yeah. Do what you can, people. Do what you can. And I'm going to start signing off this way. Be a man killer. Join the Army of normal folks. That's shoptop number 87.

We'll see you next week. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult?

NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games. A new podcast. exploring NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.