Cultural Lives Matter

By no means to detract from all that “matters” in this ever increasing land of indifference, recent events compel me to make another obvious declaration: culture matters. It matters if it’s appropriated, it matters if it’s mocked, it matters if it’s used to threaten or intimidate.

As Native Americans we endure regular acts of cultural degradation from children dressed up for Halloween in outfits that are a reflection of our traditional regalia to team mascots and sports fans wearing feathers and face paint mocking ancient spiritual rites and tradition. The concert of voices in opposition to these racist practices is growing but ignorance is stubborn and shame has a hard time penetrating monomaniac sports enthusiasts.

Brown Alum Jennifer Weston and Mashpee Wampanoag Hartman Deetz
stand by as Tall Oak Weeden makes remarks at Brown University where more
than 300 protestors gathered for Indigenous Peoples' Day.

That said, I honestly thought the undeniable scholarly evidence of atrocities committed by Christopher Columbus would more easily rectify the national holiday celebrated in his name. The primary source references to his crimes against humanity resulting in the genocide of millions of Arawak would earn him a special spot in hell right next to Hitler. In recent years a multi-racial movement to rename the holiday Indigenous Peoples’ Day has been embraced by numerous cities and colleges and universities across the country.

But this year at two Ivy League schools the reactions of some students one might expect to be among the best and the brightest this country has to offer quite honestly shocked me.

At Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island a non-Native student’s column in the Brown Daily Herald suggesting that Native people embrace Columbus Day not for the man but for the resulting “Columbian Exchange” drew hundreds to the campus green for a peaceful but vocal protest. The student group, Native Americans at Brown, gathered more than 1000 signatures on a petition to rename the holiday next year. I hope they are successful.

A few hundred miles north at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire Native Students staged a protest on the second Monday in October choosing to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead.  What they endured from an anonymous and cowardly hate group was disgraceful.

Dartmouth Students observing Indigenous Peoples' Day.
Photo by Kohar Avakian

Native students found the campus papered with flyers promoting an online marketing campaign to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day by raising the ghost of the  “Dartmouth Indian” logo on swag from T-shirts to thongs. The offensive Dartmouth Indian has been banned for more than 40 years.

This was far more than sophomoric prank. It does more than offend; it threatens and degrades Native students at Dartmouth who deserve to feel safe and respected. Just imagine how Dartmouth’s African American students would react to a black lawn jockey on the green. The anonymity and pervasiveness of the act left Native students feeling like burglary victims, violated and defenseless, like someone stepped into their hearts in the dark of night and took a piece of their pride to be exploited.

Dartmouth student making a statement.
Photo by Kohar Avakian

To knowingly dishonor these students suggests a deeper disregard for their heritage and perhaps a more open expression of what many Native students experience on a daily basis; resentment.

Do full-pay and legacy students begrudge the mission of the school established in 1769 to educate Native Americans? Can they actually be that blind to the social inequity that defines their generation?

In 1970 a new college president, John Kemeny, kicked open the doors of Dartmouth to Native students establishing an aggressive recruitment campaign to honor the school’s original charter that had been virtually ignored for 200 years. Since then Dartmouth counts more than 700 Native students among graduates, more than all other Ivy League schools combined. Decades before diversity initiatives became the norm and far ahead of the cultural sensitivity curve Kemeny also abandoned the unofficial Dartmouth Indian logo, the face of an angry and hostile looking Native man. While he was at it, Kemeny also spearheaded a change in the

Photo by Kohar Avakian

admissions policy to allow women to attend Dartmouth.

Sadly the only students more threatened than Native Americans at Dartmouth today are Native American women.

I hope they stay strong in their convictions and endure. An ironic benefit of exposure to this elite brand of education is to bear witness to what can be the heartlessness of privilege and rise above it.

Many of Dartmouth's graduates return to tribal communities and reservations where they become role models for the next generation and their education and experience help to build a bridge out of poverty. 

Native Americans at Brown and supporters gather on the Brown University
green to observe Indigenous Peoples' Day.
Photo by Danielle Perelman