It's just a social obligation. You could say 'No

Cultural and Religious Barriers of American Indian Faculty in the Academy

Dados Bibliográficos

ID11102463
AutoresJohn A Calhoun (autor correspondente), J Anne Calhoun
Ano2003
Volume27
Fascículo1
Páginas132-154
Data de publicação2003-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe American Indian Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0095-182X • E-ISSN: 1534-1828
EditoraJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1353/aiq.2004.0026
OpenAlexW2054851151
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas7
Referências citadas9

The Creator has told us "Do more than survive, thrive. There is no Hell other than that people make for themselves."1 The following stories are real, and their telling is important as a contrast to the Creator's wish for all people. Prologue There is a widely and deeply held belief on the part of my white colleagues that racism is something done by individuals through overt or covert actions against other individuals. Sometimes this belief is tied to one specific characteristic—skin color. Some would believe that they cannot commit racist acts against anyone who looks like them regardless of the identified race of that person. As a clever trick of psychological avoidance, this worldview allows many mainstream faculty to remain comfortably aloof to the infrastructures, the cultural, social, and academic "standards," that contribute to the unseen barriers we, as American Indian colleagues, must surmount. Fine has described "good students" as those who are most successful at cultural code-switching, or developing two voices.2 While most of us speak in our own voices within our ethnic communities, many of us have also mastered the ability to voice specific forms of knowledge in "academic-speak." When we chose to be trained in Western paradigms through Western schools in order to become academics, most of us took on the role of "good student" for the sake of survival. Many of us have suffered in silence after finding that speaking out was painfully rewarded by financial, grade, merit, and personal ostracism. Most institutions ask that we pay a [End Page 132] very high price for membership; that, in becoming academics, we silence our own community voices. This is a great loss for our personal autonomy and the sovereignty of our communities as well as a piercing of the idea of academic freedom and the evolution of new knowledge. Silencing voices, which might otherwise cry out for social justice, has historically been the political purpose of Western schools.3 A silenced voice cannot take umbrage with concepts foreign to the psychology, philosophy, or culture within a minority group. Perhaps because of the guilt, there appears to be a particularly brutal set of specters for Western academics when they are asked to accommodate, understand, or consider ideas from American Indian communities. Indeed, one aspect of cultural differentiation—ways of being—between our culture and white culture has been problematic from the beginning. I was in my third year of a tenure-track position at a Midwestern state university when I began this story. I am an American Indian who has held positions in academic programs not related to American Indian studies or American Indian education programs. In my initial tenure-track position, I was overtly and covertly discouraged to rely on American Indian knowledge about learning in my teaching and/or writing. Nor was I able to insert much depth in courses about the needs of children from ethnic minority groups. I also entered my third year as an "unofficial" member of a non-tenure-track position within the newly developed American Indian studies program. Specifically, I did the teaching, service, and other work for at least one full-time employee. The university, however, broadly made use of my name and face in that program when developing outreach programs and pamphlets. I was an American Indian assigned by the university, without even the recognition of a courtesy appointment, to a program in which I can reveal my identity but in which any work I do will not contribute to my tenure credentials. As an assistant professor, I am very committed to achieving tenure, but I am who I am, which is to say that my worldview recognizes few boundaries between cognition, teaching, spirituality, service, scholarship, or those traditional practices in my life. This

Obligation · Political science · Sociology · Critical Race Theory in Education · Higher Education Research Studies · Law · Racial and Ethnic Identity Research