Abstract:

Since the arrival of the Spanish in 1492, the formal processes of education among Native Americans, and later African Americans, have been nearly eliminated and largely ignored. As a result, the unifying experience of passing wisdom from one generation to the next was disrupted, thereby altering the identity and purpose of native and African people bound to work within Eurocentric constraints of modern-day academia. Through an extensive examination of U.S. Senate documentation and Native American and African American cultural commentary, I will analyze critical theories regarding the reformation of educational processes for the advancement of all Americans. Further, I will bring to the forefront issues regarding vindictive and violent policies which continue to stifle the progress of underrepresented intellectuals fighting to share their perspectives in higher education, despite an established hierarchy of legacy-admitting exclusionists.

My analysis will question several racially discriminative practices that offered academic advantages to Whites. It will challenge the notion that underrepresented groups are incapable of succeeding in such spaces because of race, class, gender, or a perceived lack of intellectual fortitude, while examining the similarities and differences between the objectives of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and tribal colleges and universities (TCUs). The intent is to focus on those who must be held accountable for the construction of historical myths regarding initial contacts between natives and European settlers, the destruction of tribal law and practices of normalcy, the mutilation of African social and oral traditions, and the creation of "non-White" historiographies in academia. My objective, quite simply, is to redirect modern American thought processes toward practices of equality in institutions of higher education throughout the United States.