My Version of the Indian Problem

• Published in: Eighteenth-Century Fiction
• Main Author: Donohue (Cherokee Nation), Betty Booth
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) 2020
• Subjects: Literature and Literary Theory; First Nations
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/ecf.33.2.189; https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/ecf.33.2.189

The academy’s ignorance about and resultant bias against Indigenous Americans, their histories, cultures, legal status, and present circumstances have consequences impacting people ranging from American Supreme Court Justices to soccer players. Too often these consequences create disastrous results for First Nations people as well as for the greater society. To address this nescience, university personnel should include Indigenous American studies in their curricula; English professors should teach works by First Nations and American Indian people; and humanities departments should offer Native art and music courses on a permanent basis. Universities should actively recruit, hire, and properly mentor Native students and faculty members. Faculty should engage themselves with student follow-ups and job placements. Professors, editors, and critics should read Native papers and publications from Indigenous perspectives, not Western ones. Students and tribes can also do their part to end academic racism: Indigenous scholars by organizing themselves into associations promoting information exchange and support, and tribal leaders by conscientiously buttressing their members’ progress through financial and political assistance.