Honoring Cultural Traditions of Native Graduates – Diverse Issues


by Robert Cook

One of the proudest moments in my life was graduating with my master’s in education administration from Oglala Lakota College and receiving an eagle feather for achieving a lifelong dream. That was until 2012, when our oldest son graduated from high school, and my wife and I had the honor of tying his eagle feather on him. And we are looking forward to proudly supporting our youngest son when he graduates from high school in 2017.

Eagles are known by many tribes to be a messenger to the Creator, symbolizing bravery, respect, personal achievement and honor. Eagles are protected under two federal laws: the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. These prohibit the possession, use and sale of eagle feathers and parts, with an explicit exception for American Indians who are enrolled members of federally recognized tribes. American Indian tribal members may wear feathers legally in their possession or utilized to create religious or ceremonial items for personal or tribal use.

This month, thousands of American Indian students across the country are graduating from high school and college, fulfilling a dream for themselves and an honor for their families. And with only 49 percent of Native students graduating from high school nationwide, this is a moment to be celebrated and cherished. Honoring our graduating Native students who attend the 187 tribal schools across 23 states has been a longstanding cultural tradition. Native graduates receive their eagle feathers and plumes and proudly wear them on their graduation caps or tied in their hair. This is a part of who we are and continues to affirm our identity and connection to our ancestry and culture.

Unfortunately, this cultural adornment isn’t always permitted for American Indian students who attend public schools off the reservation, as was the case for two students in Oklahoma and Washington. Some Native students graduating from schools off the reservation face opposition and resistance from school districts and administration. Many schools state that they have “no adornment” dress codes or policies that prohibit Native students from donning their feather. Some districts claim that “if we allow one group or student to ‘break tradition,’ then we have to let all students behave in the same manner,” and others have even instructed Native graduates to hide their feathers or risk not taking part in the graduation commencement ceremonies.

It is disheartening to see schools and districts prohibit our children from celebrating their academic success through sacred cultural traditions. American Indian tribes and members are indigenous inhabitants of this country. These traditions date back hundreds of years, prior to European settlement and American colonization and governance. Treaties were established, many unwillingly, between our sovereign nations and the federal government, and in return for the taking and seizing of land and resources, tribes were made promises of education for their children, access to health care and infrastructure within tribal lands. Tribal sovereignty is still honored and respected today under the U.S. Constitution and executive and congressional actions and Native students’ unique cultural identity and access to quality programs within public education is protected under the ESEA’s Title VII Indian Education Act.

I am not suggesting that students undermine school policy and risk not graduating or not walking with their peers to receive their diploma. Rather I urge communities nationwide to come together, such as the citizens of Grand Forks, North Dakota, who supported student rights and encouraged the Grand Forks school district to change its graduation dress code.

It is my hope that as students from diverse backgrounds and experiences turn their tassels to attain a career or pursue higher education, school and districts will practice cultural sensitivity and embrace customs and sacred traditions from communities and cultures represented amongst their student populations.

We can help support all students and families in navigating this important step and honor in their lives through petition by writing, calling or attending meetings with schools, district leaders and board members to ensure graduation policies are inclusive of diverse cultures and traditions. Together we can make sure that our students’ cultural identities are protected and honored.

Robert Cook (Oglala Lakota) is the director of Teach For America’s Native Alliance Initiative, where he works in partnership with tribal communities in Hawaii, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Washington and South Dakota to improve outcomes for Native students. He resides in Summerset, South Dakota, and is a former K-12 administrator, an award-winning teacher and a board member of the National Indian Education Association.

Is Theatre for White People?

Written for MSPS by Ally Kwun

 

Eighty-three percent of of all (Broadway) tickets were purchased by Caucasian theatregoers.

Bam.

What do you think of that?

That statistic is part of The Broadway League’s annual report on demographics of their audience from mid-2010 to mid-2011.  There were many other interesting points that they made, such as that 65% of theatregoers were female, that 62% were tourists, and for those over 25 years old, 78% of them had completed college and 39% had a graduate degree.

So we know that the majority of Broadway theatregoers are white, female, not from NYC (booo) and well-educated.

What are the implications of that?

(Those are just the things thought tickled my brain. Here’s the report so you can pick and choose your own: http://www.broadwayleague.com/index.php?url_identifier=the-demographics-of-the-broadway-audience. Note: I did not buy the full $25 report I’m too cheap I’m taking all of this from the executive summary.)

I think this all comes down to WHY IS DIVERSITY IMPORTANT IN THEATRE? Is it necessary? Is it the same issue as diversity in general? Is diversity in theatre possible?

All important questions I have no idea how to answer. And like all things I don’t know what to do with, I google it.

Here is what I found:
The Greater-White-Than-Ever Way
Sh*t White Theatremakers Say
More Sh*t White Theatremakers Say
Okay, then. Let’s Really Talk About It.
More Statistics That Are Useful for the Race and Theatre Discussion

Read them. Comment on them. Join the conversation.

Stand up. Stand up. Stand up!

Marvin Worthy’s charge to the new resident hall staffs on Wednesday afternoon was to stand up and to be a leader in the fight against oppression on campus this year.

That’s a fairly tall order and I’m not as good at inspirational speech as Mr. Worthy.

The truth is there’s a lot to unpack following an afternoon devoted to diversity and oppression, and Mr. Worthy’s charge to stand up—echoed by MSPS—isn’t an easy thing.

It isn’t an easy thing to do: to change a campus culture, to fight oppression on a campus steeped in many years of tradition.

Because tradition, by design, operates counter to change.

And to fight to change will occasionally or always mean defying and dismantling quite a bit of what’s considered tradition.

Are you prepared truly and wholly to do that?

–I have worked in Multicultural Student Programs and Services for five years and I’m still not 100% sure that I can do it 100% of the time.–

(And if you’d like to talk to me about that process, I am always willing.)

Mr. Worthy suggested yesterday that to fight oppression will be difficult, but that “we have to try.”

But I wonder if that’s totally true. We don’t have to try, do we?—not if we don’t want to.

Sure, we can and should respond to negative, discriminatory acts on our campus–acts which we recognize are not isolated incidents, but rather daily occurrences and which are inherent in our world and on our campus.

But that doesn’t mean we have to challenge ourselves to understand these acts on a deeper level. We don’t have to critique our traditions and to work together to fight the oppressive systems that allowed these acts to happen in the first place.

We don’t have to—not if we don’t want to.

It is insufficient to understand our leadership roles as those of doctors and nurses in a hospital treating all patients regardless of their afflictions and regardless of their racial, sexual, gender, class, or religious orientations and identities.

It is insufficient because to tolerate difference—as if difference is something undesirable that we must nevertheless deal with—is to deny the true identity of others on an equal and socially just plane.

Does this make sense?

From the activist Audre Lorde:

“Advocating the mere tolerance of difference… is the grossest reformism. It is a total denial of the creative function of difference in our lives. Difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic. Only then does the necessity for interdependency become unthreatening. Only within that interdependency of different strengths, acknowledged and equal, can the power to seek new ways of being in the world generate, as well as the courage and sustenance to act where there are no charters.”

(The larger original is worth reading several times, as well, if you’re interested.)

Lorde is advocating that merely tolerance and acceptance of difference is insufficient.

Rather than tolerance and acceptance of differences, we need to be motivated to acknowledge differences as wholly and intrinsically equal.

If we were motivated to view differences as wholly and intrinsically equal in value, then differences could not be demeaned as the butts of jokes or the objects of insensitive parties or the underlying motivations for hate mail, hate crimes, and hate speech on our campus and in our daily lives.

It is absolutely an issue of social justice to work fully toward achieving a level of understanding that acknowledges that differences should be appreciated as of intrinsically equal value, not merely traits that must be “tolerated,” “accepted,” or “dealt with” passively.

But again, this kind of deep, structural understanding and motivation to change is difficult.

Traditions and familiar ways of doing things might have to die absolutely will have to die for true change to happen.

We’ll probably have to put turf on the football field, too.

And that is because we understand today that there are better ways to do things than before. And that’s OK. And that’s necessary for the survival of our world.

Mr. Worthy rightly suggested that his presentation should not be the end, but the beginning of the conversation. There will be several opportunities to continue to engage with issues of race and identity and class this year through the offerings of MSPS and other sharp, like-minded, action-oriented departments and offices.

Be sure to check those out.

Of course, you don’t really have to—not if you don’t want to.

But like Mr. Worthy, MSPS is calling on you to stand up and do it because you want to and because it’s Right.