As Elders in Our Villages: Re-Imagining Racist and Anti-Indianist Public Schools

Abstract

The authors, a Cherokee woman and an African American man, write from the important stance of multicultural education Elders, working from the foundational concept of the community as a village to raise a child. They discuss the caste system in the U.S. and briefly outline the historical and contemporary dehumanizing and assimilative actions of racism and anti-Indianism waged against communities, and specifically children in public schools. The authors then move to Elders? demands for the protection of children and call for public schools to institute practices such as funds of knowledge. They conclude with their personal and professional obligations and responsibilities to prepare teachers to be effective for all children, ensuring the well-being and cultural continuance for the children of their respective communities.

Notes

1 In her writing, Jeanette purposefully uses the term dominating society as opposed to dominant society to emphasize that settler colonialism is a continued reality for Native Peoples.

2 The term “caste” is derived from Isabel Wilkerson’s discussion of the term in several chapters of her book, Caste: The Origins of our Discontents (2020).

3 Drawing upon Raphael Lemkin’s definition of genocide, Woolford (2015) names genocide as a “networked process”… “with a distinct and identifiable purpose: group destruction” (p. 12). He maintained “That multiple motives were behind this forcible transformation matters less than the fact that there was widespread agreement on the need to eliminate Indigenous groups, as such, from settler society. Indigeneity was a problem to be solved. Destruction was intended, not incidental” (pp. 37–38).

4 As presented by Ladson-Billings (1994), African American educators understood the power of adults in the community-life of children that reinforced and extended learning opportunities. Cajete (2015) explains that for Indigenous Peoples, “community is the place where we learn what it is to be related” (p. 23). We can hear the connection to funds of knowledge when he states, “community is where learning and sharing knowledge happens” (p. 23).

5 In their definition of multicultural education, Nieto and Bode (2018) do not speculate that racism is present in schooling, but are explicit that it exists and must be addressed.