[Marxism] Re: [SNCC-List] Fort Lewis College professor's article stirs racialtension

["Hunter Gray" <hunterbadbear@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Bill:

Thanks much for your questions -- attached to this of mine.

I think a primary concern of mine with Prof. Gulliford's approach [and it
seems clear this is a major area of Native student concern at Ft Lewis
College] is that he has badly breached sensitivity and privacy.  Using
confidential data in publications without the person's clear permission, as
the article in the Denver Post indicates he did, is a major No/No in any
honorable circle and especially that of the oft closed tribal [or Fourth
World] cultures anywhere and certainly that of any students:

"He recounted students' stories about sacred rituals, quoted some test
answers and even described medical and family histories in the article
without the students' knowledge or consent. He used many students' real
first names."

Many years ago, the American Indian Center at Chicago -- first of its kind
in the urban United States -- had a major situation when it was learned in
'71 that the then director, Bob Reitz, a non-Indian anthro protégé of the
primary anthro at Univ of Chicago, Sol Tax, had been using confidential
Center social service records in various articles of his own and that of
academic colleagues at the University.  This had been done in a procedurally
secretive fashion by Reitz and learned only when Reitz died of a sudden
heart attack and his records were opened and examined by the Center's Board.

"But Gulliford's detractors are outraged that he generalized about students
by calling them "impeccably polite" and "quiet and well-groomed, with
sometimes irrepressible laughter." He also wrote that "succeeding in school
for these students is not easy."

Gulliford's points about student dress, behavior, and capabilities strike me
as very strange -- sweepingly patronizing with obviously unfair
implications.  For my part, in almost 30 years of college/university
teaching of all sorts of students from a very wide variety of ethnic,
cultural, and social class backgrounds, I have found almost all to be quite
OK in all respects.  Coming from a tribal culture [or any distinctively
non-White setting] into that of a primarily Anglo college can often be
initially challenging for the student -- but he/she can make it just fine if
professors and support staff are appropriately committed and sensitive.
Frankly, I didn't notice any particular problems with any of my students
"succeeding."  [And, btw, Levis, Western shirts, and boots are frequently
standard "dress" at Western colleges -- and still are for me!]  More to the
point, the rise of the tribally-controlled colleges [almost forty now with
the first being NCC in '69] is in major part designed to help students get a
sound bi-cultural education and a solid running academic start into wherever
else they wish to go.

On Clyde Kluckhohn and his perspective on the Soviet Union, I know nothing.
I'll take your word on that.  When one thinks of Kluckhohn in Native and
Native-related circles, one thinks of his consistently fine work with the
Navajo [and that of his often colleague, Dorothy Leighton.]  He was, btw,
much involved with John Collier [a top scholar in his own right and FDR's
extremely capable and long-time Commissioner of Indian Affairs.]

My Mother, a Westerner who had an early BS [1928] in Journalism from
Wisconsin, did her Masters work at Arizona State, Flagstaff in the very late
'40s and early '50s on what the Southwestern colleges and universities
should be doing with Native nations and Native students -- and were clearly
not doing.  This took her [and us] all over the Navajo and Hopi reservations
and brought her into some very friendly contact with Kluckhohn, Collier
[then out of government service] and others in that tradition.  Her work, I
should add, is still considered groundbreaking -- and did make a very
positive contribution in the eventually tangible, constructive moves by many
of those colleges and universities on behalf of Indian people.  Nothing
armchair about her:  I recall on a 50 mile stretch of rough road in a remote
part of the Navajo res near Chinle [Chin Lee], ours was the only motor
vehicle at that point.  Everyone else was riding horses or driving wagons.
[Now pickups, "Navajo Cadillacs," are super common but horses and wagons are
still much around.]  Kluckhohn, like Frank Speck and other good anthros, was
always in the field, and he frequently traveled on horseback.

A great example of early and thorough ethnological work with Indians --
which delineated and observed all of the ethical rules -- can be found in
the substantial compendium of Arthur C Parker's first-rate work:  Parker on
the Iroquois, edited by William N Fenton [Syracuse:  Syracuse University
Press, 1969.]  Arthur Parker was a Seneca [Iroquois],  who was also a key
Native rights organizer [e.g., Society of American Indians], and a major
role model for me.

Best, Hunter

HUNTER GRAY  [HUNTER BEAR]   Micmac /St. Francis Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk
www.hunterbear.org
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´
and Ohkwari'

In our Gray Hole, the ghosts often dance in the junipers and sage, on the
game trails, in the tributary canyons with the thick red maples, and on the
high windy ridges -- and they dance from within the very essence of our own
inner being. They do this especially when the bright night moon shines down
on the clean white snow that covers the valley and its surroundings.  Then
it is as bright as day -- but in an always soft and mysterious and
remembering way. [Hunter Bear]

----- Original Message -----
From: "William Mandel" <wmmmandel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "'Hunter Gray'" <hunterbadbear@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "'Marxism Discussion'"
<marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "'sncc'" <sncc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <socialistsunmoderated@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 9:43 PM
Subject: RE: [SNCC-List] Fort Lewis College professor's article stirs
racialtension


> Hunter: (1) What is your own opinion of the quotes from Prof. Gulliford?
>   (2) I recall Clyde Kluckhohn as a major anti-Soviet player in
> the Cold War. For example, this listing in a 1960 reference work
> "Kluckhohn, Clyde; Alex Inkeles, and Raymond A. Bauer, "Strategic and
> Psychological Strengths and Vulnerabilities of the Soviet Social
> System." (Project on the Soviet Social System [AF No. 33 (038)-12909),
> Russian Research Center, Harvard University.) Maxwell Air Force Base,
> Alabama: Officer Education Research Laboratory, October 1954.
> (Unpublished manuscript not available for distribution."
> Bill
>
> My autobiography, SAYING NO TO POWER (Introduction by Howard Zinn), is
> a history of how the American people fought to defend and expand its
> rights since the 1920s (I'm 87) employing the form of the life of a 30s
> AND 60s activist, one who was involved in most serious movements:
> student, labor, 45 years of efforts to prevent war with the USSR, civil
> rights South and North, women's liberation [my late wife appears on 50
> pages], 37 years on Pacifica Radio [where I invented talk radio], civil
> liberties. You may hear/see my testimony before different
> McCarthy-Cold-War-Era witch-hunting committees [used in six films and a
> play]) on my website, http://www.billmandel.net  I am the author of five
> books in my academic field. For an autographed copy, send me $24 at 4466
> View Pl.,#106, Oakland, CA. 94611
>
>
>
>




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