The victims of the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee are loaded up on carts for burial. Photo from Wikipedia
Judge and professor Steve Russell, a member of the Cherokee Nation, commends Chiitaanibah Johnson, a young Navajo and Maidu woman, for challenging a professor at Cal State Sacramento University about the genocide committed against Native peoples:
This column goes out to Chiitaanibah Johnson, who I don’t know but I feel like I know. I don’t usually write in such a personal manner, but her story intersects with my life in so many ways I need to tell her and offer the encouragement I didn’t get. You do need to understand, Ms. Johnson, that you absolutely did hijack his lesson. You sent his lesson plan right off the rails, and that’s the best thing that can happen to a university professor. I lived for the days my class got hijacked because it meant those kids cared as much about the subject matter as I do. But that is something from my professor days, as is the observation that I got invited to give a job talk at Cal State-Sacramento but did not go because I already had a couple of firm offers and one was from my first choice, the University of Texas-San Antonio. So to meet you on more level ground, let’s step into the Way Back Machine, to when I was 22 years old and a 9th grade dropout from an Oklahoma high school. Why did I drop out? Better to ask how I made it to the 9th grade.Get the Story:
Steve Russell: Hijacking Genocide: An Open Letter (Indian Country Today 9/8) Also Today:
Sac State History Dept Tweets - "Student Not Disenrolled" (Indian Country Today 9/6)
History Professor Denies Native Genocide: Native Student Disagreed, Then Says Professor Expelled Her From Course (Indian Country Today 9/6)
Native American Student Claims Dispute Over ‘Genocide’ Got Her Kicked Out Of Class (CBS 9/6)
What Is Genocide? California University Grapples With Clash Between Native-American Student, History Professor Over This Question (International Business Times 9/7)
Sac State investigates case of alleged disenrollment (The State Hornet 9/7)
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