I have made a career researching the native peoples of western Oregon. For the past 20 years, I have spent thousands of hours each year researching the tribes. I do this because when I was growing up, for the vast majority of people, no one knew the history of the tribes of Oregon. I knew … More What can we do to help Native peoples?
In this new period of “wokeness” there are calls for the elimination of racist names and statues from our institutions. Christopher Columbus statues have been torn from their moorings and thrown into local rivers, while the statues of confederate generals and slaveowner politicians have been defaced and torn down by citizens in their rage. … More A Petition to Change the Name of Lane County
Territorial acknowledgments have now become commonplace at most university functions at OSU. I have heard from many that the practice now is in nearly all universities in the US and Canada. Many municipalities also practice Territorial Acknowledgements. There is something gratifying about the idea of a territorial acknowledgment, that is until one sits through an … More Tribal Territorial Acknowledgements
On 10/26, 2019 I visited the Open house at the Oregon State Archives, Salem, OR, and was supremely disappointed at their new exhibit Rust, Rot, & Ruin, which documents the beginning of key industries in Oregon through the boomtowns founded by gold mining, logging, farming and ranching, and other mining. Some of these industries produced … More Ignoring Tribal History in a Contemporary Exhibit
Native peoples of the America were thought of in early philosophy as being Red Indians, fitting perfectly into a color wheel of peoples of the earth, White people being from Europe, Black people being from Africa, Brown peoples being from the Mediterranean and surrounding regions, Yellow people being from Asia, and Red people being the … More Redskins Etc. as Racial Stereotypes
