Weeks 1 & 2: LFADS - Greatest Myth in American History

• Do you agree, or disagree, with meritocracy? Is it truly a myth? (CRT)

          Throughout my life I can recall numerous times when my parents told me that, with hard work and dedication, I could achieve anything that I set my mind to.  But no matter how hard I worked, I never felt like I was making my educational dreams come true.  There was always one challenge or another that prevented or delayed the completion of goals I had laid out for myself.  On my maternal side of my family, I was the first of 13 grandchildren (number 5 in the line) to attempt going to college.  My parents were both lacking knowledge and financially ill prepared for sending their third child to college.  Neither of my parents are college educated, and my two older siblings had no interest in continuing their education, so I was their first foray into having a college bound child. My journey through higher education has made me realize that meritocracy is a myth; and for some groups of people – no matter how hard you work – there are systematic barriers that continue to appear.

          As I have grown as a student and scholar, I’ve also realized that the ultimate barrier facing me (and many other Native students) in regard to my education was not that my parents were ill prepared, but rather was that I was Native.  My research in the field of Indian education has made it clear that the education system was not made for Native peoples.  Federal and Mission boarding schools only provided Native peoples with an education up to the 8^th grade.  Heavily focused on vocational training, these boarding schools – which several generations of my family went to – were intended to train boys to be laborers and girls to be housekeepers.  No matter how hard they worked or how much they prayed, they were not going to achieve the “American Dream” because they were Native.  We could never achieve the American Dream because we are not part of the dream. 

          The Declaration of Independence refers to Native peoples as “merciless Indian savages,” and those three words say so much about how Euro-Americans viewed the worth of Native peoples, and how we should be treated.  Joe Feagin, as quoted in Critical Race Theory Matters states “acts of oppression are not just immediately harmful; they often carry long-term effects” (Zamudio, Russell, Rios & Bridgeman, 2011, pp. 27).  In other words, acts of oppression create an intergenerational legacy.  For over 500 years Native Americans have been viewed as less than.  For 500 years there have been generations of federal and state polices working to eliminate Native peoples.  America’s belief in meritocracy was built on the blood and tears of American Indians and is one of the greatest myths in American history.