TeachingInColor FINAL DIGITALPages - Flipbook - Page 33
i stand as ten
thousand
Indigenous Representation in the Academy
By Brittany Danielle Hunt
A
few years ago, I taught a class at UNC
small Native organization on campus that typically had four
Charlotte. I was reviewing my roster one day,
or five Indigenous members each year. Things continued
and I saw a student’s last name and I let out
this way until graduation, and then into my years in my
a holler. I am a member of the Lumbee Tribe
master’s program at UNC, and then into my experiences as
of North Carolina, and though we are more
a doctoral student and adjunct lecturer at UNC Charlotte.
than 65,000 strong, there are a few last names endemic
I realized one day that in my entire ten years in college,
to us–Locklear, Oxendine, Hunt, and Chavis being a few.
as an undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral student, I
My new student had one of these names. Looking at that
had never had a Native professor. And as graduation was
roster, I realized I’d get to teach an Indigenous student, and
looming for me at this time, I also realized that I would
a Lumbee one at that, for the first time. What a blessing and
never have one.
what a responsibility.
I grew up in Robeson County, NC, which is one of the
This is the power of representation – I will never have
a Native professor. But I get to be one. The Lumbee student
most diverse counties in the nation, with a population that is
who I taught years ago certainly experienced difficulties in
approximately 40% Indigenous, 25% Black, 30% white, and
the academy similar to and perhaps worse even than mine.
5% Latinx. I lived beside Indigenous people, went to school
But she will not know what it’s like to not have a Native
and church with them, ate at Indigenous restaurants, and
professor. I have spared her that. For those after her, I know
lived a life insulated by Indigeneity in most spaces and at
she will spare them something, too. She will pave some
most times.
path that was left rocky for her. She will plant some seed,
And so, when I went away to college just two hours
away at Duke University, I was shocked by the questions
and others will experience the bloom.
This is our role as Indigenous peoples – to live our
and comments I received from my peers. “Do you live in
lives towards the goal of being good ancestors. And this
a teepee?” “Why are you wearing shoes?” “Do you feel
is the cyclical nature of our existence – that our ancestors
super connected to nature?” Or the worst of them – “I
paved ways for us that we might also pave ways for others.
heard your people have smaller brains than the rest of the
Just as we reap harvests that they planted, we also plant
population due to inbreeding.” I was totally unprepared.
seeds for future generations to thrive upon.
Complementary to these daily degradations by my peers
Maya Angelou said “I come as one, but I stand
was the erasure or fetishization of Indigenous peoples in
as ten thousand.” As I write this, I look down and see
my classroom. One professor looked at me and said, “and
my grandmother’s ring on my finger. I feel my mother’s
today, class, we have with us a full-blooded Indian!”
constant prayers for me. I hear my father’s laughter and
I went from being one of thousands of Lumbees in my
community to being one of one. I was the only Lumbee
student on Duke’s campus for my entire four years there.
There were no Indigenous faculty or staff. There was a
encouragement. There they are, standing with me, always.
Even when I am the only Native in the room. ■
