By Spencer Blair
In his lecture on January 27, acclaimed author and historian Roger Echo-Hawk outlined his vision of “a new kind of discourse about the nature of race in the world.” A citizen of both the United States and the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, Echo-Hawk argued that “we had a non-racial past, so we can have a non-racial future.” Echo-Hawk was joined by a panel of four Dartmouth professors: Allan Covey and Deborah Nichols of the Anthropology Department, and Colin Calloway and Angela Parker of the Native American Studies Department.
Echo-Hawk noted that within the anthropological world, it is generally agreed that race is a social construct with little grounding in biological evidence. In looking to the history of racial constructs as a mechanism for understanding present discourse surrounding race, Echo-Hawk suggested that Europe is the source of the racial identity system. He contended that by characterizing the Irish as sub-human, the British had already established a model of racial superiority before coming to the Americas. This paved the way for the oppression of native populations and Africans that began institutionalized racism in the United States.
According to Echo-Hawk, despite a history rooted in racial superiority, Americans are disinvesting in race so much that the social systems of white supremacy and privilege cannot continue. Like other of Echo-Hawk’s proclamations, this evoked a strong response from Professor Parker. In a response more compelling than those of the other panel members and Echo-Hawk’s own theories, Parker argued that “race is a story that we tell about ourselves” and that “white bonding” is still strong enough to preserve powerful and oppressive racial structures throughout the world. Using Dartmouth as a case study, Parker contended that all members of society are implicated in the “project” of maintaining privilege that rewards those who already have access to the resources needed to succeed.
In accordance with Parker’s model, I disagree with Echo-Hawk that there is much to suggest the imminence of a “non-racial future,” despite the supposed “non-racial past” that Echo-Hawk perceives. Race is too strongly rooted in the events of our past and the identity of our present to disappear from our future. Those in the position of power are heavily invested, no matter how unwittingly, in maintaining the system of privilege. Thus, it is the unfortunate reality that the system of racial superiority will not soon disappear.