Letter: Legacy of American-Indian scholar must be continued

Editor,

Monday morning was supposed to be a typical day for me. I woke up, got in my daily workout at Johnson Gym, and ended up at Frontier Restaurant for breakfast. What I learned while waiting for my usual order of Cheerios was that one of my favorite authors and American-Indian scholar, Vine Deloria Jr., had passed away one day earlier. To many people, this name might not mean much, but to me and to people in the American-Indian community - and in the United States in general - it means a lot.

Deloria was an American-Indian scholar, author and theologian responsible for great literary works such as "Custer Died for Your Sins," "God is Red," and "Red Earth, White Lies: American Indians and the Myth of Scientific Fact." His publications inspired a generation of great thinkers to reconsider who American Indians are in the American consciousness.

I think it's safe to say that Deloria single-handedly shaped and created the thought processes and dialogue that confronted American misconceptions and prejudices as to who American-Indian people are, and how we fit into the American society that ultimately formed around us.

A member of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, Vine was educated in the same system he came to criticize. His thoughts on federal Indian policy, the forcing of Christianity onto American Indians and the unjust treatment of American Indians in general allowed me to re-evaluate who I am as a Navajo man in modern America.

I recall the insight into ideas of his, such as homophobia being a form of assimilation among American Indians, or that American-Indian knowledge on biology, astronomy and ecology was just as, if not more so, sophisticated than Western ideas on these same topics. So sophisticated were our understanding of these universal observations that our American-Indian ancestors knew that to live against the earth - and not with it - would only cause the demise and destruction of all life forms on this planet.

I think Deloria would be the first to point out, however, that these ideas were not his alone. He drew these ideas from American-Indian concepts stemming back to spiritual and social leaders from many generations ago. What made him unique was his ability to articulate these ideas into the English language and American academia with such eloquence, dignity and intelligence. He knew that in order to explain the complex nature of American-Indian perspective, he had to use the academic institution and its language to convey these issues. If it were not for Deloria, there most likely would be no American-Indian intelligentsia as we know it today.

So, today, when I am tired of studying for the Law School Admissions Test and feel like closing the book and going home, I remind myself of the responsibility that I will now carry without Deloria on this earthly plane. When our society loses people like him or Rosa Parks, the generations that have followed in their audacious legacy have that much more of a responsibility to ensure the continuation of those legacies.

His legacy will forever remain in my desire to pursue a law degree that I will use to ensure basic human rights to all mankind and our animal relatives with whom we share this earth. Thank you, Vine, and in the words of an old Navajo prayer, "May you always walk in beauty."

Brian Curley

UNM student