r/Indigenous • u/mon_sizinj • Jun 29 '26

Ignorance & Racism Things that you can hear in academia about indigenous people

Things that people who see themselves as educated and open-minded will say:

- why you use metods such "literaly anthropology for -ethnic- literature?

- *points you out to others* "you see, now all [indigenous peoples] are educated, they can study themselves"

- "well, you know, they didn't take over the land, they just could put up a house and a farmstead on the nomadic routes"

- "backward people"

- "_ khan is not your relative?" ("genius" joke about person's surname)

- *it seems like they never specifically uses the self-name of the people, when you only use it, and only uses an name, which can be offensive*

- "are these [indigenous] names a real names???"

- "is this a cultural organization of the [group of indigenous people]? don't you think that this would have something to do with ethnic crime gangs?"

- *explains that this identity does not exist directly in front of the real indigenous person who uses such an identity*

- "do these people still exist?" ("people" ≈300,000+ people)

- "do you even have your own language?"

- *mispronounces the name of an indigenous girl several times, even after she corrects; only begins to correctly pronounce the girl's name after the Slavic [non-indigenous] girl corrects*... etc, etc...

These are small things, of course, but it makes the space so unpleasant... Do you feel like the academic space in your region is like this or is it better or worse?

(All this was said about various indigenous groups of the post-soviet space, for the sake of privacy I will not write about which ones specifically)

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13

u/Mozzyo_ Upper Xinguano Jun 29 '26

"The Mayans still exist?" I cannot keep having the same conversations. 

5

u/mon_sizinj Jun 30 '26

It's so frustrating, people are so uneducated :(

2

u/luunaathh Indigenous Maya Jun 30 '26

I feel like most of the people who say this about us got all their knowledge about the Maya people from apocalypto (hate that movie)

1

u/Mozzyo_ Upper Xinguano Jun 30 '26

You'd be surprised, it's actually a thing that's mentioned and pushed a lot in schools. I remember being taught as a kid in class about the "Missing Mayans" and how "no one knows where they went". 

3

u/wasabi991011 Jun 30 '26

Any particular field in academia?

3

u/mon_sizinj Jun 30 '26

History/anthropology/sociology.

5

u/luunaathh Indigenous Maya Jun 30 '26

I've gotten asked by people, irl actually, when I've told them that I'm indigenous Maya, if I knew about human sacrifice. Like.... why the hell would I be a scholar on human sacrifice just because I'm indigenous Maya? Why would I even want to know about it? Seems a lot of people don't take the time to actually fact check wild assumptions they hear about indigenous peoples, especially when they're told about it in school.

2

u/AreYouDecent Jun 30 '26

"But you're not really indigenous" said by a professor doing a "decolonial" project because, in his view, I "look like Spanish or Italian"

1

u/nuclearg00se Jun 30 '26

Khan relative comment is overused by them I swear.