Join us on Thursday, November 4 at 7:00 pm for "Native Americans: An Invisible Underrepresented Minority" with Professor Ken Tankersley from the University of Cincinnati sponsored by the Haq Center, Alumni Relations, Academic Affairs, and the Racial Justice and Equity Committee. The talk will be hosted in-person in the Withrow Activities Center (Campus Center basement), and live streamed. Register below to get the link to the live stream.
As descendants of genocide, Native Americans are exposed to a torrent of stereotypes and false claims. Many European Americans do not see or feel the harmful effects of perpetuating negative stereotypes about Native Americans, nor do they understand what it means to experience historical trauma. The historical unresolved grief of concealing Native American ethnicity within the family from one generation to the next has led to historic intergenerational or transgenerational trauma. Historical trauma leaves Native American family members emotionally numb, rarely discussing their feelings because it is considered a sign of weakness, and anyone outside of the family is viewed as an outsider with whom the family is in constant conflict. Historic trauma creates an “internalized cultural oppression.” It manifests in descendants as “cultural self-hate,” a feeling of intense shame and unworthiness. Today, Native Americans are engaged in collaborations with the public and state and federal governments in discussing the fundamental issues of cultural and ethnic identity and human rights. These timeless ethical, legal, political, and social issues include tribal citizenship, cultural contributions, credibility, relevance, and sovereignty.
Dr. Ken Tankersley Biography
Dr. Kenneth Barnett Tankersley is an enrolled member of the Piqua Tribe of Alabama. He received his B.S. and M.A. degrees from the University of Cincinnati and a Ph.D. from Indiana University in 1989. He did post-doctorate work at the Quaternary Studies Program of the Illinois State Museum. With funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences, the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, Earthwatch, the International Research and Exchange Program, the Court Family Foundation, the Charles Phelps Taft Foundation, and the University of Cincinnati Research Council, he has conducted archaeological investigations across the Western Hemisphere and Eastern Siberia. This research has resulted in more than 165 professional publications, and it has been featured on the National Geographic Channel, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, the Animal Planet, BBC Nature, NOVA, PBS, in Science, National Geographic News, Geo, the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker magazine, Scientific American, Archaeology magazine, and on All Things Considered. He has served as a Foreign Delegate for the National Academy of Science, a Delegate of the International Geology Congress, a Carnegie Mellon Scholar, Emmons Lecturer, guest editor of Scientific American magazine, and a Gubernatorial appointed member of the Kentucky Native American Heritage Commission. He is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Anthropology and Geology, a Fellow of the Graduate School, and Curator, Court Archaeological Research Facility at the University of Cincinnati.