Academics Measure Native IQ

Harrisburg, Pa.—A presentation here by Native American academics provided a demonstration of both the promise and pitfalls of multiculturalism. “Channel 8 has never come to me about any of my research but if I came to class in full buckskin somebody would text message Channel 8 and they would have a camera crew there before class is over,” Penn State professor John Sanchez said at a multicultural education conference. “That’s what they think of us and unless it’s changed in the classroom it won’t change.”

Dr. Sanchez spoke at the Pennsylvania chapter meeting of the National Association for Multicultural Education. What he and his peers can teach about their own heritage is informative and interesting, a happy combination all too rarely achieved in academic lectures.

Unfortunately, they go off topic and onto shakier ground. The problem is that the real gets blended in with the impressionistic and presented to students as an inalterable recipe that they get tested on.

For example, we learned that most Indians get one Eagle feather in a lifetime. Usually, one has to be a war veteran to receive this honor.

Knowing of this tradition helps to explain why Native Americans can get upset when sports mascots appear in an Eagle-feather headdress. On the other hand, both Dr. Sanchez and his colleague, Richie Plass, still believe that convicted murderer Rueben “Hurricane” Carter was innocent, a belief not supported by the court record.

In a third of the questions on the pop quiz that Plass gave the audience, history blended precariously with hearsay, although the audience of educators ate it up. The test appears in a workbook for teachers developed by the Changing Winds Advocacy Center, with which Plass is affiliated.

The test asked such questions as:

• “Who has been in prison since the mid-70s for a crime he says he did not commit?” Leonard Peltier is the answer Plass gives but the key phrase is “says he did not commit.” Law enforcement personnel will tell you that many inmates say this of their crimes. As for Peltier, convicted of killing two FBI agents, even Bill Clinton would not pardon him despite the ardent pleas of many Clintonistas.

• “What nation’s structure did Benjamin Franklin and our nation’s forefathers pattern the U. S. Constitution after?” Plass claims it was the Iroquois nation. According to the Smithsonian, here is what Franklin wrote; “It would be a strange thing if Six Nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming a scheme for such an union, and be able to execute it in such a manner as that it has subsisted ages and appears indissoluble; and yet that a like union should be impracticable for ten or a dozen English colonies, to whom it is more necessary and must be more advantageous, and who cannot be supposed to want an equal understanding of their interests.”

Additionally, the pop quiz featured some multiple-choice questions such as:

“Who signed the executive order for the largest single mass execution (38 Native Americans hanged) in the United States?

A.) Andrew Jackson
B.) Thomas Jefferson
C.) Abraham Lincoln”

Plass says the answer is “C” but I have been unable to find such an edict in any
Online archive of presidential directives.

“Who said the following: ‘The only good Indian is a dead Indian?

A.) Andrew Jackson
B.) John Wayne
C.) George Armstrong Custer”

The answer Plass gave is “A” but most reference works attribute the quote to
Philip Michael Sheridan.

“Who said the following: ‘I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.

A.) Andrew Jackson
B.) John Wayne
C.) George Armstrong Custer”

Plass said the answer is “B,” in a speech. When I asked Plass where the speech
was given, he said, “It was either at the University of California or before a congressional committee,” making the exact reference a bit imprecise.

Incidentally, one of the exhibits on display accompanying this “mini-symposium” was a water-filled jar containing what looked like a set of false choppers that the exhibitors called, “John Wayne’s Teeth.” The Duke’s dentures are an enduring object of fascination to left-wing Native American activists.

The movie Smoke Signals features a song that goes:

“John Wayne’s teeth
“John Wayne’s teeth
“Are they plastic?
“Are they steel?”

The Big Guy would probably be amused to know that his bicuspids are the target of liberal scorn three decades after he passed away. Were the star of True Grit still with us, he might respond the way that he did at Harvard when a student questioned whether the venerable actor’s hair was real. “Yeah, it’s real,” Wayne said. “It’s not mine but it’s real.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.