It Happens Here: The trouble with categories
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Audio transcript
ANNOUNCER: Categories are a convenient way to organize information. But they come with problems. Rather than represent the world perfectly, they tend to reflect the worldview of whoever created them. And that means other truths get left out or treated as an afterthought. And when it comes to categorizing people, well, that can cause real harm. It Happens Here: The Roots of Racial Inequity on the North Shore is a podcast that takes a closer look at this idea. This series comes to us from WTIP in Grand Marais. For more, here are our hosts, Leah Lemm and Staci Drouillard.
STACI DROUILLARD: CNN, during the last election, had poll results for Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, Black Americans. And then the fourth one was "something else." And Indigenous people are always an asterisk.
LEAH LEMM: Boozhoo. Hello. I'm Leah Lemm, citizen of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and host and independent producer of the Native Lights podcast.
STACI DROUILLARD: And I'm Staci Drouillard, a Grand Portage Ojibwe descendant and WTIP producer. It Happens Here is an ongoing series that highlights the history and experiences of people of color on the North Shore.
LEAH LEMM: In their 2020 election night coverage, CNN created a category named "something else," which represented 6% of US voters, a number that translates to roughly 9,504,000 people. Native American people from across the country took it personally.
STACI DROUILLARD: Locally, here in Cook County, when data was collected for the 2020 census, 10.5% of county residents identified as Native American or identified as being of two or more races, which equates to about 565 people. And while Grand Portage reservation results reached an astounding 100% response, the 570 tribal members who live off reservation were not included in the tally, even though many Band members live at Grand Portage seasonally and all retain tribal voting privileges but are not counted when the state or the federal government puts forth proposals for redistricting or makes big decisions that affect all tribal members.
LEAH LEMM: These are just two examples of how data collected by government agencies or reported in the media does not accurately reflect the existence of people of color in our communities. But why is there such a discrepancy? Meet Christina Woods, citizen of the Bois Forte Tribal Nation, Director of the Duluth Art Institute, and owner of Diversity Consulting, where she works as a trainer, specializing in problem-solving for organizations and building strategy around issues of race, socioeconomics, inclusion, and diversity.
CHRISTINA WOODS: So there has been a long-time practice of gatekeeping as to whose history actually gets included. And there's a lot of power in that. That story lives in our public education system. Whose history do we tell? It lives inside of our museums and our art institutes. Whose history are we telling?
It lives inside of the laws and the policies that get made at the legislative level, at our city level. The history that we choose to tell is the history that we know. And then anything else falls away and becomes an absent narrative. That's the power of systemic racism.
LEAH LEMM: Seeing Indigenous people as asterisks to the larger American narrative is problematic, and, as Christina explains, becomes manifested in how history is recorded and remembered. Here's another example.
CHRISTINA WOODS: If we're on the North Shore, and the DNR has a trail system, and the only story being told is mining, and it looks like history began at the time of white people settling the North Shore, then just think of the narratives that are gone and completely wiped out. And what ends up happening is the creation of a culture that is tolerant of excluding those narratives to support the efforts and the lifestyle and the economy of the people that benefit most from those things, which are white people.
LEAH LEMM: John Morrin is a Grand Portage Ojibwe band member and trainer for the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond. He recognizes that even the process of identifying people by race is problematic.
JOHN MORRIN: So racism has become legal in the United States. We have to check that box. There's little boxes on those forms, federal state, whatever types of forms you have, where you have-- it says, "race." And you have to check one of them boxes. So again, that's how the legal system reinforces that concept of race, keeps you understanding, oh, race is real.
And what we do is we say, no, race is a specious classification. You cannot scientifically prove the concept of race. And, of course, in the definition, we go through the history of how race was developed in Europe by some European social scientists, who would eventually develop a social science called anthropology. And that's where that whole concept of race is still being taught today, not clearly, to people. And because it's not taught in a clear way, then it reinforces negative aspects of race for people of color and positive aspects for those people called white.
STACI DROUILLARD: So if race isn't real, and is, in fact, a cultural construct, then who or what are the forces that uphold it?
CHRISTINA WOODS: What's really interesting is white people determine what race everyone else is. And that's how I talk about white privilege. White people determine if you're one of the good ones. That's a privilege. The example would be like, oh, yeah, I have a Black friend. He's one of the good ones. He's not like all the other ones. And that's a behavior of white privilege. You have the privilege to determine who's in and who's out.
LEAH LEMM: According to Christina, the work of dismantling racial constructs must start by including those who have historically been excluded or dismissed. In other words, the asterisks.
CHRISTINA WOODS: And so that's one of the challenges in making change, is if the issue belongs to the asterisk, it doesn't impact the majority. So we need to start looking at what the issues are in our populations that fall under the asterisk in order to make meaningful change. That the smallest groups' concerns need to be levitated.
I mean, isn't that why people started rioting and protesting after George Floyd was murdered? Because you're just a small population, Black men. And sure, some of you may die at the hands of police. But we really don't have to look at that because it doesn't affect all the White people. And that needs to change.
STACI DROUILLARD: I asked Christina about her work as a trainer for the Diversity Institute, and if her services are more in demand since the murder of George Floyd. And she said--
CHRISTINA WOODS: 100% yes.
STACI DROUILLARD: For WTIP, this is Staci Drouillard.
LEAH LEMM: And I'm Leah Lemm. This series is a production of WTIP North Shore Community Radio. Support for this series comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
ANNOUNCER: And again, that was It Happens Here: The Roots of Racial Inequity on the North Shore that's an award-winning series by WTIP in Grand Marais. And you heard the voices of writer and producer Staci Drouillard and co-host Leah Lemm.
STACI DROUILLARD: CNN, during the last election, had poll results for Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, Black Americans. And then the fourth one was "something else." And Indigenous people are always an asterisk.
LEAH LEMM: Boozhoo. Hello. I'm Leah Lemm, citizen of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and host and independent producer of the Native Lights podcast.
STACI DROUILLARD: And I'm Staci Drouillard, a Grand Portage Ojibwe descendant and WTIP producer. It Happens Here is an ongoing series that highlights the history and experiences of people of color on the North Shore.
LEAH LEMM: In their 2020 election night coverage, CNN created a category named "something else," which represented 6% of US voters, a number that translates to roughly 9,504,000 people. Native American people from across the country took it personally.
STACI DROUILLARD: Locally, here in Cook County, when data was collected for the 2020 census, 10.5% of county residents identified as Native American or identified as being of two or more races, which equates to about 565 people. And while Grand Portage reservation results reached an astounding 100% response, the 570 tribal members who live off reservation were not included in the tally, even though many Band members live at Grand Portage seasonally and all retain tribal voting privileges but are not counted when the state or the federal government puts forth proposals for redistricting or makes big decisions that affect all tribal members.
LEAH LEMM: These are just two examples of how data collected by government agencies or reported in the media does not accurately reflect the existence of people of color in our communities. But why is there such a discrepancy? Meet Christina Woods, citizen of the Bois Forte Tribal Nation, Director of the Duluth Art Institute, and owner of Diversity Consulting, where she works as a trainer, specializing in problem-solving for organizations and building strategy around issues of race, socioeconomics, inclusion, and diversity.
CHRISTINA WOODS: So there has been a long-time practice of gatekeeping as to whose history actually gets included. And there's a lot of power in that. That story lives in our public education system. Whose history do we tell? It lives inside of our museums and our art institutes. Whose history are we telling?
It lives inside of the laws and the policies that get made at the legislative level, at our city level. The history that we choose to tell is the history that we know. And then anything else falls away and becomes an absent narrative. That's the power of systemic racism.
LEAH LEMM: Seeing Indigenous people as asterisks to the larger American narrative is problematic, and, as Christina explains, becomes manifested in how history is recorded and remembered. Here's another example.
CHRISTINA WOODS: If we're on the North Shore, and the DNR has a trail system, and the only story being told is mining, and it looks like history began at the time of white people settling the North Shore, then just think of the narratives that are gone and completely wiped out. And what ends up happening is the creation of a culture that is tolerant of excluding those narratives to support the efforts and the lifestyle and the economy of the people that benefit most from those things, which are white people.
LEAH LEMM: John Morrin is a Grand Portage Ojibwe band member and trainer for the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond. He recognizes that even the process of identifying people by race is problematic.
JOHN MORRIN: So racism has become legal in the United States. We have to check that box. There's little boxes on those forms, federal state, whatever types of forms you have, where you have-- it says, "race." And you have to check one of them boxes. So again, that's how the legal system reinforces that concept of race, keeps you understanding, oh, race is real.
And what we do is we say, no, race is a specious classification. You cannot scientifically prove the concept of race. And, of course, in the definition, we go through the history of how race was developed in Europe by some European social scientists, who would eventually develop a social science called anthropology. And that's where that whole concept of race is still being taught today, not clearly, to people. And because it's not taught in a clear way, then it reinforces negative aspects of race for people of color and positive aspects for those people called white.
STACI DROUILLARD: So if race isn't real, and is, in fact, a cultural construct, then who or what are the forces that uphold it?
CHRISTINA WOODS: What's really interesting is white people determine what race everyone else is. And that's how I talk about white privilege. White people determine if you're one of the good ones. That's a privilege. The example would be like, oh, yeah, I have a Black friend. He's one of the good ones. He's not like all the other ones. And that's a behavior of white privilege. You have the privilege to determine who's in and who's out.
LEAH LEMM: According to Christina, the work of dismantling racial constructs must start by including those who have historically been excluded or dismissed. In other words, the asterisks.
CHRISTINA WOODS: And so that's one of the challenges in making change, is if the issue belongs to the asterisk, it doesn't impact the majority. So we need to start looking at what the issues are in our populations that fall under the asterisk in order to make meaningful change. That the smallest groups' concerns need to be levitated.
I mean, isn't that why people started rioting and protesting after George Floyd was murdered? Because you're just a small population, Black men. And sure, some of you may die at the hands of police. But we really don't have to look at that because it doesn't affect all the White people. And that needs to change.
STACI DROUILLARD: I asked Christina about her work as a trainer for the Diversity Institute, and if her services are more in demand since the murder of George Floyd. And she said--
CHRISTINA WOODS: 100% yes.
STACI DROUILLARD: For WTIP, this is Staci Drouillard.
LEAH LEMM: And I'm Leah Lemm. This series is a production of WTIP North Shore Community Radio. Support for this series comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
ANNOUNCER: And again, that was It Happens Here: The Roots of Racial Inequity on the North Shore that's an award-winning series by WTIP in Grand Marais. And you heard the voices of writer and producer Staci Drouillard and co-host Leah Lemm.
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