Maria Alameda is not a troll. She apologized to me in a very sincere manner offlist. Culturally this is a very sensitive topic, and I have learned to deal with the criticism, weariness and lack of trust that people have towards the work I do based on my skin color and name. This is not the first time I have experienced sentiments like that, and I take each one very seriously. It's unfortunate, but, plenty of people have paved the way for folks like Maria to have the response she did. :-/
The other two..I'm not so sure.
On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 5:34 PM, M. Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Nathan, I think that Raul Gutierrez, Maria Alameda and "Elizabeth" are all the same person, somebody trolling the list. While we occasionally get single-issue new posters starting topics, it's rare to see them pop up in the middle of a topic just to attack one user. Something fishy is definitely going on here.
2011/7/27 Nathan nawrich@gmail.com
On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 10:25 AM, Maria Alameda <m-alameda51@hotmail.com
wrote:
Hello all I usually don't comment on mailing lists but a colleague of mine
referred
me here. I wanted to comment on the issues related to Native-american research raised earlier by Ms. Stierch. I found her outlook completely isolated from the realities.
I would rather attribute her naivety to her limited view of the world
as
a fresh graduate. Personally, it reminds me of a somewhat racist outlook common among predominantly white-american graduates and students. While I agree there is a need for more research related to Native american
culture,
I really can't agree with the implication that Native american culture is
as
overlooked as some unknown tribe in New Guinea.
I should be thankful for her enthusiasm but this is ridiculous. I'm
happy
for her residency at National museum of American Indian(s) and her thesis
or
even efforts to change certain policies on Wikipedia, but none of that is connected with the much-larger cultural and race issues she's referring
to.
While I wish her the best, I would hope she not use her thesis as an
excuse
to comment on the realities of those cultural issues. Oral citation is
just
one small aspect of a much larger culture she learnt in school.
I might be too sensitive here, but if her comments were to be applied
to
african-american culture in the United States coming from a female white-undergraduate student pursuing her masters, her comments on the
plight
and the issues of an entire race would seem rather patronizing. Perhaps,
its
just me.
Maria AlamedaM.A, Ph.d (Native American studies)
This seems like an over-reaction to me. It doesn't seem horribly unlikely that Sarah is, if not alone, then among a very small group of academics studying the intersection of Native Americans and Wikimedia projects.
Were her descriptions of the challenges facing Native American communities inaccurate?
Are you aware of outreach efforts by the WMF aimed at Native Americans? (There are certainly many aimed at many other groups around the world; the seeming absence of focus on Native Americans would support Sarah's statement that they are "overlooked" in this regard).
Could you explain the specific errors she made that led you to call her e-mail racist, patronizing and naive? I think if you are going to use such strong words, then more substantial criticism is required than simply stating that she is female, young and white.
Nathan
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