[Foundation-l] Oral Citations project: People are Knowledge

[Nathan]

On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 10:25 AM, Maria Alameda <m-alameda51 at 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