Book Review: Red Earth, White Lies by Vine Deloria, Jr.

I have spent most of holiday break from school reading books for the research of my thesis on how human’s perceive themselves individually and within groups to establish what is tangible and define the unexplainable with the evidence of science fiction and fantasy.

In the process of this discovery, I have come across several texts that tend to illustrate this process outside my predisposed genre of theoretical choice. One of those reading was by Vine Deloria, Jr. His reading has taught me: how human beings endeavor to find various ways to believe, perceive reality through idealism, faith, logic, and rationalizations. With that said, Vine Deloris’s book, Red Earth, White Lies, comes across as if he is lecturing a class full of snot nose; wet behind the ears; ethnocentric students; who can barely think outside of the box.

Thus, the reader and/or students are perceived as unable to think critically and unable to ask obvious questions and culturally ignorant of not only of native indigenous peoples—but also of their own civil, ethnic, and religious attitudes. For instance, Deloria says, “The bottom line about information possessed by non-Western peoples is that the information becomes valid only when offered by a white scholar recognized by the academic establishment; in effect, the color of the skin guarantees scientific objectivity (page 35).”

His point is well taken, for the most part, although, it is consumed with bias, bitterness, and vitriol. I concede that science should do a better job of cataloging data of past civilizations through the debris archaeology and geology; and, it has made implausible large and esoteric “statement of facts” of how a culture in era separated by time existed. Yes, one might be able to extrapolate from the present and “well” recorded cultures of the past 400 years or so ago—but, that does not necessarily mean that the past, or present, are accurately reported by the observer/s, or that they fully understood the language of the native peoples.

Admittedly, Deloria’s attack on academia and the “dogmatism” of the “scientific” expert and the extreme entrenched scientist plays well for his audience by deconstruction of them in order to invalidate and maybe even subvert the arguments of the institutions. Some one once said, “Translation is death.” Deloria pontificates that, the word “giant” has been mistook, mistranslated, oversimplified for the “taller than average,” or the “tall ones” that were taller than the “average us” of present “seems” plausible. Furthermore, Eurocentric folklore, whether told through theologians, historians, or oral traditions has been transmuted, transformed, and translated to the dearth of human compunction especially those of native peoples.

This is what I mean, Deloria castigates and derides his own native indigenous community for contributing to their own "invisibility," he says:

“These positive symbols of prosperous buckskin are not the whole story, unfortunately. Nothing is calm beneath the veneer of Indian country, and it may be that we are seeing the final absorption of the original inhabitants in the modern consumer society. The push for education in the last generation has done more to erode the sense of Indian identity than any integration program the government previously attempted. The irony of the situation is that Indians truly believed that by seeking a better life for their children through education, much could be accomplished. College and graduate education, however, have now created a generation of technicians and professionals who also happen to have Indian blood. People want the good life and they are prepared to throw away their past in order to get it (page 2).

Thus, his proclamation that some of his own brethren’s willingness to “educate” themselves at the hegemonic culture is a betrayal of sort; in that, the full assimilation of the Indian identity is close at hand. In so being that, the Indian identity is becoming “acculturated” as well as “socialized” into the ideal American hegemony representation and culture.

Moreover, to “accept” the hegemonic culture’s as sacrosanct becomes the final death nail of the Indian identity. This assumption by Deloria is a bit arrogant. Nevertheless, his point about the sciences’ overzealousness as to dismiss native folklore as irrelevant, insignificant, and “unreliable” is short sighted. Yet, if we are to rely on the hypothesis by academia, and yes the dogmatic views of scientists, then the perspectives of indigenous peoples must be included. Speculation without proper evidence, of scientific data, is cannon fodder. The dismissal of evidentiary data, and to assign it as possibly faulty, because it is not “convenient” to present day scholarly arguments is spurious. And, denies the ability to obtain the wealth of information.

Deloria’s thesis throughout his book is driven, compelling, heartfelt, even surreal as he tries to layout the case of dogmatism of academics and scientific community—but it abuses the totality of the groups. And to the extent of his argument, this is one of the by products of a hegemony. On the other hand, like the political extremes, there are those who “truly” believe that they are impartial not dogmatic. “True believers” (Hoffer) never do. It is the observers from without that are astutely aware of this sometime rigidity, pragmatism, and again sometime dogmatism of science. This endeavor is often on the verge of religiosity, yet, at the least, more willing to adapt.

The previous statement may seem accusatory, but in a recent special by Nova, in regards to Albert Einstein, in the culmination of his theory of E=mc2, and the basis for his work. The dispute within science, of his time, was between whether mass and energy as separate and distinct proves a point. “Culturally” the stubbornness of science to disregard women, or those “beneath” them in the social-strata, in bringing new ideas, “out of the box” thinking has slowed the progress of discovery. If not for the advent of war, the acceleration of modernity might have been furthered hampered today's post-modern world.

Nevertheless, Deloria’s overwrought thesis has me disconcerted how to proceed in receiving his view of the social sciences such as anthropology or geology, in regards to the machinations of native cultures that has passed its history orally—without the physical written scribes—has afforded science the ability to discount native peoples mythos and legends. This is unfortunate, and I understand the Deloria’s view of how research of these cosmology—and “perceived” histories that are “documented” by books and essays seems arbitrary.

Deloria’s description of a world of condemnation, intolerance, and condescension comes across heavy handed. Some of this criticism is warranted, however, one has only to see the history of the Maya codex as an example of the "long process of discovery" to understand its significance (see Breaking the Maya Code by Michael D. Coe). It is his tone, the lecturing in the fashion of GrandFather to his grandchildren as, as I perceive it, gives me pause. This means, of course, I have more reading, and, observation, study, in the verification of Deloria’s thesis and statements.

As for my own thesis, this is another affirmation of how humans behave, in that, ewe as humans establish, displace, or set aside the items that are inconvenient; verify, narrate, and (re)deploy (my own acronym—DVND). Deloria’s view that, the world of science has “disappeared” a whole culture historical metaphors, and mythos underscores that the human condition “provides” the rationalization to feel victimized, or to be perceived as “worthy” to the reality of the hegemonic.

Deloria’s book is a clarion call for the social sciences that allege to “know” how civilizations existing thousands or millions of years ago (see the article of Dikka Baby in Scientific American as an example) as hypothesis grown as facts. And, then have those “postulations,” “speculations” as the popular and engrained as institutional theories into the halls of the education system as factual lore. This in turn thereby disregards other “plausible” explanations. I am not asking for native indigenous people’s cosmology or spiritual mythos to be as accepted as fact—far from it. But to be accepted or seen as another data point for correlative research, not to do so is irresponsible, arrogant, and ethnocentric.

The Red Earth, White Lies is agenda-ridden and can be viewed from a racial disparity perspective, but Deloria’s critical analysis, and overarching thesis scathes science for a good reason. To open up the dialogue, to shake them up, to wake up “the establishment,” for its inequity, at times, of viewpoints, of perspectives, and if this was his overall purpose—good job.