She's Black

Along the journey of preparing my grad school applications, I had the opportunity to meet with the Director of a prestigious Native American Studies Department to discuss my application to their joint JD/MA program. I was not nervous because I’ve spent most of my days at NYU meeting with administration and because this was my father’s alma mater. He had completed that very JD/MA program before it was even given a name. However, once I was there I was forced to confront something I had never been forced to confront before: the fact that people generally do not expect me to be Black. I’ve dealt with anti-Blackness in Indigenous spaces. I’ve dealt with not looking like the stereotypical NDN and being subsequently overlooked, but I have never had an entire meeting derailed because the person I am meeting with was not expecting me to Black. Now, I am not naive. I know everyone looks twice once they realize the situation, yet up to this point, it had not robbed people of their ability to be productive.

I came to this realization only once I got home from the meeting. As you can imagine the meeting was awkward and abrupt, so naturally I obsessed over what went wrong.  That was when I realized that the whole ordeal had tanked from when I entered the office and said, “Hi, I’m Taylor Norman here to see Dr. Smith.” I realized that the program probably receives a very very low percentage of Black applicants from NYU looking to dive head first into Federal Indian Law. When I began to speak about my background in Indigenous activism concerning education, the director just sat there and nodded her head, occasionally making a small comment, but not really interacting with me for the most part. She was trying her hardest to mask her thoughts, but I could still see that there was a disconnect between what she was hearing me say and what I looked like. I went on to ask her for book recommendations for my thesis project because I believed she could have some real insight. And she did agree to give me some recommendations, but then she never actually gave me recommendations. Dr. Smith* literally shook her head “yes” when I asked, then we sat and stared at each other for what felt like solid minute as I waited for her tell me what her recommendations were or for her to indicate that she would forward them in the future. In my reflection, this is the primary point where I look back and say, this woman was just not engaged whatsoever.  

This is not to say she had never seen a Black Native before. In fact, Oklahoma is full of Black Native people like me for various reasons. There are many who are the descendants of the slaves of the “5 Civilized Tribes” and there are those, like myself, who are the product of intermixing between Black and Native people of various tribes. Growing up, most of the Black people I knew were also Native they knew it not because of oral tradition as is what occurs in most parts of the country, but because they were actual card carrying members of a tribe. So no, I most definitely was not the first Black Native the director had ever seen.

Instead, I believe the issue lies within the presence of Black Native people in academia. We are almost non-existent and there are even fewer of us who chose to actually pursue a Native field of study or actively engage with our Indigenous communities. While at my final Ivy Native Conference, I found myself excited that there were three Black Indigenous women present, the most I had ever seen at this type of conference. Given that we are already battling two sets of statistics, two complex histories with academia itself, and the fact that the act of existing within an academic setting as a Black or Native person, even today is entirely exhausting and it comes as no surprise that there are so few of us. Furthermore, I have found that being both Black and Native in an institution without losing your mind is almost impossible, so I forgive the director for her shock even though I do not believe her recovery efforts were up to par. I’m still applying to the program, I’ve simply been reminded of my place in this “post racial society.” (I honestly could not write that with a straight face)

*Name changed