Vine Deloria Jr.

Like almost everyone else in America, I grew up believing the myth of the objective scientist. Fortunately I was raised on the edges of two very distinct cultures, western European and American Indian.

Every society needs educated people, but the primary responsibility of educated people is to bring wisdom back into the community and make it available to others so that the lives they are leading make sense.

If the tribal peoples actually represented Western origins at a much earlier time, it was exceedingly valuable that they should be studied intensely for clues about the nature and origin of human society. Consequently it was an injury to science and human knowledge to allow the military to simply exterminate them.

The bottom line about the 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.