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Scholar and Activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Offers "All the Real Indians Died Off"

Aired on Thursday, November 3rd.

On this edition of StudioTulsa, we speak with the author, scholar, and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, who grew up in rural Oklahoma and is now based in San Francisco. She is the daughter of a tenant farmer and part-Indian mother, and she's been active in the international Indigenous People's Movement for more than four decades. She speaks with us about her latest book, which she co-wrote, and which is called "All the Real Indians Died Off...And 20 Other Myths About Native Americans." It's a collection of essays that sets out to debunk several misconceptions and/or misunderstandings regarding Native American life, culture, and history. To cite a handful of the essays in this book by title: "Columbus Discovered America," "Europeans Brought Civilization to Backward Indians," "The United States Did Not Have a Policy of Genocide," "Sports Mascots Honor Native Americans," "Indian Casinos Make Them All Rich," and "Indians Are Naturally Predisposed to Alcohol." Note that Ms. Dunbar-Ortiz will appear at a reading/signing in connection with this book on Sunday the 6th at the Circle Cinema. This is a Book Smart Tulsa event; it's free to the public and begins at 2pm.

Rich Fisher passed through KWGS about thirty years ago, and just never left. Today, he is the general manager of Public Radio Tulsa, and the host of KWGS’s public affairs program, StudioTulsa, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary in August 2012 . As host of StudioTulsa, Rich has conducted roughly four thousand long-form interviews with local, national, and international figures in the arts, humanities, sciences, and government. Very few interviews have gone smoothly. Despite this, he has been honored for his work by several organizations including the Governor's Arts Award for Media by the State Arts Council, a Harwelden Award from the Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa, and was named one of the “99 Great Things About Oklahoma” in 2000 by Oklahoma Today magazine.
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