I see Ward Churchill is in the news again, still fighting
against his dismissal from the University of Colorado.
Churchill said infamously that the people killed in the
World Trade Center were "little Eichmanns", which
prompted the University to investigate his scholarship
and find it wanting. He was fired on grounds of plag-
iarism and falsification of material, which he is pro-
testing.
Churchill, whose academic specialty is Native Amer-
ican history, is popular with Indian activists because
he can be depended upon to say radical things, of
which "little Eichmanns" is the most egregious. And
he makes some good points; however, there is another
factor to his rhetoric that makes him suspect, at least
to my mind.
Exposing the truth is one thing but there is a pervasive
and chronic bitterness and even ugliness to his state-
ments which makes it seem that he has a hidden agen-
da. I'm not sure what that might be and chances are
that Churchill himself is not aware of it, but i'd imagine
it has to do with his parents telling him he couldn't do
things when he was a little boy. Speaking the truth
doesn't require cynicism; in fact it undercuts it. One
wonders, what makes him talk that way?
He also has claimed Indian blood, which he has been
unable to document. Poor Ward Churchill, he went
one step too far and now he's paying for it. Perhaps
now he'll change his ways?
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