Dr. Tink Tinker, Guest

Host Tiokasin Ghosthorse catches up with regular guest Dr. Tink Tinker. Dr. Tinker is the Clifford Baldridge Emeritus Professor of American Indian Cultures and Religious Traditions at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. He is a citizen of the Osage Nation (wazhazhe) and has been an activist in urban American Indian communities for four decades. He joined the faculty at IliffSchool of Theology in 1985 and brought an American Indian perspective to this predominantly euro-christian school. Dr. Tinker is committed to a scholarly endeavor that takes seriously both the liberation of Indian peoples from their historic oppression as colonized communities and the liberation of euro-christian (White) Americans, the historic colonizers and oppressors of Indian peoples, whose self-narrative typically avoids naming the violence committed against Indians in favor of a romance narrative that justifies their euro-christian occupancy of Indian lands. Rocky Mountain PBS has produced a fine documentary in which Dr. Tinker is featured. The documentary has won a regional Emmy award (a Heartland Emmy): "A new chapter: Coming to terms with a gruesome legacy" (rmpbs.org)