Overview

One day at the end of the twentieth century, Roger Echo-Hawk decided to give up being an Indian. After becoming an American Indian historian, he started to question our widespread reliance on a concept of race that the academy had long-since discredited, and embarked on a personal and professional journey to giving up race himself. This passionate book offers a powerful meditation on racialism and a manifesto for creating a world without it. Echo-Hawk examines personal identity, social movements, and policy—NAGPRA, Indian law, Red Pride, indigenous archaeology—showing how they rely on race and how they should move beyond it.

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9781598745757

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Reviews

Racial Pride isn't the worst thing in the world, but it can prove a detriment to society. The Magic Children: Racial Identity at the End of the Age of Race is a scholarly analysis of race from Roger Echo-Hawk, a Native American Indian who has stated he has given up his race in his own journey to gain a greater understanding of it, giving readers a thorough discussion of Native American issues such as Red Pride, Archaeology, and more. Thoughtful and educational, The Magic Children is a vital addition to any community library social issues and Native American studies collections. -The Midwest Book Review Roger Echo-Hawk is the purest intellectual that I know. If race is an invention, a political creation with no biological basis, then people have the option, he argues, to opt out. Roger Echo-Hawk opts out, and in doing so realizes all the more clearly what a powerful hold racial thinking has on Americans in general and American intellectuals in particular. - Richard White, Stanford University Echo-Hawk questions the construction and maintenance of race from an insider's perspective. It's not often you'll find someone willing to take on an entrenched idea of identity politics, but Echo-Hawk does it with such humor and acerbic wit that you'll shake your head, throw the book across the room, nod in understanding, and laugh at some passages. He'll force you to question your preconceptions about what it means to wrestle with 'racial Indian-ness' at the beginning of the 21st century as well as some of the well-meaning supporters of ethnic solidarity or political separatism. -Joe Watkins, Director of Native American Studies Program, Oklahoma University You know those check boxes asking your race on census forms and surveys? Roger Echo-Hawk thinks well outside the boxes and asks you to put a big X through the whole section! Science has utterly demolished biological constructions of race, he contends, and he is puzzled about why we don\'t dump racial categories altogether. Echo-Hawk labels himself a 'former' Indian, and ... has gifted us with the best personal account of race in nearly a half-century. - Larry Zimmerman, Professor of Anthropology and Museum Studies, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

<p> Roger Echo-Hawk is the purest intellectual that I know. If race is an invention, a political creation with no biological basis, then people have the option, he argues, to opt out. Roger Echo-Hawk opts out, and in doing so realizes all the more clearly what a powerful hold racial thinking has on Americans in general and American intellectuals in particular. - Richard White, Stanford University

You know those check boxes asking your race on census forms and surveys? Roger Echo-Hawk thinks well outside the boxes and asks you to put a big X through the whole section! Science has utterly demolished biological constructions of race, he contends, and he is puzzled about why we don\'t dump racial categories altogether. Echo-Hawk labels himself a 'former' Indian, and ... has gifted us with the best personal account of race in nearly a half-century. - Larry Zimmerman, Professor of Anthropology and Museum Studies, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Roger Echo-Hawk is the purest intellectual that I know. If race is an invention, a political creation with no biological basis, then people have the option, he argues, to opt out. Roger Echo-Hawk opts out, and in doing so realizes all the more clearly what a powerful hold racial thinking has on Americans in general and American intellectuals in particular. - Richard White, Stanford University Echo-Hawk questions the construction and maintenance of race from an insider's perspective. It's not often you'll find someone willing to take on an entrenched idea of identity politics, but Echo-Hawk does it with such humor and acerbic wit that you'll shake your head, throw the book across the room, nod in understanding, and laugh at some passages. He'll force you to question your preconceptions about what it means to wrestle with 'racial Indian-ness' at the beginning of the 21st century as well as some of the well-meaning supporters of ethnic solidarity or political separatism. -Joe Watkins, Director of Native American Studies Program, Oklahoma University Racial Pride isn't the worst thing in the world, but it can prove a detriment to society. The Magic Children: Racial Identity at the End of the Age of Race is a scholarly analysis of race from Roger Echo-Hawk, a Native American Indian who has stated he has given up his race in his own journey to gain a greater understanding of it, giving readers a thorough discussion of Native American issues such as Red Pride, Archaeology, and more. Thoughtful and educational, The Magic Children is a vital addition to any community library social issues and Native American studies collections. -The Midwest Book Review

Author Information

Historian Roger Echo-Hawk is the author of two books on American Indian repatriation, as well as an online book about the origins of racial identity among his Pawnee ancestors: The Enchanted Mirror: When the Pawnees Became Indians. View Echo-Hawk's family page and Roger Echo-Hawk's web page to read more about his thoughts on race.

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