Until you're a member of a minority group, you likely cannot understand the visceral, day-in and day-out experience of life as a minority. From the passive, underhand comments and assumptions about your background or abilities to the blatant exclusion or derision of your presence, being a minority is challenging enough. Now imagine seeing the same people wielding the upper hand in the socio-economic lottery picking through your group's longstanding history and cultural practices for something they can leverage as their own.
In this episode, Tammy Eagle Bull, FAIA, explains in clear terms why cultural appropriation is wrong, how it perpetuates in the architecture and design community, and her own experiences with preconceptions in her everyday life. A member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, Eagle Bull is a co-founder and the president of Encompass Architects, based in Lincoln, Neb. She is also the first Native American woman in the United States to become a licensed architect, and the recipient of the AIA 2018 Whitney M. Young Jr. Award.