Excerpted from Brayboy’s Toward a Tribal Critical Race Theory in Education (TCRT) (2005)
Nine Tenets of Tribal Critical Race Theory:
1. Colonization is endemic to society.
2. U.S. policies toward Indigenous peoples are rooted in imperialism, White supremacy, and a desire for material gain.
3. Indigenous peoples occupy a liminal space that accounts for both the political and racialized natures of our identities.
4. Indigenous peoples have a desire to obtain and forge tribal sovereignty, tribal autonomy, self-determination, and
self-identification.
5. The concepts of culture, knowledge, and power take on new meaning when examined through an Indigenous lens.
6. Governmental policies and educational policies toward Indigenous peoples are intimately linked around the
problematic goal of assimilation.
7. Tribal philosophies, beliefs, customs, traditions, and visions for the future are central to understanding the lived
realities of Indigenous peoples, but they also illustrate the differences and adaptability among individuals and
groups.
8. Stories are not separate from theory; they make up theory and are, therefore, real and legitimate sources of data and
ways of being.
9. Theory and practice are connected in deep and explicit ways such that scholars must work towards social change.
Brayboy, B. M. (2005 December). Toward aTribal Critical Race Theory in Education. The Urban Review, 37(5), 425-
446.
As scholars with privilege and power within the dominant society, social change becomes our responsibility.