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BILL MOYERS: Let's talk now with Sherman Alexie. He comes
from a long line of people who have lived the consequences of inequality, Native Americans,
the first Americans. They were the target of genocide, ethnic cleansing, which for
years was the hidden history of America, kept in the closet by the authors and enforcers of
white mythology.
How do you grapple with such a long denied history? If you are Sherman Alexie,
You face it down with candor and even irreverence, writing poems, novels, and short stories,
and even movies. Here's a clip from “Smoke Signals” that Alexie wrote and co-produced
in 1998:
VICTOR IN “SMOKE SIGNALS”: You got to look mean or people won’t respect
you. White people will run all over you if you don’t look mean. You got to look like
a warrior. You got to look like you just came back from killing a buffalo.
THOMAS IN “SMOKE SIGNALS”: But our tribe never hunted buffalo, we were
fishermen.
VICTOR IN “SMOKE SIGNALS”: What? You want to look like you just came
back from catching a fish? This ain’t “Dances with Salmon,” you know.
BILL MOYERS:
Alexie has published 22 books of poetry and fiction, including "The Lone Ranger and Tonto
Fistfight in Heaven," "War Dances," and "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,”
a book for young adults and winner of the National Book Award. His latest work is a
collection of short stories, old and new, with the title, "Blasphemy." I’ll ask him
why.
He now lives in Seattle, like many of his characters who left the reservation for the
city, living in between, and traveling across boundaries both real and imagined.
BILL MOYERS: Sherman Alexie, welcome.
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Oh, thank you. It's good to be here.
BILL MOYERS: Life for you is a lot of in between, isn't
it?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Well, as a native, as a colonized people you
do live in the in between. The thing is I'm native. But necessarily because I'm a member
of the country, I'm also a White American.
BILL MOYERS: But you must feel at home in that in between
now, because so many people are, as you say, living there.
SHERMAN ALEXIE: I was taught that it was not easy, that there
was something destructive about it. I was taught by my elders, my parents that it was
a bad, dangerous place to be. But I've come to realize it's actually, it's pretty magical.
You know? I can be in a room full of Indians and non-Indians. And I can switch in the middle
of sentences. So, and also because I'm ambiguously ethnic looking, you know, I come to New York
and I can be anything. People generally think I'm half of whatever they are.
So, I end up feeling like a spy in the house of ethnicity, you know? Because people will
talk around me as they would talk around the people in their cultural group. So I get to
hear all the secrets and jokes and you know, I'm a part of every community because of the
way I look.
BILL MOYERS: Is that a big change from your parents' generation
and your generation?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Oh, I mean, I grew up in a monoculture. We
did a family tree in sixth grade on the rez and everybody was related.
BILL MOYERS: On the reservation?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Yes, including the teacher. My mom and dad
met when he moved to the rez, when he was five and she was 14. And she helped him get
a drink at a water fountain. My mom was born in the house where her mom was born. So we
were as isolated in the sense of Native Americans as anybody else. So, you know, I realized
later on that when I left the rez to go to the White high school on the border of the
rez I was a first-generation immigrant, you know? I'm an indigenous immigrant.
BILL MOYERS: What is it like to be an alien in the land
of your birth?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: I mean, it's a destructive feeling. Because,
you know, a lot of native culture has been destroyed. So you already feel lost inside
your culture. And then you add up feeling lost and insignificant inside the larger culture.
So you end up feeling lost squared. And to never be recognized, to never have any power,
you know, other minority communities actually have a lot of economic, cultural power. But
we don't, you know? Not at all.
I mean, you can still have the Washington Redskins, you know? You can still have the
Atlanta Braves and the Cleveland Indians, which is by far the worst. And if you look
at Chief Wahoo on their hats and put Sambo next to him, it's the same thing. And, you
know, you could never have Sambo anymore.
Most, you know, at least half the country thinks the mascot issue is insignificant.
But I think it's indicative of the ways in which Indians have no cultural power. We're
still placed in the past. So we're either in the past or we're only viewed through casinos.
BILL MOYERS: Do you feel shoved back into that tight space,
that closet, even by the questions I ask about Indians, natives, reservation, all of that?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Sometimes. But, I'm, you know, it's who I
am. So I have no issue talking about it. You know, I know a lot more about being White
than you know about being Indian. I am extremely conscious of my tribalism. And when you talk
about tribalism, you talk about living in a black and white world. I mean, Native American
tribalism sovereignty, even the political fight for sovereignty and cultural sovereignty
is a very us versus them. And I think a lot of people in this country, especially European
Americans and those descended from Europeans don't see themselves as tribal, you know?
I don't think, for instance, Republicans see themselves as tribal. I was speaking to a
Republican here in New York, a friend of mine. And, you know, I asked him, "Do you think
it's an accident that, what, 80 percent of Republicans are White males?" And he did.
I mean, he--
BILL MOYERS: Coincidence, huh?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Yes. He couldn't even imagine that he's part
of a tribe. So as a member of a tribe, I think I have a more conscious relationship with
black and white thinking. And I used to be quite a black and white thinker in public
life and private life until 9/11, you know? And the end game of tribalism is flying planes
into building. That's the end game. So since then, I have tried, and I fail often, but
I have tried to live in the in between. To be conscious what did Fitzgerald say? The
sign of a superior mind is the ability to hold two different ideas. Keats called it
negative capability. So I have tried to be in that and fail often, but I try.
BILL MOYERS: That's what I get from your poems. You even
see Yo Yo Ma's cello differently from the rest of us. That's one of my favorites. Would
you read it?
BILL MOYERS: Here it is.
SHERMAN ALEXIE: And this poem is called Tribal Music.
Watching PBS, it occurs To me that I want to be
Yo Yo Ma's cello.
Hello! Does this mean That I'm sexually attracted
To Yo Yo Ma? Nah,
He's cute and thin Looks great in a tux,
And makes the big bucks,
But I long to be simultaneously As strong and fragile
As the cello. I want to be
The union of fingertip And string. I want less
To be a timorous human
And desire more To become a solid
Wooden thing, warm
To the touch but much Colder when left
Alone in my case. I need
To flee the mystery Of mortality and insanity
And become that space
Between the notes. I no longer want to be the root
Cause of anybody's pain,
Especially my own. O, Yo Yo Ma, I hem
And haw, but let's be clear:
I want to abandon My sixteen-drum fear
And inhabit the pause
That happens between falling In love and collapsing
Because of love. I want
To be sane. I want to be Clean and visionary
Like a windowpane.
BILL MOYERS: Where does that come from?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Well, you know, number one, the cello looks
like a woman to me. And, you know, the curves. And so I am in a way, and it's funny to admit
this, I am sexually attracted to the cello, the curves really get me. So as I watched
him play, you know, Yo Yo Ma is sort of making love to a beautiful woman.
And I want to be that beautiful. So I was thinking of that watching it. And then it
occurred to me, you know, I'm a man. I don't want to be a woman. But I want to be the object
of beauty. I want to be so clearly beautiful. And in a way it's a need for perfection, you
know, the desire to be perfect, even though I can't be and even though if I really started
thinking about it I don't want to be. But there's a state of nirvana or bliss especially
when Yo Yo Ma's playing. I want to be that blissful. And it's so fleeting. And I'm just
incapable of it.
BILL MOYERS: Yearning for that moment of sanity or that
place of sanity?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Yes.
BILL MOYERS: You say in there, "To be sane."
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Yes. Well, I'm bipolar. So, you know, I myself
veer between these extremes. And to be in the middle is a strong desire. And I mean,
I'm working on this idea, I don't know where it's going to go, that being tribal, being
colonized automatically makes you bipolar. I think the entire Native American world is
bipolar.
BILL MOYERS: But is this your imagination or are you clinically
bipolar?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: I'm clinically--
BILL MOYERS: You've been diagnosed--
SHERMAN ALEXIE: I've been diagnosed. I'm medicated. And the
medication's working right now. I mean as any person watching this who knows anything
the, you know, the medications have to be adjusted constantly, because your brain sneaks
around it, you know? Your brain is like the, your bipolar brain is like the soldiers. And
your sanity is like the civilians.
BILL MOYERS: Help me understand what the experience of
bipolarity is, what happens to you?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Well, you know, when you're depressed, you
know, it's like the world has ended. Even getting out of bed takes the most massive
amount of effort. But when you're manic, oh, it's so addicting. You know, I have finished
novels in two weeks in manic stages.
Just staying up, you know, two days in a row writing and great stuff often. I mean, you're
crazy. So you get these incredible images. You know, forget Yo Yo Ma's cello. I mean,
it ends up being, you know, I'm, well, I'm hearkening back to somebody like Sylvia Plath,
you know, writing Colossus, you know, Daddy, you know, “You do not do." You know, which
directly comes out of mental illness. And depression and mania. I would venture that
most of the world's great art has come out of manic periods in an artist's life.
BILL MOYERS: But has it ever occurred to you that there's
been more preoccupation with Sylvia Plath's illness than with her poetry?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Oh yeah. I mean, there's a new biography out
about her. And it's the same story. It's about her craziness.
BILL MOYERS: Why is that?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: I think we're more interested in the biography.
BILL MOYERS: The story.
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Yeah, and especially in this era, where there
are no secrets anymore, where the audience in fact desires so much to know more about
the artist. You know? You're supposed to now Twitter everything you're feeling, you know?
You go to, you know, some artist's, writer's Twitters. And like everybody else, they're
talking about what they had for dinner, you know? All over writer's Twitter feeds and
Facebook pages are pictures of what they had for dinner. And why anybody would care, you
know, that I had a bowl of cereal in my hotel room this morning, I don't get it. And—
BILL MOYERS: So does that explain The Facebook Sonnet?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Oh, definitely. Definitely.
BILL MOYERS: All right, let's hear that one.
SHERMAN ALEXIE: The Facebook Sonnet.
Welcome to the endless high school Reunion. Welcome to past friends
And lovers, however kind or cruel. Let's undervalue and unmend
The present. Why can't we pretend Every stage of life is the same?
Let's exhume, resume, and extend [a] Childhood. Let's all play the games
That occupy the young. Let fame And shame intertwine. Let one’s search
For God become public domain. Let church.com become our church.
Let [us] sign up, sign in, and confess Here at the altar of loneliness.
BILL MOYERS: Sherry Turkle has written a book called Alone
Together on just this point. Talking about how the internet has produced this serial
isolation.
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Well, when I think the human is so complex,
you know? And as we're relating here, we're relating on so many different levels that
we don't consciously understand. I mean, we're actually smelling each other right now, but
our, we, as we talk, don't know that, but our bodies know that, you know? My gestures,
your gestures, the look in your eye. And the internet takes all that away. There was, there
is one level of communication on the internet, which actually in a way is really insulting
to the complexity of being human.
BILL MOYERS: How so?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: It limits us to one sense.
BILL MOYERS: One dimension.
SHERMAN ALEXIE: One dimension. And that's not who we are.
The poetry, if you will, of life is reduced to this sort of dry, scientific, you know,
it's the worst sort of précis of who we are. And, you know, I don't have Facebook friends.
I have friends. And a lot of my friends play basketball. And when we play basketball together,
literally, we're touching each other.
And that can't be replicated in any form whatsoever with the internet. And when people say they're
really connecting with somebody, I think, it occurs to me that I don't know that they've
ever really connected with anybody if they think the internet is how you do it.
You know? It's postcard relationships. In order to know somebody through their words,
I mean, it has to be an, it has to be a letter, you know? It has to be a long e-mail. It has
to be a five-page hand-written letter, you know, it has to be overwhelming and messy
and sloppy as humans are.
And Facebook and Twitter and these other social sites bring every, I mean, 140 characters.
I mean, I'm on Twitter and I have fun. But I don't think anybody learns anything about
me as a person.
You know, one of the things I've always tried to do as a public person is limit the gap
between who I am on a daily basis and who I am on a stage. You know, I've tried to be
as honest—
BILL MOYERS: Consciously
SHERMAN ALEXIE: --Yes, I've tried to be as honest as possible.
BILL MOYERS: How are you different?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Well, I think I'm a more gentle person in
private, maybe slightly more gentle. I mean, I'm a lot more confrontational in public.
I mean, I'm very angry person.
BILL MOYERS: At what?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Oppression.
BILL MOYERS: Oppression?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Racism, sexism, colonialism, the sins of capitalism,
the sins of socialism, human weakness, human cruelty. You know, when we behave more like
a lion pride than people with prehensile thumbs.
BILL MOYERS: Is writing cathartic for you? Is it healing?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: No. I think it can be healing for readers.
You know, I have been helped and healed by other people's words.
BILL MOYERS: Same here.
SHERMAN ALEXIE: But I, my own words for myself, oh man, I
don't think so.
BILL MOYERS: Do you think of yourself as a poet first and
foremost? Because that's how I first got introduced to you.
SHERMAN ALEXIE: I'm naturally a poet. I started as a poet.
I think it's how I look at the world, you know?
BILL MOYERS: What, how does it help you see the world?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: You know, I look at Yo Yo Ma's cello and want
to be the cello. I think a novelist would want to write about where the cello came from,
who built it. I don't care.
BILL MOYERS: In this poem, Tribal Music, whose tribal music
are you writing about?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Mine. A tribe of one. You know, one of the
things about being tribal, being a member of a tribe is the force that makes you, that
makes the tribe, for you to be like the tribe, to share similar values, to be less of an
individual and more a very conscious member of a community to share political beliefs,
to share cultural beliefs.
And I've always resisted that. One of the misconceptions about Indians, you know, because
liberals love Indians, you know? White liberals worship Indians. But actually, Indians are
a conservative lot. I mean, we by and large we vote Democrat, but we live very Republican
lives, you know? Indian communities, there's no separation of church and state, war is
a virtue, guns are everywhere, by and large pro-life. So, you know, once again, it's a
very bipolar existence.
You know, this, you know, knowing that Democrats, by and large, are going to support us more.
But still behaving like Republicans. You know, it occurs to me it's like a big city Republicans,
who live these incredibly liberal, secular lives in the city, while espousing small town
religious politics.
BILL MOYERS: You're so different from how I expected you
to be, quite frankly, because I have never met you. Although one of my producers met
you some years ago, 11 years ago, I think, Rick Fields. And I have a clip of the piece
that we ran on my show then about you from Seattle. Take a peek.
SHERMAN ALEXIE: But my dad, that alcoholic nomad, he used
to leave my family for days or weeks at a time drinking and roaming. And I would lie
awake all night waiting for him to come home, and five or six times I cried myself sick
into the hospital. And I'd lie awake in the kids' ward, ignoring the night shift nurses
who came in and said, "Please, try and get a little sleep." So maybe I learned how to
be an insomniac because I'm still waiting for my father to come home.
BILL MOYERS: What's changed for you since then?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Medication. I was undiagnosed bipolar. And
staying awake was directly the result of that. Either staying awake because I was depressed
and didn't want to fall asleep for the nightmares or because I was manic and couldn't fall asleep
because I had a million things to do.
BILL MOYERS: Did your father ever come home?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: No. You know, I cut my hair when he died as
part of a ceremony. And you can grow it back when the grieving is over. It's been 10 years
since he died. So… and I haven't grown my hair back. And I doubt I will.
BILL MOYERS: He was an alcoholic?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Oh, lifelong, really.
BILL MOYERS: There's one scene in your short story War
Dances, where the narrator's in the hospital with his father, who has just had surgery.
He's cold. And the son is trying to find a blanket for him. Why don't you read this excerpt,
War Dances, from "Blasphemy."
SHERMAN ALEXIE: I walked down the hallway - the recovery hallway
- to the nurses’ station. There were three woman nurses, two white and one black. Being
Native American-Spokane and Coeur d'Alene Indian, I hoped my darker pigment would give
me an edge with the black nurse, so I addressed her directly.
"My father is cold," I said. "Can I get another blanket?"
The Black nurse glanced up from her paperwork and regarded me. Her expression was neither
compassionate nor callous. "How can I help you, sir? " she asked.
"I'd like another blanket for my father. He's cold. "
"I'll be with you in a moment, sir." She looked back down at her paperwork. She
made a few notes. Not knowing what else to do, I stood there and waited.
"Sir," the Black nurse said, "I'll be with you in a moment."
She was irritated. I understood. After all, how many thousands of times had she been asked
for an extra blanket? She was a nurse, an educated woman, not a damn housekeeper. And
it was never really about an extra blanket, was it? No, when people asked for an extra
blanket, they were asking for a time machine. And, yes, she knew she was a health care provider.
And she knew she was supposed to be compassionate, but my father, an alcoholic, diabetic Indian
with terminally damaged kidneys, had just endured an incredibly expensive surgery for
what? So he could ride his motorized wheelchair to the bar and win bets by showing off his
disfigured foot? I know she didn't want to be cruel, but she believed there was a point
when doctors should stop rescuing people from their own self-destructive impulses. And I
couldn't disagree with her but I could ask for the most basic of comforts, couldn't I?
"My father," I said, "an extra blanket, please. "
BILL MOYERS: Autobiographical?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Oh, completely. You know, I remember when
my first short stories came out and people were calling it autobiographical and I fought
it. And then 10 years later I reread the book and thought, "Oh shoot, this is memoir.”
BILL MOYERS: Eventually, the son in the story finds a Pendleton
blanket. What's a Pendleton blanket?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: It's actually made by a White-owned company
in Oregon. These blankets have become highly sacred among Indians. And actually, the Pendleton
Company's amazing in their relationship with Indians. So, you know, we love the Pendleton
Company in Oregon. And they're gifts. You know, the joke is they're like Native American
fruitcakes. The same blanket travels over and over and over. And nobody ever uses it.
BILL MOYERS: Was that you searching for a blanket or wishing
you were--
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Wishing and the desire to go out. Because
I knew there'd be Indians in the hospital, you know? If you're near an Indian community,
there are Indians in the hospital. And so I knew somewhere in that hospital was an Indian
family with more than one Pendleton.
BILL MOYERS: And in the story, the son brings the blanket
back. And he and his father sing together. Did that happen?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: No, we never sang together.
BILL MOYERS: You wish it had happened?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Yes. I mean, even if we'd sang Elvis together,
that would have been great.
BILL MOYERS: You know that you've been described as both
an explorer and an exploder of Indian stereotype. And alcohol is surely one of the most persistent
stereotypes, correct?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: It's not a stereotype. It's a damp, damp reality.
I mean, Native Americans have an epidemic rate of alcoholism. I'm an alcoholic, recovering.
My father was an alcoholic. My big brother's an alcoholic. One of my little sister's an
alcoholic. My mom's a recovering alcoholic. Every single one of my cousins is a drinker.
All of my aunts and uncles were drinkers, some of them have quit, some of them never
did. You know, my classmates, you know, three have died in alcoholic-related accidents.
My brother has had five best friends die in alcohol-related accidents. And we're not atypical.
BILL MOYERS: What have you come to understand about that?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: It’s medication. Trying to take away the
pain. And in a way it has substituted for cultural ways of dealing with the pain. So
instead of singing, we're drinking. And my father often said, "I drink because I'm Indian,"
which, you know, is the saddest thing imaginable.
BILL MOYERS: Why did you drink?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Because I'm Indian.
BILL MOYERS: How do you, how do you stay sober?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Because I don't want to disappoint all those
hungry sons out there, whose own fathers have failed them. Because whether or not I believe
in visions or omens, the last time I drank, I completely destroyed my then girlfriend's
birthday party with my alcoholic behavior. And woke up the next day, late in the afternoon
feeling deeply ashamed and thinking once again, "I'm going to quit." You know, I tried eight
or nine times. But I woke up, went and checked my mail, and the acceptance from "Hanging
Loose" for my first poetry book was in the mail. And I thought, "Okay, this is a sign.
Write poems, sober up."
BILL MOYERS: And you did?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: And I did.
BILL MOYERS: You live in Seattle now. You've lived there
for how long?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Twenty years.
BILL MOYERS: But as a boy you lived on the Spokane--
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Indian Reservation.
BILL MOYERS: --Reservation. How do you feel where you're
in a place where your people were ethnically cleansed?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: We didn't make reservations. The military,
the US military and government made reservations. And it was a place where we're supposed to
be concentrated and die and disappear. And I don't know, and I think it's only out of
self-destructive impulses that Native Americans have turned reservations into sacred spaces.
BILL MOYERS: You don't consider them sacred?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: No. Often the place where reservations are
aren't where the sacred locations were for tribes. I think Spokane, because it's where
Spokane Falls is, I think the city is actually far more sacred than the reservation.
BILL MOYERS: Well, more Indians today live in the cities
than live on reservations.
SHERMAN ALEXIE: It's almost 70 percent of natives live off
the reservation. It's not easy to live in either place.
BILL MOYERS: Can American Indians ever feel easy in a country
that is haunted by the memories of genocide, ethnic cleansing?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: I think for that process to begin, the United
States would have to officially apologize. I mean, there's a Holocaust museum in the
United States, which I think there should be.
BILL MOYERS: Right in downtown Washington.
SHERMAN ALEXIE: But there should also be a Native American
Holocaust Museum.
BILL MOYERS: Why isn't there?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: This country's not good at admitting to its
sins.
BILL MOYERS: Have you ever heard an apology for what happened?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: From White liberals. But never from White
conservatives.
BILL MOYERS: These were, you were nearly exterminated.
You--
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Oh, late 19th century, early 20th, we almost
blinked out. Ironically, the reservations also saved us, because they concentrated us.
BILL MOYERS: How did that save you?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Breeding. You know? It wasn't until much later
when the US government realized that relocation, taking us out of, you know, highly-concentrated
ethnic communities was the way to dissipate us. And that didn't work either, you know?
There are blond Indians now, red-headed Indians. So it was cultural protection. It was sovereignty.
The impulse to be together in a little group.
BILL MOYERS In this sense, possessed of a horrendous memory,
do you sometimes think of yourself as Jewish?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Constantly. I have a really strong identification
with that. And, you know, it's funny, because my poetry editors are Jewish. And, you know,
I have quite an international following. And one of my editors tells the story of she and
her husband were in Europe and these Italian scholars were really obsessed and questioning
about, you know, "What is the relationship between Jewish people and Indians?" And using
my work as sort of this universal idea. And they asked her, "What does the Native world
think about,” you know, “Jewish people and Native Americans?" And she said, "I think
only Sherman talks about that." So I, it's a very personal vision.
The big thing is humor. Humor in the face of incredible epic pain. I mean, Jewish folks
invented American comedy. When you're being funny in the United States, you're being Jewish.
And despite all this incredible dislocation. And the thing, you know, even though it's
pretty similar in population, the number of Jewish folks and the number of Native Americans,
they've had this incredible success. They have this incredible cultural power.
And in a way, I wish that was us. In a way, that could have easily been us. You know?
Indians with our storytelling and artistic ability could have created Hollywood. We could
have created American comedy. So in some ways, we're the yin and yang of the American genocidal
coin.
BILL MOYERS: There's a poem that I have read several times
in anticipation of this meeting. And this one is troubling. Another Proclamation.
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Another Proclamation.
When Lincoln
Delivered The
Emancipation Proclamation,
Who Knew
that, one year earlier, in 1862, he'd signed and approved the order for the largest public
execution in United States history? Who did they execute? "Mulatto, mixed-bloods, and
Indians." Why did they execute them? "For uprising against the State and her citizens."
Where did they execute them? Mankato, Minnesota. How did they execute them? Well, Abraham Lincoln
thought it was good
And Just
To Hang
Thirty-eight Sioux
simultaneously. Yes, in front of a large and cheering crowd, thirty-eight Indians dropped
to their deaths. Yes, thirty-eight necks snapped. But before they died, thirty-eight Indians
sang their death songs. Can you imagine the cacophony of thirty-eight different death
songs? But wait, one Indian was pardoned at the last minute, so only thirty-seven Indians
had to sing their death songs. But O, O, O, O, can you imagine the cacophony of that one
survivor's mourning song? If he taught you the words, do you think you would sing along?
BILL MOYERS: Talk about that.
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Well, essentially, they were executed for
terrorism. The perception of being terrorists for defending themselves and their people
from colonial incursions.
BILL MOYERS: As the Whites had been pushing into Minnesota,
pushing them further west. And promised them, as I understand it, food in exchange for land.
And then the food didn't come. And the Indians reacted violently.
SHERMAN ALEXIE: And then all over the country massacres happening
of people they, you know, they would push these tribes and these people onto reservations
and then send the soldiers in to wage war on them. I just learned, I don't know why
I didn't know this, some sort of denial I guess. But they gave medals of honor to U.S.
soldiers who participated at Wounded Knee, absolute massacres of unarmed women, children,
and elderly people.
They gave medals of honor. And, you know, this idea of Lincoln as this great savior.
Which is true. But in deifying him, it completely, completely whitewashes the fact that he was
also a complete part of the colonization of Indians, a complete part of the wholesale
slaughter of Indians.
BILL MOYERS: He lived in the in between like everyone.
What I know of this incident is that 303 Indians were sentenced to death. President Lincoln
commuted the sentences of 265 of them on the basis he himself said of not enough evidence,
but allowed 38 of them to be hanged.
SHERMAN ALEXIE: So, the hypocrisy abounds. So once again,
the way in which I watch Lincoln the movie is far different than most people watch Lincoln.
That movie in no way portrayed the complexity of human beings, and certainly does not portray
the complexity of Lincoln, who for his genius was also, you know, an incredibly, as any
politician, an incredibly conflicted and conflicting man, who was capable of ordering great evil.
And who did, in fact, by ordering it, created a great evil, committed great evil, a sinful,
sinful man that Lincoln.
BILL MOYERS: Had you known about the story for a long time?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: You know, most Indians know a lot about the
massacres. They're touchstones. They're a myth for us.
BILL MOYERS: What saved you spiritually? What saved you
inwardly?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Storytelling.
BILL MOYERS: How so?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: The age-old stories, you know, sort of an
actual sacred nostalgia. And keeping all the ghosts alive, keeping all the memories alive.
If you tell a story well enough, everybody in it is right there. So nobody ever dies.
BILL MOYERS Why did you call this book "Blasphemy"?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Because I've been so often accused of it by
Indians and non-Indians.
BILL MOYERS: How so?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Because I question everything. Because even
though I do believe in the sacred, I believe just as strongly in questioning what people
think is sacred. Because we're humans and we make mistakes. So, you know, I do my best
to point out our weaknesses. And people don't like that. And the weaknesses of our institutions
and the weaknesses of our politicians and the weaknesses of our religions.
Once again, 9/11, was the event for me. 9/11 turned all sorts of people into fundamentalists
who weren't otherwise, on the left and the right, in the Christian worlds and in the
Muslim worlds. And I refuse to participate.
BILL MOYERS: So what do you mean by blasphemy?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: I don't believe in your God. And "your" means
the royal "your."
BILL MOYERS: Do you believe in your God?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: No.
BILL MOYERS: What do you believe in?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Stories. Stories are my God.
BILL MOYERS Would you read this for me?
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Vilify.
I've never been to Mount Rushmore. It's just too silly. Even now, as I write this,
I'm thinking About the T-shirt that has four presidential
faces on the front and four bare *** on the back.
Who's on that damn T-shirt anyway? Is it both Roosevelt, Jefferson, and Lincoln?
Don't get me wrong, I love my country. But epic sculpture just leaves me blinking
With dry-eyed boredom (and don't get me started on blown glass art. I really
hate that crap). I've never been to Mount Rushmore. It's just
too silly. Even now, as I write this, I'm thinking
That I'd much rather commemorate other president. Let's honor JFK's ***
and drinking Or the thirteen duels Andrew Jackson fought
to defend his wife's honor. Why don't we sculpt that?
Who's on that damn Rushmore anyway? Is it McKinley, Arthur, Garfield,
and Lincoln?
And, yes, I know, there's a rival sculpture of Crazy Horse, but the sight of that
one is ball-shrinking Because Crazy Horse never allowed his image
to be captured, so which sculptor do you think he'd now attack?
I've never been to Mount Rushmore. It's just too silly. Even now, as I write this
I'm thinking
About George W's wartime lies, Clinton's cigars, and Nixon's microphones, and
I'm cringing Because I know every president, no matter
how great on the surface, owned a heart chewed by rats.
Who's on that damn Rushmore anyway? Is it Buchanan, both Adamses,
and Mr. Lincoln?
Answer me this: After the slaughterhouse goes out of business, how long
will it go on stinking Of red death and white desire? Should we just
cover the presidents' faces with gas masks?
Who cares? I've never been to Rushmore. It's too silly. Even now, as I write
this, I'm thinking: "Who's on that damn mountain anyway? Is it
Jefferson, Washington, Reagan, and Lincoln?"
BILL MOYERS: Now go eight pages over to page 38 and read
me your footnote.
SHERMAN ALEXIE: So it's footnote 13.
Honestly, I've never been there. This is not a conceit for the poem. I've truly never had
any interest in visiting Mount Rushmore or the Crazy Horse memorial. Once while driving
in the region, I thought about stopping by, but I didn't. I have no regrets. I've seen
Alfred Hitchcock's film "North by Northwest," where Cary Grant's climactic battle with the
bad guys happens on the face of Mount Rushmore. It's exciting. But I much prefer the ending
where we watch Grant and Eva Marie Saint start to make out in their train car, and then cut
to the final shot of that awesomely *** train penetrating a wonderfully vaginal mountain
tunnel. I'm a lover, not a fighter."
BILL MOYERS: And we’re all glad for that. Sherman Alexie,
I really enjoyed this time with you. And thank you very much for sharing it.
SHERMAN ALEXIE: Thank you, thank you.