Syd Hoff's DANNY AND THE DINOSAUR

I imagine that most of you recognize the illustration above. It appears in Danny and the Dinosaur, an I Can Read book published in 1958:

Do you remember the illustration at top? Like many of you, I read Danny and the Dinosaur as a child. I don't recall if I paused at that illustration. Likely, I passed it over then, but as a person who studies images of Indians in children's literature, I notice it now and view it critically.

Watch the video embedded below. At the 3:35 mark, Frank Ettawageshik of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, talks about the placement of American Indians in museums, and what those placements teach children.



The University of Michigan took a lot of heat for their decision to remove the dioramas from their museum. How many of those people, I wonder, remember Danny's visit to the museum? How many of them got their introduction to Indians in museums from the much-loved Danny and the Dinosaur? Is Danny and the Dinosaur in your collection?

I invite you to consider removing it. Removing it?! Is that censorship? It might be, but, what if the book contains something that is inaccurate?

Look at the illustration. The words say "He saw Indians." But he didn't! He saw a shirtless man with a big nose wearing a headdress. What tribe might that man belong to? We don't know, and, the naked torso/feathered headdress/hooked nose constitute a stereotype.

Course, this IS an easy-reader, so we might think that for Syd Hoff to be tribally specific (name the tribe), it would overwhelm the child. Let's say Hoff said it was a Plains Indian. They wear headdresses like that, but what about the bare torso and the hooked nose? What if Hoff put accurate clothing on the man and did not draw the nose that way? His Indian would still be in a natural history museum, which makes it problematic in a different way...

The book's publication date is 1958. As such, it predates the development of what we now call multicultural literature. Would the book be published today? (Note on July 18, 20140, the answer is yes. Based on what I'm seeing in 2014, it would!) It is, of course, reprinted again and again. You can get it in hardcover, paperback, or in audiobook format.

Hoff sent his manuscript for his first children's book to Ursula Nordstrom. In Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom (edited by Leonard Marcus), you can read her letter to Hoff (see page 103). Dated December 4, 1957, she asked him to revise it for the I Can Read series. Studying her letter, I gather that the text for the page above originally read that Danny wanted to "see how the world looked a long, long time ago." She deemed that line "unchildlike" and said that a child would probably want to see specific things. About that page (page 8 of his manuscript), Nordstrom wrote:

You could just say "He saw Indians. He saw bears. He saw..."

That suggestion is followed by this:

On Page 9: "He saw horses and wagons. He saw mummies. He saw cavemen. And he saw...(OK? Roman chariot and Egyptian mummies look too hard for a child who has just learned to read and is excited about reading.)

I find it fascinating to think about what Hoff may have written, and it would be terrific to see his original manuscript! Nordstrom didn't think "Roman" or "Egyptian" were ok. Indians, however, are ok. They wouldn't be "too hard for a child who has just learned to read and is excited about reading."

I hear something much like Nordstrom's words a lot when a favorite book is challenged. Again and again, people say "it gets unmotivated kids to read!" about books like Touching Spirit Bear. Or, they say that I am making a mountain out of a molehill and there are other, more important things, to worry about. I'm glad to point people to new research on the effects of stereotyping. And as before, I'm happy to send you Stephanie Fryberg's article "Of Warrior Chiefs and Indian Princesses: The Psychological Consequences of American Indian Mascots." (Or, you can download a pdf here.)  With the word 'mascots' in the title, you may think the article is irrelevant, but Fryberg is studying the effects of images that include Indian images used in mascots, but also in film and books. The 'Indian princess' in the title is Disney's Pocahontas.

Watch the video above, read Fryberg's article, and then, consider whether or not you'll leave Danny and the Dinosaur on your shelf.

Reading is Fundamental

A couple of years ago, Reading is Fundamental launched its Multicultural Literacy Campaign to promote reading in African American, Hispanic, and American Indian communities by providing children in those communities with books that reflect their lives.

To do that, RIF created its Literature Advisory Board and invited a group of people to help them select books that accurately reflect African American, Hispanic, and American Indian peoples. The group includes outstanding scholars in the field of children's literature. In addition to working online via email, we periodically get together to talk about the Multicultural Literacy Campaign. It is always a pleasure to visit with fellow scholars in children's literature.

In my last post, I noted I was in Washington D.C. for meetings at RIF. The meeting included a festive evening dinner to celebrate RIF's accomplishments over the past year. It included the Anne Richardson Volunteer of the Year Awards. It was terrific to see the short videos RIF put together about the three volunteers.

In the videos, children select books. Among the books shown in the videos are ones I recommend. Some are fiction, such as  Joy Harjo's The Good Luck Cat, Jan Bourdeau's Morning on the Lake, and Cynthia Leitich Smith's Jingle Dancer. Some are nonfiction in the We Are Still Here series such as Sandra King's Shannon, An Ojibwe Dancer,  Monty Roessel's Kinaalda, Russell M. Peters's Clambake.

Being from Nambe Pueblo in northern New Mexico, it was especially delightful to meet Annette Montoya from Taos, and view the video about her work in Taos! This time next month, I'll be home at Nambe for awhile.  


2010 RIF Volunteer of the Year Award Winners Video from Reading Is Fundamental on Vimeo.

I enjoy the work I do with RIF and look forward to the work we do in the coming year. This week I'll be in Michigan at the annual gathering of the Children's Literature Association. I look forward to learning about new research my colleagues are working on! I especially look forward to hanging out with Tom Crisp and Sarah Park.

‘I come to school for this class. I deal with the other ones.’

The title for today's post are words spoken by David, a Pima/Ute student at Westwood High School in Mesa, Arizona.  The class that gets David to school is one focusing exclusively on American Indian authors and their work. The list of authors includes Leslie Marmon Silko, Louise Erdrich, N. Scott Momaday, and Sherman Alexie.

The class was developed by James Blasingame and Simon Ortiz at Arizona State University. Ortiz is shown in the photo (photo credit: Tom Story).  Go here to read more about the class and how the university is working with the Tucson schools. It is a model, I think, that can be used in other university/school partnerships. Blasingame is am Associate Professor in Education, well known in literature circles for his work on young adult literature.

Ortiz is a Professor in English. From Acoma Pueblo, Ortiz is an accomplished writer, poet, and activist. I've written about his books for children several times. (See Native Literary Nationalism and Reinventing the Enemy's Language: Simon Ortiz's Books for Youth.) Of late, Ortiz has been active in Arizona, participating at protests and speaking about recent laws passed in Arizona. Years ago, Ortiz wrote The People Shall Continue, an outstanding picture book about people coming together to work against injustice.


One of those laws is a ban on ethnic studies courses in high school. Budgets of schools that continue with ethnic studies courses will be cut by ten percent. In those courses, students read literature by Latino/a writers. A transformative curriculum model, the program itself is based on the work of leaders in multicultural education (James Banks, Sonia Nieto, Paulo Friere). 

A summary of the law is here. In the stipulations portion of the law is one that says "Courses or classes for Native American pupils as required for compliance with federal law" will not be restricted or prohibited. I'm not sure how that effects the Blasingame/Ortiz project...

I've got more to say on the Arizona immigration law and the ban on ethnic studies....  That word "ethnic" is one thing to consider, but also important is knowing that some tribal nations, particularly the Tohono O'odham Nation, straddles the U.S./Mexico border!

I do have more to say, but as I write this post, I'm looking at the clock...  In 30 minutes I'm due at a meeting. I'm in Washington D.C. for meetings of Reading is Fundamental's Literature Advisory Board and the Multicultural Advisory Committee. More later...

Persisting....

Earlier today Brian Young sent me two photos, taken today, with his cell phone. In both, someone is shown in a headdress, and, neither one of them is Native...  (I'm sharing one of the photos here. In it, the person's face is not visible. At the moment the photo was taken, playing cards were being tossed about, obscuring the individual's face.)

I met Brian three years ago. He's among the outstanding Native people in the Class of 2010 at Yale.

Brian took the photo at "Hat Day"---one of the many events taking place this week at Yale. Events at which graduating students and their families gather to celebrate four years of hard work and study.

Brian's family is there at Yale with him. They are Navajo.

They are, understandably, experiencing a wide range of emotion. Joy and pride in Brian's accomplishments, and, surprise and anger at the audacity or ignorance in the two students wearing these headdresses.

Brian inspires me. He approached one of the students and asked her to take it off. He explained why it inappropriate. In the foreground you see a baseball cap and a hard hat---both of which signal an occupation or a pastime.  They signal something you can do or be through training or study.

The thing is, unless you are born into a Native family, you can't really "be" an Indian. You might dress up like one, but, doing that is precisely the same thing as putting on one of the items the pope wears on his head (the small white skullcap is a zucchetto and the larger one is a mitre---I'll need to double check these terms later), and most people would recognize that activity as sacrilegious.

As I said, Brian inspires me. Rather than fret, he took action. He talked to the individual, and she took the headdress off. I don't know if he knew her personally or not. The point is, he demonstrated a tremendous act of courage and pride in who he is. In doing that, he modeled activism for his family.

Brian is considering further actions he can take. No doubt, he is thinking about other Native students at Yale, and what their "Hat Day" experience will be like.


Today's blog post is a public CONGRATULATIONS, BRIAN YOUNG, for graduating from Yale. I am deeply proud to know you. 

 Let's get some chili in July...

------------------------------------------------
Update, May 25th, 6:45 Central Time

How/why does Brian's experience relate to children's books? A few years ago (before I started this blog) I came across a children's picture book. The cover was hats of all sorts. Among those hats was a Plains-style headdress. I'm sure thee are others like it. If anyone knows the book I'm remembering, please let me know. And there are, of course, other examples of non-Native characters wearing a headdress to "imitate Indians", dress like "an Indian", or, as a disguise to conceal one's identity....

Brian submitted a comment last night. It's the fourth comment below. Thanks, Brian, for taking time on your graduation day to submit the comment.  Some people may think that students at an Ivy League school would "know better" --- and I am confident that some, if not most of them, do --- but the point is the increase in this sort of thing all across the United States. 

What's happening?

I've had a few people write to ask about the lack of posts in the last two weeks. There's a lot going on right now. The usual end-of-semester trip and grading demand time, but, on top of that, there's been a great deal of discussion taking place over the newly signed laws in Arizona. I'm a member of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA). Our annual meeting is scheduled for this month, in Tucson.  I chose to honor the boycott of Arizona and withdrew from the meeting. You may be interested in studying the discussion and differing viewpoints on boycotting/not boycotting. It is an extensive discussion, available at the NAISA page. 

In the midst of all that, I was amongst a large group of people at the University of Illinois who are recipients of a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from a student at the university. Within a five day time period, I am being asked to provide a copy of "all communications and documents" in which I've used the words listed below.

I believe that these requests themselves are public record. The university is keeping an incomplete log of requests here, so I think it is ok for me to write about them here on American Indians in Children's Literature. 

I've submitted a reply, stating that I am unable to submit the requested documents within the five business day time frame. I believe that means I have an additional seven days to respond. As you (readers of my work) would guess, every single email I've sent in that time period falls under the scope of the request. And, every single article, essay, and book chapter I've written also falls under the scope of the request. We are easily talking about thousands of pages...

Every single email I send has the word "Indian" in it because it is in my automatically-attached signature line that states my university faculty unit ("American Indian Studies") and my blog title ("visit my  Internet resource: American Indians in Children's Literature"). It also includes every post to this blog, and every comment that has been submitted to me (when you submit a comment, it goes to my email.)

As the next ten days unfold, I will, if allowable my law, update this page.



Request#2827, from 2/01/2010 to 5/11/2010:
Jerry
Romano
Mascot
Fanatic
radical
the Chief
Diversity
Racist
Indian
In Whose Honor
Dozier
Ethics
Review
Protest
Rally
iresist
warrior
kaufman
Antonio
Scandal


Request #2828, from 12/05/08 to 5/07/2010:Mascot
Fanatic
radical
the Chief
Jesus
Diversity
Racist
Indian
In Whose Honor
Dozier
Ethics
Review
Protest
Rally
iresist
Antonio
Scandal 

Request #2829, from 5/08/09 to 5/07/2010
Mascot
Newman
pro-mascot
abortion
pro-chief
the Chief
Catholic
Jerry
Rally
iresist
I Resist
Antonio Quinones
Scandal 

Request #2830, from 5/08/09 to 5/07/2010:
Mascot
Mascot Committee
Fanatic
radical
the Chief
Weber
Student Senate
Resolution
Committee
Cuts
Diversity
Racist
Indian
In Whose Honor
Newman
Catholic
Dozier
Ethics
Review
Protest
Rally
iresist
I Resist
Antonio Quinones
Scandal

Why This Blog Matters, and, My Visit to Penn State...

I left State College on Saturday afternoon with a warm glow. Sounds cheesy, I know, but that's the right way to characterize it... I was there to give a talk in a lecture series to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the American Indian Leadership Program in Penn State's College of Education. I spent most of my time with students and faculty in the program, and thank them here (publicly) for that warm glow: Heather, Peter, Connie, Arlene, Rose Mary, Kari, and Jane; and, professors John Tippeconnic and Susan Faircloth. I also spent some time with a handful of professors in the College of Education: Gail Boldt, Dan Hade, Lisa Hopkins and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh. Dan's work on the commodification of children's literature is excellent, and I encourage people to look for it. You can listen to him via a podcast here. The podcast link is on the left side of the page under MULTIMEDIA. Tippeconnic and Faircloth recently released findings from their study of graduation rates of American Indians. Titled The Dropout/Graduation Rate Crisis Among American Indian and Alaska Native Students: Failure to Respond Places the Future of Native Peoples at Risk, their findings are grim. Quite often, statistics about American Indians are not part of large studies of drop out rates. The reason for that is, we are deemed "statistically insignificant" and therefore, ignored.  That "statistically insignificant" attribute is ironic, given that images of American Indians are everywhere. Because they are, we don't actually see them until someone points them out. They may be innocuous, or, they may be highly derogatory. The findings of my content analysis of SLJ's Top 100 Novels is a good example of how unexpectedly pervasive this imagery is. Another example is the reviews of Peter Pan in Scarlet (the sequel to Peter Pan), only one of which noted the negative stereotyping I found in it. On page 7 of the report, Tippeconnic and Faircloth note that being left out because we're statistically insignificant is an example of: "...structural and institutional racism, placing [Native] students... at a further disadvantage in opportunities and outcomes" (Toney, 2007, p.8). And, they point to studies (see p. 27) that dropping out is the result of a cumulative process of academic and personal difficulties by which students detach from school. They go on to note that "school-level factors associated with dropping out include "a perceived lack of empathy among teachers" and "irrelevant curriculum."  "A perceived lack of empathy among teachers" reminds me of the hundreds of times someone has written to me, dismissing my critiques because the book I'm critiquing is "FICTION" (they often use caps or boldface to emphasize the word 'fiction') and therefore, everyone should know that the author is making things up (and as such we shouldn't believe what we read as truth, and, I am stupid for asking fiction to accurately depict American Indians). It also reminds me of the time that my daughter tried to tell a teacher that Brother Eagle Sister Sky is stereotypical, and the teacher told her "but its not about your [Pueblo] people." Lack of empathy. Definitely a problem.  That teacher was right about only one thing. Brother Eagle Sister Sky is not about Pueblo Indians. In fact, it isn't about any Indian people at all! There was good intent on the part of Susan Jeffers, but she only created a mass of stereotyped and extinct Indians. As such, it doesn't do anyone any good. As a book used in the curriculum of many schools, it is irrelevant to everyone! But, its defenders say, its got a good message about taking care of the earth, and that message outweighs the problems with its depiction of American Indians. With that rationale, aren't we telling Native kids that they're just not that important? If so, then, it is no wonder they detach from school. Drawing from other research studies, Tippeconnic and Faircloth include twelve strategies to decrease dropout rates. Among them are: Review and revise school policies and avoid implementation of policies that exclude, repress, demean, embarrass, harass or alienate Native students. Make schools physically, mentally and emotionally safe by working to end racism, sexual harassment and other forms of physical and emotional assault. Avoid use of negative stereotypes. Reading Tippeconnic and Faircloth's report reminds me of the findings from Stephanie Fryberg's research on the effects of stereotypical images on the self-esteem and self-efficacy of Native youth. As was the case when I first read and wrote about her study, I'm glad to send it to you. Just send me an email to debreese at illinois dot edu. I want you to read Fryberg's article, and, Tippeconnic and Faircloth's report. And then I want you to consider what you have in your library or on your classroom shelves. I know you can't take things off the shelves lest you be labeled a censor, but, you can definitely ADD things to your shelves that are, in fact, relevant. Add, for example, fiction that is relevant! Fiction that accurately reflects the lives of Native people in the present and past.  Imagine what effect that would have on Native students in your schools. Might they become more engaged?

Marcie Rendon's SongCatcher

A few weeks ago, I met a woman whose work inspires me on many levels. That woman is Marcie R. Rendon, an enrolled member of the White Earth Anishinabe Nation. That's her in the image to the left, and isn't that an awesome poem overlaid on the pic?

As regular readers of American Indians in Children's Literature know, I am highly critical of the uncritical use of stories collected in the late 1800s and early 1900s by people who thought we (American Indians) were about to go the way of the dinosaurs. By that I mean vanish from the face of the earth. Go extinct. Cease to exist.

The people doing the collecting were not Native. The collectors worked for the Smithsonian. Some (most?) of them didn't know much about what they were looking at when they turned their non-Native eyes on Native people going about our lives. The result of that was a whole lot of misinterpretation.

And, in the name of research and science, those collectors would try to gain access to things the tribes didn't want them to see. Frank Hamilton Cushing was notorious about that. He was out at Zuni. Elsie Clews Parson was at Nambe and amongst the Pueblos, and she did some pretty outrageous things, too. Going where she wasn't wanted, recruiting informants, and then, calling one of them a liar in one of her reports. To Parson, I'd say "how do you know it was just one person who lied to you?!"

And that is why I'm so excited by Marcie Rendon's "SongCatcher: A Native Interpretation of the Story of Frances Densmore." It is a play, published in Keepers of the Morning Star: An Anthology of Native Women's Theater. Edited by Jaye T. Darby and Stephanie Fitzgerald, the anthology was published by the UCLA American Indian Studies Center. Available in paperback, the cost is $25.

Marcie's play is about a collector named Frances Densmore. I'd love to see it on stage!

The setting is present day. A young Native man named Jack and his Native girlfriend Chris are the main characters. Chris was raised with her Native community. Jack was not. He knows he's Native, and he goes to powwows and hangs out with Native people. He wants to know more, though, about his own tribe, and he especially wants a song of his own. Bill is an older Native man who visits with Jack and Chris in their apartment. Like Chris, Bill was raised knowing his community. Both Chris and Bill tell Jack that the song will come to him, that he has to listen for it.

Jack is impatient and rather than listen patiently, he decides to find a song. To find it, he turns to Frances Densmore's books and recordings.

Jack's activity (learning his heritage from a book) is not ok! All through his research process, Spirit Woman is near him, trying to give him a song. She's on stage, but he can't see her. He (and Chris and Bill) also can't see Frances Densmore when she is on stage. She's there a lot. Anytime Chris or Bill are talking, she goes right beside them, notebook in hand, and writes down what she hears them saying.

I'll stop, there, and let you get the play and read it yourself. As the play progresses, fascinating things are revealed. Marcie's play is a page-turner! If you are a writer that uses the Smithsonian archives (the Bureau of American Ethnography), don't do it! Or, at the very least, read Marcie's play before you do...

SongCatcher can be used in high school and college classes in English, Theater, Creative Writing, History, and of course, Anthropology. If your school has classes in Social Justice, use it there!

Later this week, I hope to find time to write about Marcie's play, The Rough Face Girl, comparing it to Rafe Martin and David Shannon's retelling of that story. I'll say this much. He got it wrong.

"As I Am" - Poem by Mohawk poet, Janet Marie Rogers

Via Twitter, I found this terrific film. As you'll see, it is a series of portraits, and, a poem called "As I Am" by Janet Marie Rogers, a Mohawk poet.

PETER PAN in Canada: Two steps forward, and then two steps back again

Friday, April 23rd, The Globe and Mail published an article in the Arts section. Written by J. Kelly Nestruck, the article is titled "Sensitivity Training in Neverland." 

It opens with Nestruck posing this question: "Are the Neverland Indians of Peter Pan going the way of the Beothuk in Canada?"

Given that the article is about getting rid of stereotypical images of Indians in Peter Pan, I imagine that Nestruck thought he was being clever by comparing the fictional Indians in Peter Pan with the Beothuk. The Beothuk, according to a quick look-see of research, are a tribe that no longer exists. However! I'm not inclined to believe that they vanished. I've heard that "vanished" story before. I'll check into it, by talking to First Nations people. (If you're First Nations and have info that can help me with this research, let me know.)  Some may think Nestruck's playful opening is clever. I don't think it is clever at all. Regular readers of American Indians in Children's Literature know that I think it is important to examine where people situate American Indians. We're often in the same sentence as wild animals, and in the case of "Sensitivity Training in Neverland" fictional stereotypical Indians.

The first full paragraph says that the Peter Pan that will be on stage next week in Halifax and Stratford, will not have any references to "Indians" or "redskins" in the script. Next, Nestruck tells us, that Tiger Lily's tribe is in both productions, but, that "its members no longer bear any resemblance to North America's aboriginal peoples."

Obviously, someone (Nestruck? Producers? Playwrights?) think the Indians in J. M. Barrie's play did, in fact, bear resemblance to North America's aboriginal peoples. Which ones?! We do not (and did not) all look alike....

Fourth paragraph, Nestruck says the "beloved" story has been "causing controversy of late." Of late? Maybe it is news to Nestruck that we (indigenous people) don't like the way we've been portrayed for a long time. Take, as one example, what William Apes, a Pequot man, said in 1829 in A Son of the Forest:

[T]he great fear I entertained of my brethren was occasioned by the many stories I had heard of their cruelty toward the whites—how they were in the habit of killing and scalping men, women, and children. But the whites did not tell me that they were in a great majority of instances the aggressors—that they had imbrued their hands in the lifeblood of my brethren, driven them from their once peaceful and happy homes—that they introduced among them the fatal and exterminating diseases of civilized life. 

Fifth paragraph, Nestruck reports that George Pothitos and the theatre in Halifax "found itself in hot water" when it sent out a casting call for "Pirates/Indians." The artistic director was contacted by "angry artists" and apologized for the oversight, "not realizing how offensive that might be to some first-nations people."  So then Nestruck goes into the Land of Offense. (My term, not his.)


He says that "if" Indian is now considered derogatory "in some circles" now, the word "piccaninnies" is "much more problematic." Here's paragraph eight:

In Peter and Wendy, Barrie's 1911 novelization of his earlier play, the Scottish author describes these “redskins” on the warpath with their tomahawks not as an imaginary people, but as just another group of North American Indians. “Strung around them are scalps, of boys as well as of pirates, for these are the Piccaninny tribe, and not to be confused with the softer-hearted Delawares or the Hurons,” he wrote.

There's a lot wrong---and confusing---in that paragraph. Where is my copy of Peter and Wendy...


Moving on to the tenth and eleventh paragraphs, wherein Tim Carroll, the British director for the production being staged in Stratford, says:

“Coming here, it was obvious to me that we had to be more sensitive to the feelings of people who would be watching a debased version of their forefathers put onstage,” he says.

So, I guess, it is ok to be racist if there's nobody looking? Carroll decided to recast Tiger Lily's tribe as Amazons, thereby paying off thematically because now, he is "adding a mysterious female hinterland to the very male world of Neverland's Lost Boys and pirates." He doesn't mean the indigenous peoples of the Amazon. He means "the women warriors of Greek mythology."

Meanwhile, back in Halifax, Pothitos said "I decided we'd produce our own Neverland, with a tribe not based on any one ethnicity." In his production, Tiger Lily's tribe is inspired by "primitivist Henri Rousseau as well as bits and pieces of Mayan, Egyptian, and East Indian culture." Rather than just mess with North American Indian stereotypical imagery, they've decided to add in a few other cultures...  That's no better than the mish-mash we already have to deal with....   Indians in headdresses, standing beside totem poles outside tipis...

Finally, in the last four paragraphs, Nestruck turns to the words of Tara Beagan, a playwright who is Ntlakapamux and Irish-Canadian. She is among those "angry artists" who contacted the Neptune about the casting notice. Nestruck wrote:

To Beagan, Peter Pan's casual equation of “Indians” with imaginary Neverland creatures such as mermaids was part of a larger racist British mindset that didn't see native North Americans as a real people who existed in the present.

I'm not sure where he got "racist British mindset" from. She didn't say that. He followed that with a quote from Beagan:

“The early 20th-century English theatre-going public literally thought of native North Americans as a vanishing race: This is what their rulers intended,” she writes. “England has made several very creative attempts at eradicating Canada’s first peoples – the mythologization of first-nations peoples was a false ‘swan song’ type of trend that has, sadly, lasted until 2010.”

And he ends the article with this paragraph:

In a recent article she penned for the Praxis Theatre blog, Beagan imagined her mother on a field trip from the Kamloops Indian Residential School in 1953 watching Disney's cartoon version of Peter Pan with its stereotypical Indians saying “Ugh” at a local theatre that only allowed native people to sit in the balcony. (Beagan's mother doesn't remember the specific films she saw on these trips, but the timing fits.) “My mom’s grandchildren – my niece and nephew – sit in any section they want, in any theatre they want,” Beagan wrote. “If things continue to look up the way they have been, they won’t ever sit through a production of something that will teach them that their people say 'ugh.’” In productions of Peter Pan at Stratford and Neptune, at least, that will be the case.

I searched the Praxis Theatre pages and found the blog post Nestruck quoted from. He left out her final sentence, which is:

Hell, it might be to watch something that one of them has written.

The article itself and the casting, revisions, and Barrie's story itself are all worth studying. I'm glad the article is available. It tells us there's some awareness (two steps forward), but, not understanding, or if there IS understanding, an inability to apply that understanding (two steps backward).

I think the theater people are trying, but, they're not slowing down enough to really think this stuff through. From Nova Scotia news is a favorable review that includes this:

Choreographer Jim White, who cooks up a lot of variety, has created an Indonesian-style dance for Tiger Lily and the tribesmen, in their grass skirts and bright blue and orange head dresses. Heidi Ford is a wonderfully lithe and expressive Tiger Lily.

There's a promo for the Neptune Theatre presentation at youtube. Tiger Lilly and her tribemen come onstage at 0:44 for a few seconds.  I'm not sure this is an improvement over the sequel to Peter Pan, titled Peter Pan in Scarlet... 

Following up on "What Neil Gaiman said..."

THE PEOPLE IN THIS EPISODE:

Debbie Reese (me). Tribally enrolled at Nambe Pueblo (for those who don't know, that means I'm American Indian) and Assistant professor in American Indian Studies. As a Native woman, mother, and aunt who is deeply connected to my family and community at Nambe Pueblo (I was raised there, and I have a home there) and as a professor who studies the ways that American Indians are portrayed, I view the world from a place that is distinctly different from most people who rarely give much (if any) thought to American Indians. Said another way, my context, and framework, and perspective for viewing the world are distinct. Like many, I believe there is great power in words. Written, or spoken, they can empower and inspire, but they can also hurt and demean. Most words about us (American Indians) are in the latter category. There is a whole lot of good intent that goes very badly. My work is not a blame-game. It is a 'hey, let's all look at this carefully and think about it!'

Neil Gaiman. His novel, The Graveyard Book, won the prestigious Newbery Medal in 2009. He is also a very popular and prolific writer. Visit his website, Neil Gaiman. Sometime back I started following him on Twitter, reading his blog entries when he tweeted them. I have not read any of his books, but I've bought several of them as gifts for my family. Contrary to what some people seemed to think, my questions about the words he said ("a few dead Indians") had nothing to do with the book itself. I was not suggesting he should have set the book in the U.S. I was not suggesting that he should have included American Indians in the book. I was noting the words he said in the interview.

Kynn Bartlett. A self-employed writer, and, I think, a game developer. He's She's got a site called "Bold Pueblo Games" but he she is not Pueblo Indian, and I'm not sure why "Pueblo" is in the name of his site. He She has a LiveJournal (LJ). I do not know if you must have a LiveJournal account to read his her LJ. (2:15 PM, April 21: My apologies to Kynn, who submitted a comment saying "preferred pronouns for me are along the lines of "she" and not "he." I'm correcting that error using strikeout technique rather than erasure.)

BGF Central.  I don't know who BGF Central is. From Gaiman's tweets, I gather BGF Central's name is Pam. At the top of her blog, AND WE SHALL MARCH are the words "BLACK. GEEK. AND FINE WITH THAT."

WHAT KICKED OFF THE EPISODE:

First, my post, "What Neil Gaiman said..." prompted Kynn to post it on his her LiveJournal.

Second, Kynn's post, "Neil Gaiman's racist fail" prompted Neil Gaiman to tweet on his Twitter page.

What followed was called "a brouhaha" by some, or a "sh*t storm" by others.  A couple of days have passed, and the post you are reading now is my attempt to do two things. First, I will lay it out chronologically. For clarity sake, I'm writing it in third person.

Part of why I am taking the time to lay it out is my second reason for this post. I think it important that we see how celebrity fandom can obscure the work that my original post (and all my work on this blog) is trying to do. That is, pushing everyone to think about HOW they think about American Indians, what they THINK they know about American Indians, and how all of that comes together in the words they write and speak aloud.


TIMELINE OF THE EPISODE
April 18, 2010


9:06 AM
Debbie Reese posted "What Neil Gaiman said..." to her blog. 

11:24 AM
Kynn posted "Neil Gaiman's racist fail" to his her LiveJournal.

4:56 PM
Yukari m (yucaree) tweeted to Gaiman:

@neilhimself :: I'm assuming you mean European-style graveyards but someone's not happy with you :: tinyurl.com/whatneilgaimansaid

(Note: Whenever you see the @ symbol in front of a name on twitter, it means that the person who wrote the tweet (yucaree) sent it to the person named right after the @--in this case, Gaiman).

7:13 PM
Gaiman tweeted to yucaree:

@yucaree of course they aren't. It's the Internet. I left a clarification, but it's not yet posted.

7:04 PM CST
Neil Gaiman's comment to "What Neil Gaiman said..." was approved for upload by Debbie Reese. (Gaiman submitted his comment at 6:39 PM CST. Reese moderates comments to keep spam from appearing as comments on her site.)

(No time stamp available)
Gaiman tweeted:

I'm called a racist by someone who has taken a comment about European graveyards in US out of context http://bit.ly/cx9rDUnd Sigh. #twits 

As you will see, Gaiman deleted this tweet from his page. It is archived elsewhere. If you clicked on the link he provided, you saw it was a bad link. (Note: The pound sign in front of a word is a "hashtag." It is a technique in Twitter for compiling tweets with the specific hashtag on a single page. Hence, there is a page where all tweets in which people who used "#twits" in their tweet are compiled.) 

8:25 PM
Debbie tweeted to Gaiman:

@neilhimself No... I did not call you a racist. Ignorant, perhaps. In fact, you misspoke.

(No time stamp available)
Gaiman tweeted: 

Linkfail on 'racism' : http://bit.ly/cx9rDU (Perhaps the person thinks that Indian Burial Grounds were European-style Graveyards.)

Realizing the link was bad, he provided one that worked. It went to Kynn's LiveJournal. 

8:30 PM
Gaiman tweeted:

I should point out that the actual site the #twit LJ linked to - http://bit.ly/c5Rzv2 - is perfectly sane. And my reply wasn't sarcastic. 

The link he included is my post "What Neil Gaiman said..."

8:31 PM
Gaiman tweeted to Reese:

@debreese not Deb, you didn't at all. The "racist" comment was in http://bit.ly/cx9rDU which I think misunderstood your point.

Note: I do not know Gaiman personally. This episode is the first time I have ever interacted with him. His use of "Deb" should not be taken to mean that we know each other.  

8:32 PM
Gaiman tweeted to Reese:

@debreese and I was happy to clarify on your site what I meant. (Sad about the comment after mine though.)

8:33 PM
BGF Central tweeted to Gaiman:

@neilhimself Shall point out that you're calling this individual person a twit to your 1.4+ million followers.

Apparently (as you will see), BGF Central is someone Gaiman relies on for advice. 

8:35 PM
Gaiman tweeted to KurtBusiek:

@KurtBusiek Throwing a term like racist around like that cheapens it in a way I find offensive. It's a real, bad thing & that's just cheap.

I don't know who KurtBusiek is---could be a fan or a friend (or neither). 

8:36 PM
Gaiman tweeted to BGF Central:

@BGFCentral Yeah. Point taken. But people had twittered it, and it was coming on the FAQ line. And there are words you don't use lightly.

8:38 PM
Gaiman tweeted to BGF Central:

@BGFCentral and Pam, twit is a much, much milder term than racist. But yes, #ishouldusethesepowersonlyforgood

8:39 PM
BGF Central tweeted to Gaiman:

@neilhimself words you don't use lightly=Truth. But power dynamics factor into #agame reality....

8:40 PM
Gaiman tweeted on his Twitter page:

The wise @BGFCentral points out that calling someone a twit in front of 1.4 million people is not using these powers for good. Sigh.

8:40 and 8:42 PM
BGFCentral tweeted to Gaiman:

@neilhimself ..Twitter is not the format to respond to that. Your homeport, where there is room for Big Picture & Nuance, is. Otherwise.. it looks like you're PA unleashing a bum rush, which will blowback. No FAQ line filter on Twitter.

Notes: I think "homeport" is Gaiman's blog; "PA" might be Public Affairs At 2:13 PM, April 21, Pam wrote to me, saying that PA is Passive Aggressive; I don't know what "No FAQ line filter on Twitter means." 

8:41 PM
Gaiman tweeted on his Twitter page:

And @bgfcentral is right for she is wise, so I will delete those tweets.

8:47 PM
BGF Central tweeted to Gaiman:

@neilhimself You r sweet, DON'T DELETE THEM. Also an #agame reality re Omission v Take The Hit Move On. No room here; check email later.

8:47 PM
Yucaree tweeted to Gaiman:

@neilhimself: I'm sorry, my intention wasn't to make you sigh, but I'm glad you're aware of what's being said so you can clarify your point.

8:58 PM
Reese tweeted to Gaiman:

@neilhimself I responded to your comment. And of course, your fans are commenting. Context/perspective r crucial http://tinyurl.com/y3efkes

9:13 PM
Gaiman tweeted to Kynn:

@kynn I assumed that the apostrophe on "Neil Gaiman's racist" was short for "IS".

9:13 PM
BGF Central tweeted to Gaiman:

@neilhimself You're right. Calling someone a twit is *nothing* compared to calling them a racist. I believe that person is *wrong*.  

9:14 PM
Gaiman tweeted to Kynn:

@kynn Happy to have a real discussion. @Bfgcentral pointed out that it was wrong of me to get offended on Twitter, so I deleted comments.

 9:15 PM
Kynn tweeted to Gaiman:

@neilhimself you seriously thought I wrote "neil gaiman is racist fail" and not "the racist fail belonging to neil gaiman"? reeeeeally? 

9:15 PM
Gaiman tweeted to Kynn:

@kynn follow me & I'll send email.

9:17 and 9:20 and 9:23
BGF Central tweeted to Gaiman: 

But because of the scale difference *you* must be clear-eyed practical in if/how/where you respond to an *individual* speaking from top-of-head impulse (benefit of doubt) in a space this person might consider a personal diary & is not prepared to deal with a flood of your readers who read your missive as a call to step up and "defend" you. You will be blamed if it goes badly.

9:22 PM
Gaiman tweeted to BFG:

@BGFCentral good advice, much too late. I had already deleted. Now being accused of hiding the evidence.

Gaiman's "hiding the evidence" is in reference to the conversation taking place on Kynn's LiveJournal.

9:26 PM
BGF Central tweeted to Gaiman:

@neilhimself Arg very sorry to hear that, but not surprised. Couldn't type warning fast enough cuz doing bunches of things at once, here.

9:25 PM
Reese tweeted to Gaiman:

@neilhimself Context in which I read interview:23 of 100 bks in SLJ Top 100 List hve American Indians (sort of)http://tinyurl.com/SLJ-Top100

9:36 PM
BGF Central tweeted to Gaiman:

@neilhimself Clarify at your homeport next week (by Monday mean-time would be best). Be honest, do not equivocate. Then weather the hit.

9:37 PM
Gaiman tweeted to Kynn:

@kynn sent you an honestly apologetic email.

Kynn posted Gaiman's apologetic email on Kynn's LiveJournal at 10:07. (Update, 6:58 AM, April 22: If that link does not work, try this one: http://kynn.livejournal.com/1239035.html. )

9:39 PM
Gaiman tweeted to Kynn:

@kynn Again, sorry.

9:38 PM
BGF Central tweeted to Gaiman:

@neilhimself From what I know of you the Weather The Hit part might be hardest. But you can take it and will come through Wiser. #agame

9:47 PM
Gaiman tweeted on his Twitter page:

Argh. Appear to have made a mess of that one in every possible way. Apologies to all, especially @debreese and @kynn.

9:50 PM
Gaiman tweeted on his page:

Too long on the road. Food, and sleep. And may the #volcanogod look kindly on my attempts to get to the UK this week.

That was his last tweet on this topic. At 9:51, I tweeted to Gaiman: "[Apology] to me? Not necessary. Interesting, though, to see people blasting me for pointing to the interview in the first place." I tweeted that to him because I don't know why he was apologizing to me. Or rather, what he was apologizing for. Maybe it was because his fans were blasting me.


MY REFLECTIONS

Gaiman has over a million followers. His tweets sent ten thousand of them to American Indians in Children's Literature over a 24 hour period. Many of them submitted comments. in 2006 when I started blogging, I did not moderate comments. But then I started getting all kinds of spam, so I set the comments option to "moderate comments." I rarely reject a comment submitted by an actual person. The ones that just curse me, I ignore those. But I approve both, negative and positive comments.  When the comments started coming to "What Neil Gaiman said..." I read each one and approved all except one. Then on Monday, I posted a note saying the comments option was closed.

As of this writing, I have not gone back to study the comments. My impression is that most of the individuals submitting comments did so without reading and reflecting on what I said, and without reading and reflecting on comments submitted prior to theirs. Instead, it was mostly a dogpile.

Some people seemed to think that I was/am angry at Gaiman for NOT setting his book in a United States cemetery, and for NOT including American Indians in his book. Some people blasted me for "not reading the book." Some people said I was making a mountain out of a molehill, that Gaiman's remark did not merit being singled out. Privately, someone said that if he'd said "a few dead Jews" the response would have been very different.

My concern is not his book, so, it does not matter if I read it or not. My concern is that a very powerful figure said some things in a newspaper interview that I found troubling. I was (and am) sure that Gaiman knows more about American Indians than his words implied.

I want him to write something about this. Given his fanbase, he could push society to think about the ways we all think, write, and speak about American Indians. He said a little at my blog, clarifying what he meant, but, I want him to write about this on HIS blog. And I want him to tweet it when he does it.

As minutes passed on Sunday night, he worked pretty hard to make amends with Kynn for calling Kynn a twit, but that took him away from his "a few dead Indians" remark.

I think there is more for him to do and say, and I'd like him to do that.

(Note to Gaiman, Kynn, and BGF: I copied and pasted items from your tweets. If I've made errors, please let me know. My email address is dreese dot nambe at gmail dot com.)

Update: April 21, 1:17 PM

I tweeted this follow-up to Gaiman. He tweeted back "definitely planning to blog about it. Still several blogs behind due to volcano travel madness." When his blog post is published, I will provide a link.

Following up on "What Laura Ingalls Wilder left out of LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE"

On July 3, 2008, my blog post was "Selective Omissions, or, What Laura Ingalls Wilder left out of LITTLE HOUSE."  In a nutshell, it was about a speech she gave wherein she said some things were not appropriate reading for young children, so, she left them out of her book. The example she gave was of a family named the Benders. She said they were murderers, that many bodies were found on their property, and that Pa had joined a group of men from town to go find them. 

Soon after I uploaded that post, I got comments saying that Laura and her family were not actually living in Indian Territory when that whole incident with the Benders took place.

I suggest you go to that post and read it, and then come back here and continue reading...

A few days ago, I was reading a blog called Condensery, specifically the post titled "Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Bloody Benders." There, I learned that Rose (Laura's daughter) had actually written up that Bender story and included it in Pioneer Girl, which was the unpublished memoir of Laura's life, co-written by Laura and her daughter. The Pioneer Girl website says that the hand-written manuscript is not available for viewing or study, but that it is available via microfilm. Here's an excerpt, from the blog from laura ingalls wilder to cyberbessie linked to from Condensery.

One night just about sundown a strange man came riding his horse up to the door on a run. Pa hurried out and they talked a few minutes. Then the man went away as fast as he had come, and pa came into the house in a hurry. He would not wait for supper, but asked Ma to give him a bite to eat right away, saying he must go. Something horrible had happened at Benders.

Ma put bread, meat, and some of those good pickles on the table, and Pa talked while he ate. Mary and I hung at the table's edge, looking at the pickles. I heard Pa say "dead," and thought somebody at benders was dead. Pa said, "Already twenty or more, in the cellar." He said, "Benders-- where I stopped for a drink. She asked me to come in."

Ma said, "Oh Charles, thank God!"

I did not understand and felt confused. Mary kept asking Ma why she thanked God, and Ma did not answer... Then Pa said, "They found a little girl, no bigger than Laura. They'd thrown her in on top of her father and mother and tramped the ground down on them, while the little girl was still alive."

I screamed, and Ma told Pa he should have known better.

I'd really like to see the original manuscript! Laura, in her speech, said she left out the whole Bender story because it wasn't fit for children. Did Rose put it in? And then what... Was it cut at the publishing house? Details are a little (or a lot) murky...  Made all the murkier because the Ingalls family wasn't even in that area when the Bender family murderers were exposed! 


The ins and outs of the LITTLE HOUSE saga....  There's always more to learn. I'm glad to have come upon Condensery's blog and this post in particular.