Living literary con job
August 24, 2017 9:14 AM Subscribe
Come for The Stranger's investigation into the past of a writer who seemingly has a glancing relationship with the facts, stay for the the use of Ian Somerhalder's face as a talent agent.
The book is called Stealing Indians? What a piece of shit.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 9:53 AM on August 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 9:53 AM on August 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
One of the weirdest thing about this sort of cultural appropriation is that it always seems like it is so easy for White people to monetize a manufactured Indian identity. Asa Earl Carter did pretty well with Little Tree and he was an actual, vivid public racist. Johnny Depp was paid $20 million to play Tonto in The Lone Ranger and Depp's only Indian blood was some Cherokee ("or perhaps Creek") grandparent or great grandparent that Depp has always been vague on.
And yet it's not like Indians have done all that well for actually being Indian. Not like that. Of Amazon's top 10-selling children's books about the Native experience, three are by Scott O'Dell, who was not Indian. Only two are by authors who have any Native blood, Sherman Alexie and Joseph Bruchac, and as far as I can tell Alexie is the only one with tribal enrollment.
I never know why it seems so easy for outsiders to monetize a culture's experiences but so hard for insiders. I suspect it has a lot to do with just basic privileges, and the vast differences between the sorts of opportunities and relationships that the dominant culture has access to.
It also probably has a lot to do with the fact that actual culture is complicated, difficult, oftentimes private, and hard to explain. People within the culture are generally less willing to reconstruct it around the simplified and frequently racist structures and narratives preferred by the mainstream. So when they tell their own story, it's going to seem complicated and challenging to white readers, whereas weird little fabricated fables filled with faux-wise homilies, like The Education of Little Tree, are going to be much more accessible.
Here is a breakdown of Stealing Indians written by Debbie Reese, who is tribally enrolled at Nambe Owingeh and authors American Indians in Children's Literature, detailing the may ways the book elides, ignores, or fabricates the Native experience. There's more on the site about Smelcer and his history of misrepresenting the Indian experience. It's all very discouraging, especially since it increasingly seems that the surest way to make money off the Native experience is to be a white person and just make it up.
posted by maxsparber at 10:18 AM on August 24, 2017 [22 favorites]
And yet it's not like Indians have done all that well for actually being Indian. Not like that. Of Amazon's top 10-selling children's books about the Native experience, three are by Scott O'Dell, who was not Indian. Only two are by authors who have any Native blood, Sherman Alexie and Joseph Bruchac, and as far as I can tell Alexie is the only one with tribal enrollment.
I never know why it seems so easy for outsiders to monetize a culture's experiences but so hard for insiders. I suspect it has a lot to do with just basic privileges, and the vast differences between the sorts of opportunities and relationships that the dominant culture has access to.
It also probably has a lot to do with the fact that actual culture is complicated, difficult, oftentimes private, and hard to explain. People within the culture are generally less willing to reconstruct it around the simplified and frequently racist structures and narratives preferred by the mainstream. So when they tell their own story, it's going to seem complicated and challenging to white readers, whereas weird little fabricated fables filled with faux-wise homilies, like The Education of Little Tree, are going to be much more accessible.
Here is a breakdown of Stealing Indians written by Debbie Reese, who is tribally enrolled at Nambe Owingeh and authors American Indians in Children's Literature, detailing the may ways the book elides, ignores, or fabricates the Native experience. There's more on the site about Smelcer and his history of misrepresenting the Indian experience. It's all very discouraging, especially since it increasingly seems that the surest way to make money off the Native experience is to be a white person and just make it up.
posted by maxsparber at 10:18 AM on August 24, 2017 [22 favorites]
"Let's leave the title for another day. This 2016 book has a blurb from Chinua Achebe. Achebe died in 2013."
Talk about things falling apart.
(I'm so sorry)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:20 AM on August 24, 2017 [8 favorites]
Talk about things falling apart.
(I'm so sorry)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:20 AM on August 24, 2017 [8 favorites]
Sounds like The Education of Little Tree all over again.
posted by Lunaloon at 10:40 AM on August 24, 2017
posted by Lunaloon at 10:40 AM on August 24, 2017
I don't even know which is worse, pretending to be of Native ancestry when you aren't, or the New Age types just appropriating sweat lodges, etc into their "spirituality".
posted by thelonius at 10:44 AM on August 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by thelonius at 10:44 AM on August 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
Debbie Reese has been reporting her efforts to discover Smelcer's complicated relationship with his tribe over at American Indians in Children's Literature for almost a decade.
I've been reading her blog for a while, and Reese is amazingly dedicated to her work. Sure, everybody gets upset when a big kerfuffle hits the literary stage (like this one), but she has been putting in the time and energy to document the small pieces that, when assembled, show the giant landscape of this unending bullshit.
posted by redsparkler at 11:05 AM on August 24, 2017 [8 favorites]
I've been reading her blog for a while, and Reese is amazingly dedicated to her work. Sure, everybody gets upset when a big kerfuffle hits the literary stage (like this one), but she has been putting in the time and energy to document the small pieces that, when assembled, show the giant landscape of this unending bullshit.
posted by redsparkler at 11:05 AM on August 24, 2017 [8 favorites]
Making up blurbs from famous authors is one kind of chutzpah, but having the fake blurb proclaim "We're not worthy," Wayne and Garth style, is some next level shit.
Making up blurbs from J.D. "famously doesn't do blurbs for anyone" Salinger is, like, how much LSD was he on that day?
posted by dnash at 11:44 AM on August 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
Making up blurbs from J.D. "famously doesn't do blurbs for anyone" Salinger is, like, how much LSD was he on that day?
posted by dnash at 11:44 AM on August 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
Omg the stories about the blurbs.
HOW CAN PEOPLE BE SO GULLIBLE?!?!?!?!
posted by pretentious illiterate at 11:53 AM on August 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
HOW CAN PEOPLE BE SO GULLIBLE?!?!?!?!
posted by pretentious illiterate at 11:53 AM on August 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
Smelcer said he "considered himself a Native even though his parents were not."
Sheesh. Hopefully this publicity will damage his brand so much he'll have to change his name and start fresh. I have a suggestion for him: Dolezal is unusual and impressive-sounding!
posted by languagehat at 12:02 PM on August 24, 2017 [10 favorites]
Sheesh. Hopefully this publicity will damage his brand so much he'll have to change his name and start fresh. I have a suggestion for him: Dolezal is unusual and impressive-sounding!
posted by languagehat at 12:02 PM on August 24, 2017 [10 favorites]
I came in here to name-drop Rachel Dolezal, but languagehat has beaten me to it and done it better.
posted by rmd1023 at 12:14 PM on August 24, 2017
posted by rmd1023 at 12:14 PM on August 24, 2017
"JT Leroy? Hold my beer..."
posted by rhizome at 12:56 PM on August 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by rhizome at 12:56 PM on August 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
Star Trek fans may be interested to find out that the reason Chakotay's heritage and beliefs were so incredibly inaccurate/generic is due to another "Indian" con-man, Jamake Highwater, whom the production staff of Star Trek: Voyager paid to consult for them.
posted by Automocar at 1:33 PM on August 24, 2017 [8 favorites]
posted by Automocar at 1:33 PM on August 24, 2017 [8 favorites]
Star Trek fans may be interested to find out that the reason Chakotay's heritage and beliefs were so incredibly inaccurate/generic is due to another "Indian" con-man, Jamake Highwater, whom the production staff of Star Trek: Voyager paid to consult for them.
Holy crap I never knew that.
[As an aside: there was a Native American ficwriter in ST:VOY fandom who went by the name of Macedon, and he took it as his personal mission to rescue the character of Chakotay from the hell of network blandness. The end result was a positively epic story cycle called The Talking Stick/Circle Stories (co-written with Peg Robinson), which are now rather dated in their density and pacing, but are still among the very few pieces of written fiction (of any form) that have ever made me cry. I stopped watching ST:VOY in the 2nd season (after the salamander episode), but I still reread the Talking Stick stories every 4 years or so.]
So, that's a thing.
posted by suelac at 2:21 PM on August 24, 2017 [9 favorites]
Holy crap I never knew that.
[As an aside: there was a Native American ficwriter in ST:VOY fandom who went by the name of Macedon, and he took it as his personal mission to rescue the character of Chakotay from the hell of network blandness. The end result was a positively epic story cycle called The Talking Stick/Circle Stories (co-written with Peg Robinson), which are now rather dated in their density and pacing, but are still among the very few pieces of written fiction (of any form) that have ever made me cry. I stopped watching ST:VOY in the 2nd season (after the salamander episode), but I still reread the Talking Stick stories every 4 years or so.]
So, that's a thing.
posted by suelac at 2:21 PM on August 24, 2017 [9 favorites]
Talk about burying the lede, or at least the best giggle. The man discovered a "frozen wholly mammoth" people!
posted by lagomorphius at 2:39 PM on August 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by lagomorphius at 2:39 PM on August 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
"WHOLLY MAMMOTH, BATMAN!"
posted by rmd1023 at 2:45 PM on August 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by rmd1023 at 2:45 PM on August 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
It's always so weird when people adopt fake ethnicities. Even weirder how long they can get away with it, because almost always the fakers have only dim ideas about the cultures they're claiming as their own. But they do, somehow, oftentimes even fooling people who should know.
There was an American fantasy writer who pretended to be an Icelander and went by the name Thorarinn Gunnarsson, claiming he'd moved from Iceland to Texas as a teenager. He was active as a writer from 1988-96, and during that time would tell absurd stories about his past as an actor in Norwegian, Danish and British film and television, stories about his family's exploits in Iceland (catching a u-boat with a whaling harpoon, that sort of nonsense) and all kinds of bizarre things.
As he started this before the internet was widely available, it's understandable that he didn't get immediately caught out, as Iceland is a faraway place and given how few we are, it's unlikely an actual Icelander ever crossed his path. But, eventually an Icelander did come across one of his books and alerted the largest circulation Icelandic newspaper. One of its journalists interviewed him and it was the lead story in its Sunday supplement. I looked it up the other day.
Reading it now, knowing that he was a fake, is astonishing. My jaw dropped repeatedly as astonishing falsehoods were relayed without being challenged, some that could have been checked with a single phonecall. Perhaps the most amazing one is that he claimed to have emigrated from Iceland at the age of 16, but was unable to speak Icelandic. The interviewed wasn't some cub reporter either, but a journalist who at the time had worked for the newspaper for over a decade and went on to be its deputy editor. He believed every word that Thorarinn Gunnarsson told him.
It didn't cause much of a discussion in Iceland at the time. Most people reading this assumed that the journalist had done his due diligence, if they thought about it all. And who would lie about being an Icelander? To an Icelander, it seems like a pointless thing. That's why people who adopt fake ethnicities get away with it for such a long time, because it's hard for people to believe that people would just pretend to be from a culture they had absolutely no contact with. 12 year old me, who read that interview at the time, believed every word too and was surprised, a few years later, to come across his confession in a science fiction webzine.
posted by Kattullus at 5:43 PM on August 24, 2017 [8 favorites]
There was an American fantasy writer who pretended to be an Icelander and went by the name Thorarinn Gunnarsson, claiming he'd moved from Iceland to Texas as a teenager. He was active as a writer from 1988-96, and during that time would tell absurd stories about his past as an actor in Norwegian, Danish and British film and television, stories about his family's exploits in Iceland (catching a u-boat with a whaling harpoon, that sort of nonsense) and all kinds of bizarre things.
As he started this before the internet was widely available, it's understandable that he didn't get immediately caught out, as Iceland is a faraway place and given how few we are, it's unlikely an actual Icelander ever crossed his path. But, eventually an Icelander did come across one of his books and alerted the largest circulation Icelandic newspaper. One of its journalists interviewed him and it was the lead story in its Sunday supplement. I looked it up the other day.
Reading it now, knowing that he was a fake, is astonishing. My jaw dropped repeatedly as astonishing falsehoods were relayed without being challenged, some that could have been checked with a single phonecall. Perhaps the most amazing one is that he claimed to have emigrated from Iceland at the age of 16, but was unable to speak Icelandic. The interviewed wasn't some cub reporter either, but a journalist who at the time had worked for the newspaper for over a decade and went on to be its deputy editor. He believed every word that Thorarinn Gunnarsson told him.
It didn't cause much of a discussion in Iceland at the time. Most people reading this assumed that the journalist had done his due diligence, if they thought about it all. And who would lie about being an Icelander? To an Icelander, it seems like a pointless thing. That's why people who adopt fake ethnicities get away with it for such a long time, because it's hard for people to believe that people would just pretend to be from a culture they had absolutely no contact with. 12 year old me, who read that interview at the time, believed every word too and was surprised, a few years later, to come across his confession in a science fiction webzine.
posted by Kattullus at 5:43 PM on August 24, 2017 [8 favorites]
Then there's Sun Ra. Significantly, Sun Ra is, well, Sun Ra - and I don't know but I wonder how similar the impulse is, self fabrication? Actually scratch that, Smelcer sounds like just a miserable shit-head, but excluding him there is a thing there, of people re-building their own pasts to conform more closely with a world they want furiously to live in. The lies people tell about themselves to other people kind of thing. And intentionally or not, how they can range from funny/interesting to damn sad.
posted by From Bklyn at 11:24 PM on August 24, 2017
posted by From Bklyn at 11:24 PM on August 24, 2017
Equate this guy to Le Sony'r Ra and you're dead to me. Sun Ra was the mother fucken truth.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 11:29 PM on August 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by Joseph Gurl at 11:29 PM on August 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
Yeah, I take back that bit about Sun Ra. Apologies.
posted by From Bklyn at 9:16 AM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by From Bklyn at 9:16 AM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
See also Boyden, Joseph.
But let's forget these frauds.
Instead, check out the authors and their books selected for this year's Turtle Island Reads:
Bearksin Diary by Carol Daniels
Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson
This Accident of Being Lost by Leanne Simpson
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:43 PM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
But let's forget these frauds.
Instead, check out the authors and their books selected for this year's Turtle Island Reads:
Bearksin Diary by Carol Daniels
Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson
This Accident of Being Lost by Leanne Simpson
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:43 PM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
Yeah, I take back that bit about Sun Ra. Apologies.
In time I may come to forgive you, but I shall never forget.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 2:43 PM on August 25, 2017
In time I may come to forgive you, but I shall never forget.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 2:43 PM on August 25, 2017
According to the Guardian, Smelcer has now been dropped from the shortlist for the 2017 PEN Literary Award.
posted by kumonoi at 8:39 AM on August 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by kumonoi at 8:39 AM on August 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
« Older The Mindset List has always existed for them | Secret Studio Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
Making up blurbs from famous authors is one kind of chutzpah, but having the fake blurb proclaim "We're not worthy," Wayne and Garth style, is some next level shit.
posted by ejs at 9:37 AM on August 24, 2017 [11 favorites]