Post by blackcrowheart on Apr 8, 2006 10:04:37 GMT -5
Review: Counting Coup does little to dispel myths
By Kathie Meyer
Leader Contributing Writer
About 150 people attended the final discussion in the Port Townsend High
School auditorium Tuesday evening, March 21, for Port Townsend’s first
Community Read of Counting Coup, A True Story of Basketball and Honor on
the Little Big Horn, written by Larry Colton.
While many folks had questions ? so many that not all got to ask theirs
at the two-hour event ? it was not clear how well community readers
actually liked Colton’s book.
I wish that Colton had used a wider-angle lens to tell his story,
because there was never any attempt to provide an explanation or broader
context for Native American social issues or to find more than one
success story within the Crow Nation. Only Janine Pease’s presence with
Colton at the final discussion provided such, but the sad fact is not
every reader of Coup has the luxury of hearing what Pease ? one of the
book’s subjects and currently vice president for American Indian Affairs
at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Mont. ? has to say.
Further, although Colton makes an early attempt to establish commonality
between his life and the struggles faced by Crow Indians, I’m never
convinced he really understands what does or doesn’t motivate Native
Americans today, and in my opinion, after reading Coup, stereotypes seem
better supported than ever before.
Junk cars
From the book’s first sentence, Colton paints a bleak picture ? “Tar
paper shacks, abandoned junk heaps in front yards, rutted and littered
streets …” Throughout the book, in fact, it seems that just about
everywhere Colton goes, he uses a junk vehicle to set the scene.
I’ve been to Montana, so it’s hard for me to believe its beautiful
landscape abruptly disappears at the reservation’s border just because
of some wrecked cars. These portrayals illustrate my main problem with
Coup.
As I considered the cars, I asked my friend Tim about conditions in Neah
Bay. Tim, college educated and white, grew up and still lives in Sekiu.
“It’s not as bad as it used to be,” he said. But yes, he thinks it’s an
“Indian thing.” Some years ago the Makahs got a grant to haul away
abandoned vehicles. The reservation has about 1,500 residents, and they
took out 3,300 cars, he said.
I’m still not convinced it has anything to do with race but is simply
rural living.
“What do you do with your old cars?” I asked.
Tim admits he had a junk truck in his yard for a “few” years until
someone came along and wanted the engine. He also admits he still has a
couple of junkers on his mill property.
Uh-huh. Same ratio as the Makah. And if it’s truly an “Indian thing,”
then why did Jefferson County just pass a junk car law? Were there no
abandoned vehicles in the town of Hardin, Mont., where the whites live?
Obesity and diabetes
As one member of the small discussions staged throughout the community
said, Colton doesn’t miss any of the stereotypes. Another topic
thoroughly discussed was the lack of nutritious value in the food Colton
ate as a guest in people’s homes and viewed in grocery carts at the
reservation store. Pease explained that this is a condition of poverty.
People will eat what is affordable and fills them up, thereby leading to
obesity and diabetes.
But as Pease said, it’s a poverty issue not an “Indian problem,” and
here Colton fails again in providing a balanced portrayal of his Montana
stay. Surely there must have been some fat, diabetic white people with
junk food in their grocery carts at the Hardin grocery store.
According to the American Diabetes Association, since 1987 the death
rate due to diabetes has increased by 45 percent. According to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of 2000, 64.5 percent of
U.S. adults are overweight and 30.5 percent are obese. Severe obesity
prevalence is now 4.7 percent, up from 2.9 percent reported in 1988.
This concern spreads all across America.
Alcoholism
Alcoholism runs rampant on the Crow reservation to this day. No one
denies that. However, in Colton’s book, everywhere you turn it seems a
drunk Indian stands next to the junk cars. Even the sober Indians on the
reservation are characterized in a fashion that makes them look foolish.
In another Coup discussion group held prior to the main event, we tried
to name famous Native American athletes. Former standout University of
Washington quarterback Sonny Sixkiller was named, and one man claimed
Sixkiller flubbed a pro career because of an alcohol problem.
So I telephoned Sixkiller and asked him about his shortened professional
tenure and whether it had anything to do with alcohol.
“Ridiculous,” said Sixkiller. “It began with an injured knee that
shortened my senior season. After that, I signed as free agent with the
Rams, but I was the number four quarterback and they only needed three.
So I played for the World Football League until a torn rotator cuff
[ended my career].
“These statements are racist. That’s like saying the black guy didn’t
make it because he’s on drugs.”
Certainly there’s no particular ethnic group in pro sports with a corner
on “not making it.” Ryan Leaf is another quarterback that springs to
mind.
Fact or fiction?
At the final Community Read event, another excerpt was read depicting a
scene between a member of the Lady Bulldogs’ basketball team and her
father on the night of the Homecoming dance. The scene is rife with
quoted conversation, and Colton explained that in order to recreate
scenarios where he wasn’t present, he interviewed the parties
extensively.
I asked Colton about the fact that his first draft was rejected by
Doubleday editors, who then asked him to repay the book advance. After
that, the book sat for a couple of years until Colton rewrote it and
sold it to Warner Books.
“Do you think you sensationalized the story in any way when you rewrote
Coup?” I asked.
Colton claimed he didn’t. But he did admit he fudged at least one small
detail. In Coup, he describes driving through a town, saying it was so
small he “backed up” to go through it again. Colton confided that he
really turned his car around. He said he wrote “backed up” to make it a
better story.
A James Frey-esque conversation ensued. I agree there’s nothing wrong
with making a true story “better” ? I’ve done it myself ? but I never
had the nerve to claim my story was “true.”
Colton thinks it’s OK. After all, Truman Capote used the same technique
with In Cold Blood, a book Colton said influenced him as a writer.
I wanted to know how someone who is depicted in the book, other than
Pease, felt about Colton’s accuracy when describing conversations, so I
called the Hardin girls’ basketball coach, Linda McClanahan.
“He says things in there that he said I said and I didn’t. I guess
that’s what you do to write a successful book,” she told me.
“I just think he tried to make it into a soap opera,” said McClanahan,
who objected to Colton’s befriending the students who didn’t, in her
opinion, realize he would write about personal details like one girl’s
virginity loss ? an item McClanahan felt was gratuitously tossed in to
no good effect.
End result
Now that his taillights have shrunk to a mere speck on the highway’s
horizon, there is still much to reflect on in Colton’s work. Because the
aim of a Community Read is to get the whole town talking about issues
presented in a book, Port Townsend can call its first Community Read of
Colton’s book a raging success.
I greatly respect Colton’s ability to tell a story, but I felt he didn’t
try hard enough to make sure that readers got a bigger picture than the
blight portrayed. I’m sure he thinks he didn’t need to do that in order
to tell the story of Sharon LaForge; however, readers are left with a
decade-old image of Crow Indians that may or may not be fair.
LaForge has divorced her abusive husband and is close to finishing her
college degree. McClanahan has returned to coaching. Last year’s Lady
Bulldogs made it to the state playoffs.
And while it’s undoubtedly true that racism, alcoholism and many other
social issues still exist on the Crow reservation today, I’m going to
root for them to figure out solutions in their own way and time rather
than hold their lifestyle up to some other more “acceptable,” more
“white” way of living. Because, let’s face it, the problems facing the
Crows are problems that all of us face in some fashion or another.
It’s not just an “Indian thing.”
By Kathie Meyer
Leader Contributing Writer
About 150 people attended the final discussion in the Port Townsend High
School auditorium Tuesday evening, March 21, for Port Townsend’s first
Community Read of Counting Coup, A True Story of Basketball and Honor on
the Little Big Horn, written by Larry Colton.
While many folks had questions ? so many that not all got to ask theirs
at the two-hour event ? it was not clear how well community readers
actually liked Colton’s book.
I wish that Colton had used a wider-angle lens to tell his story,
because there was never any attempt to provide an explanation or broader
context for Native American social issues or to find more than one
success story within the Crow Nation. Only Janine Pease’s presence with
Colton at the final discussion provided such, but the sad fact is not
every reader of Coup has the luxury of hearing what Pease ? one of the
book’s subjects and currently vice president for American Indian Affairs
at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Mont. ? has to say.
Further, although Colton makes an early attempt to establish commonality
between his life and the struggles faced by Crow Indians, I’m never
convinced he really understands what does or doesn’t motivate Native
Americans today, and in my opinion, after reading Coup, stereotypes seem
better supported than ever before.
Junk cars
From the book’s first sentence, Colton paints a bleak picture ? “Tar
paper shacks, abandoned junk heaps in front yards, rutted and littered
streets …” Throughout the book, in fact, it seems that just about
everywhere Colton goes, he uses a junk vehicle to set the scene.
I’ve been to Montana, so it’s hard for me to believe its beautiful
landscape abruptly disappears at the reservation’s border just because
of some wrecked cars. These portrayals illustrate my main problem with
Coup.
As I considered the cars, I asked my friend Tim about conditions in Neah
Bay. Tim, college educated and white, grew up and still lives in Sekiu.
“It’s not as bad as it used to be,” he said. But yes, he thinks it’s an
“Indian thing.” Some years ago the Makahs got a grant to haul away
abandoned vehicles. The reservation has about 1,500 residents, and they
took out 3,300 cars, he said.
I’m still not convinced it has anything to do with race but is simply
rural living.
“What do you do with your old cars?” I asked.
Tim admits he had a junk truck in his yard for a “few” years until
someone came along and wanted the engine. He also admits he still has a
couple of junkers on his mill property.
Uh-huh. Same ratio as the Makah. And if it’s truly an “Indian thing,”
then why did Jefferson County just pass a junk car law? Were there no
abandoned vehicles in the town of Hardin, Mont., where the whites live?
Obesity and diabetes
As one member of the small discussions staged throughout the community
said, Colton doesn’t miss any of the stereotypes. Another topic
thoroughly discussed was the lack of nutritious value in the food Colton
ate as a guest in people’s homes and viewed in grocery carts at the
reservation store. Pease explained that this is a condition of poverty.
People will eat what is affordable and fills them up, thereby leading to
obesity and diabetes.
But as Pease said, it’s a poverty issue not an “Indian problem,” and
here Colton fails again in providing a balanced portrayal of his Montana
stay. Surely there must have been some fat, diabetic white people with
junk food in their grocery carts at the Hardin grocery store.
According to the American Diabetes Association, since 1987 the death
rate due to diabetes has increased by 45 percent. According to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of 2000, 64.5 percent of
U.S. adults are overweight and 30.5 percent are obese. Severe obesity
prevalence is now 4.7 percent, up from 2.9 percent reported in 1988.
This concern spreads all across America.
Alcoholism
Alcoholism runs rampant on the Crow reservation to this day. No one
denies that. However, in Colton’s book, everywhere you turn it seems a
drunk Indian stands next to the junk cars. Even the sober Indians on the
reservation are characterized in a fashion that makes them look foolish.
In another Coup discussion group held prior to the main event, we tried
to name famous Native American athletes. Former standout University of
Washington quarterback Sonny Sixkiller was named, and one man claimed
Sixkiller flubbed a pro career because of an alcohol problem.
So I telephoned Sixkiller and asked him about his shortened professional
tenure and whether it had anything to do with alcohol.
“Ridiculous,” said Sixkiller. “It began with an injured knee that
shortened my senior season. After that, I signed as free agent with the
Rams, but I was the number four quarterback and they only needed three.
So I played for the World Football League until a torn rotator cuff
[ended my career].
“These statements are racist. That’s like saying the black guy didn’t
make it because he’s on drugs.”
Certainly there’s no particular ethnic group in pro sports with a corner
on “not making it.” Ryan Leaf is another quarterback that springs to
mind.
Fact or fiction?
At the final Community Read event, another excerpt was read depicting a
scene between a member of the Lady Bulldogs’ basketball team and her
father on the night of the Homecoming dance. The scene is rife with
quoted conversation, and Colton explained that in order to recreate
scenarios where he wasn’t present, he interviewed the parties
extensively.
I asked Colton about the fact that his first draft was rejected by
Doubleday editors, who then asked him to repay the book advance. After
that, the book sat for a couple of years until Colton rewrote it and
sold it to Warner Books.
“Do you think you sensationalized the story in any way when you rewrote
Coup?” I asked.
Colton claimed he didn’t. But he did admit he fudged at least one small
detail. In Coup, he describes driving through a town, saying it was so
small he “backed up” to go through it again. Colton confided that he
really turned his car around. He said he wrote “backed up” to make it a
better story.
A James Frey-esque conversation ensued. I agree there’s nothing wrong
with making a true story “better” ? I’ve done it myself ? but I never
had the nerve to claim my story was “true.”
Colton thinks it’s OK. After all, Truman Capote used the same technique
with In Cold Blood, a book Colton said influenced him as a writer.
I wanted to know how someone who is depicted in the book, other than
Pease, felt about Colton’s accuracy when describing conversations, so I
called the Hardin girls’ basketball coach, Linda McClanahan.
“He says things in there that he said I said and I didn’t. I guess
that’s what you do to write a successful book,” she told me.
“I just think he tried to make it into a soap opera,” said McClanahan,
who objected to Colton’s befriending the students who didn’t, in her
opinion, realize he would write about personal details like one girl’s
virginity loss ? an item McClanahan felt was gratuitously tossed in to
no good effect.
End result
Now that his taillights have shrunk to a mere speck on the highway’s
horizon, there is still much to reflect on in Colton’s work. Because the
aim of a Community Read is to get the whole town talking about issues
presented in a book, Port Townsend can call its first Community Read of
Colton’s book a raging success.
I greatly respect Colton’s ability to tell a story, but I felt he didn’t
try hard enough to make sure that readers got a bigger picture than the
blight portrayed. I’m sure he thinks he didn’t need to do that in order
to tell the story of Sharon LaForge; however, readers are left with a
decade-old image of Crow Indians that may or may not be fair.
LaForge has divorced her abusive husband and is close to finishing her
college degree. McClanahan has returned to coaching. Last year’s Lady
Bulldogs made it to the state playoffs.
And while it’s undoubtedly true that racism, alcoholism and many other
social issues still exist on the Crow reservation today, I’m going to
root for them to figure out solutions in their own way and time rather
than hold their lifestyle up to some other more “acceptable,” more
“white” way of living. Because, let’s face it, the problems facing the
Crows are problems that all of us face in some fashion or another.
It’s not just an “Indian thing.”