Sherman Alexie

(b. 1966)

“Evolution” (1992)
“Scalp Dance by Spokane Indians” (1993)
“How to Write the Great American Indian Novel” (1996)

As I read these poems, I felt just a sense of “ugh” and “ohhh” and “man,” deflation, sadness, and empathy. Then one of the lines from “How to Write the Great American Indian Novel” struck me:

All of the Indians must have tragic features: tragic noses, eyes, and arms.
Their hands and fingers must be tragic when they reach for tragic food. (1-2).

To Alexie, this empathy is common but worthy of disdain. I say this with two things in mind: 1) It doesn’t energize the people to help the situation, and 2) Helping means supporting your friends as they establish and live “normal” lives.

1) Just as in Langston Hughes poem “Dinner Guest: Me” the fellow guests were emotionally stirred but were not stirred to action, I think Alexie criticizes my empathy that does not lead to action. So how can we help?

2) Sometimes a region or culture needs massive amounts of help. I think of Europe after WWII, devastated emotionally and economically. We (the U.S.) helped them rebuild through aid in the Marshall Plan. In the 1950/60s, large blocks of New York City’s youth were involved in gang-fighting, heroin, sex—the accounts are of much sadness and emptiness. David Wilkerson and the churches joined together to help break this culture. It is during this time (1967) that we get the picture of Robert Kennedy helping to get Bedford-Stuyvesant back on its feet. Today, there are people like this working to help our Native American brothers and sisters too.

Sometimes, though, we need something more on the personal scale. When “normal” is destroyed for a culture, we need neighbors and friends to come beside us and help us rediscover normal, or reinvent normal, or just live normal lives beside us. When we see this, when we feel that others are investing in our lives, normal will seem a lot like friendship.