For context this is a part of a "Dialogue on Race " with Jim Lehrer hosting during the Clinton administration. The exchange is between President Clinton and Sherman Alexie, a Spokane Native and writer. The first comment is early in the show. Sherman Alexie's comment was near the end.
THE PRESIDENT (Clinton): Let me ask you something. I'd like to start, because I think this will help us to get to the race issue you talked about. Let's just talk about the Native American population.When I was running for President in 1992, I didn't know much about the American Indian condition, except that we had a significant but very small population of Indians in my home state, and that my grandmother was one-quarter Cherokee; that's all I knew. And I spent a lot of time going around to the reservations and to meet with leaders and to learn about the sort of nation-to-nation legal relationship that's supposed to exist between the U.S. government and the Native American tribes.
MR. LEHRER: How do you get people to talk about race?
MR. (Sherman)ALEXIE: Just walk into a room, I think. People are always talking about race. It's always coded language. They call it"class," or they use coded language. Nobody actually says, well, that's a black person, let's talk about being black, but it always ends up coming up. Usually what they'll do to me is come up and tell me they're Cherokee. (Laughter.) So that's usually what it amounts to.
Garrett, if you're going to be writing about "Yellowstone," you should watch the fifth episode of the second season of the Peacock sitcom "Rutherford Falls," which parodies that series: "Adirondack S3." It was cowritten by Jana Schmieding, a Lakota actor and writer. (It's also very funny!)
This captures so well the *yearning* that underlies so much of this phenomenon. You (appropriately!) don't excuse the behavior, but this is a really empathetic take.
I really appreciate the work you do in digging into all of the different ways white people try to claim our difference from other white people, and the ways that the most extreme examples of these phenomena connect to the smaller and more mundane examples.
Sigh. Thanks or taking the emotional energy to write about this so I don't have to. When I first heard about yet another and started seeing the reverberations in the community peripherally, I just felt like a deflated balloon.
I think it might have been in the Madison365 piece where it talks about Madison so badly wanting "diversity" without any of the *difference* that comes with diversity. Like: be diverse but act like a White progressive from Wisconsin, which was definitely a tough thing to navigate as a first-gen immigrant growing up there!
I also appreciate when these stories center the people most caused harm rather than the poser, which was refreshing in the 365 article.
I can only imagine how deflating it must have felt. Another one!!
Absolute, 100% to that point about how majority White progressive communities (with Madison of course being Exhibit A) wanting a frictionless diversity that keeps White lives basically unchanged.
also this is fire: "they have a willing White audience desperate for a Black, Brown or Indigenous truth teller who talks directly to us, who berates our racism and privilege, but who also has a seemingly endless well of energy for us and our institutions. We want somebody who will tell us we’re wrong but who keeps showing up at our White events and applying for our White grants and maybe, just maybe, befriending our White selves."
The 'endless well of energy' to play within white institutions.
For context this is a part of a "Dialogue on Race " with Jim Lehrer hosting during the Clinton administration. The exchange is between President Clinton and Sherman Alexie, a Spokane Native and writer. The first comment is early in the show. Sherman Alexie's comment was near the end.
THE PRESIDENT (Clinton): Let me ask you something. I'd like to start, because I think this will help us to get to the race issue you talked about. Let's just talk about the Native American population.When I was running for President in 1992, I didn't know much about the American Indian condition, except that we had a significant but very small population of Indians in my home state, and that my grandmother was one-quarter Cherokee; that's all I knew. And I spent a lot of time going around to the reservations and to meet with leaders and to learn about the sort of nation-to-nation legal relationship that's supposed to exist between the U.S. government and the Native American tribes.
MR. LEHRER: How do you get people to talk about race?
MR. (Sherman)ALEXIE: Just walk into a room, I think. People are always talking about race. It's always coded language. They call it"class," or they use coded language. Nobody actually says, well, that's a black person, let's talk about being black, but it always ends up coming up. Usually what they'll do to me is come up and tell me they're Cherokee. (Laughter.) So that's usually what it amounts to.
I had never seen this exchange before!
This was fucking incredible, thank you.
Signed,
A Mexican-American who lived in Madison and experienced there the most confusing and laughable forms of racism I’ve ever received
Victoria--I hear you! Feel the same as a first-gen Egyptian-American immigrant growing up in Madison.
❤️❤️❤️
I am totally not surprised but I am sorry!
Garrett, if you're going to be writing about "Yellowstone," you should watch the fifth episode of the second season of the Peacock sitcom "Rutherford Falls," which parodies that series: "Adirondack S3." It was cowritten by Jana Schmieding, a Lakota actor and writer. (It's also very funny!)
Great episode! Thanks for that reminder!
This captures so well the *yearning* that underlies so much of this phenomenon. You (appropriately!) don't excuse the behavior, but this is a really empathetic take.
Oh I really appreciate it; that's what I was going for.
A particular recent Taylor Swift line is coming to mind very forcefully.
(I cannot bring myself to watch Yellowstone. But my father, who emigrated to Montana from the Soviet Union when he was almost 30, loves it.)
Longtime Montanan or not, your father would not be doing his duty as as Boomer-Aged Dad if he was not a Yellowstone fan lol.
😂
I really appreciate the work you do in digging into all of the different ways white people try to claim our difference from other white people, and the ways that the most extreme examples of these phenomena connect to the smaller and more mundane examples.
Oh that means a lot. To the extent that I have "a beat" you articulated what that beat would be really, really well.
Sigh. Thanks or taking the emotional energy to write about this so I don't have to. When I first heard about yet another and started seeing the reverberations in the community peripherally, I just felt like a deflated balloon.
I think it might have been in the Madison365 piece where it talks about Madison so badly wanting "diversity" without any of the *difference* that comes with diversity. Like: be diverse but act like a White progressive from Wisconsin, which was definitely a tough thing to navigate as a first-gen immigrant growing up there!
I also appreciate when these stories center the people most caused harm rather than the poser, which was refreshing in the 365 article.
I can only imagine how deflating it must have felt. Another one!!
Absolute, 100% to that point about how majority White progressive communities (with Madison of course being Exhibit A) wanting a frictionless diversity that keeps White lives basically unchanged.
also this is fire: "they have a willing White audience desperate for a Black, Brown or Indigenous truth teller who talks directly to us, who berates our racism and privilege, but who also has a seemingly endless well of energy for us and our institutions. We want somebody who will tell us we’re wrong but who keeps showing up at our White events and applying for our White grants and maybe, just maybe, befriending our White selves."
The 'endless well of energy' to play within white institutions.
I don’t really know how to tell you this but race is most definitely not a hoax. It was created and is therefore very extremely real.
I really appreciate your response to my snarky comment. Thank you for taking the time to respond this way. I very much appreciate it.
Thanks for this back and forth, you two!