Adrian Jawort: Racism behind criticism of Sherman Alexie book

In my hometown of Billings, Mont., the hoopla surrounding the group of parents who want to see Sherman Alexie’s book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, end its run as part of the Skyview High School’s curriculum came to full fruition at a community meeting to discuss its supposedly controversial content on Veterans Day.

Hundreds of people showed up and expressed their approval or disapproval of the coming-of-age adolescent tale about a boy transitioning from living on a reservation to going to a mostly white school among many other problems that seem to plague the awkward 14-year-old protagonist and Spokane Native, Arnold Spirit Jr. The book was not banned.

While words like censorship and book-banning Nazis dominated the pro-Alexie camp of the discussion, there are four other words that must be considered if one is to consider the American Indian side of the story: institutionalized racism in Montana.

It’s my understanding the complaints of one of the main offended parents, Gail Supola, actually seems to want to defeat stereotypes by not wanting them perpetuated further through Alexie’s perceptive and often self-disparaging narrator. But in forcing her opinion on others, she’d be denying the right of students themselves to decide whether the book is relevant - especially seeing as the urban Native population of Skyview’s students can obviously relate to the book.