WANDERING STARS
Tommy Orange
Books for Bigots
Having read Wandering Stars it is necessary for me to relate it to the category of Books for Bigots. I think this book would actually agree with many bigots with whom I am familiar and this for an unorthodox reason. They would understand it, maybe not consciously, but understand it nevertheless.
Tommy Orange is Cheyenne which we get from his pronouncements in the narrative. The place is Oakland, California and the characters are of various tribal origins. This is an Indian, Native American, Native family coping with being such. How we are to relate to him and his family and others of Indian, Native American, Native extraction is not clear. In one chapter the matter is discussed and determined that it should be Native. There is some discussion as well as to whether this appellation be used similarly to "nigger" in black culture where a black person can use the word but a white person can not.
The book deals with the Native American view of their current circumstances and the basis for that - - white people. It is no secret among white people that Native Americans were here before us white people, black people, and Asian people. The discussion deals with white people and the fact that the land that once belonged to Native Americans no longer does. Interestingly, I recall no reference of any kind to Asian Americans or Hispanic Americans and very minimally to Black Americans.
Being a white person myself, I don't take it personally that other people feel that white people are responsible for the life they currently lead. I'm willing to accept that in part, not totally. My view is that as an individual though, I'm responsible for my own life regardless of what has been done to me or not done to me and I won't blame my ancestors, my race, my nationality, or others not the same on who I am or have become.
But it is clear to anyone who has any historical knowledge of any kind that white people destroyed the Native American life as it was lived when we got here. I admit this. However, it wasn't me and I personally didn't do anything to anybody. But I understand how a Native American, a Black American, a Hispanic American, or an Asian American might think about white people. We, as a race, have made a lot of enemies throughout the past few centuries and we, including Bigots, understand this.
We, white folks, did not individualize the people that we either enslaved, persecuted, or rounded up on reservations. It is rather presumptuous to require others to determine what kind of person I am and what I think before deciding what they think about me as a white person. We white people certainly have never concerned ourselves with such an inquiry and it is rather presumptuous to demand it of them.
So, if you are a Bigot you have this feeling, well founded, that if Native, Black, Hispanic, or Asian Americans separately or together ever got to be in charge, we, White Americans, could be in trouble and not fare so well in a world we have made but in which we are not in control.
Richard E H Phelps II
Mingo
