The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative - Book Report/Review Example

The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative A Critical Reflection In the book written by Thomas King, entitled The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative, it is indicated that Thomas King shares many of his experiences and locates them in a personal and political narrative. He shows how one’s identity and culture are located in unequal material conditions and are represented in ways that denigrate, fictionalize, romanticize, and relegate native people to the past. In this regard, the essay aims to proffer a reflection on the main themes he lays out and a consideration of how they relate to one’s own experiences of oppression and privilege. Specifically, the following guiding questions are addressed: (1) what are the main messages of this book? (2) How do you respond to them – how do they affect you and relate (or do not) to your own experiences? (3) What do they have to say about identity, oppression, diversity and representation more generally? (4) What did you find interesting? What did it teach you? (5) What do you imagine is King’s objective in writing this book, in this particular style? And finally, (6) why might it be important for anyone – especially social workers to read? The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative - A Critical Reflection In The Truth about stories, Thomas King shares a Native perspective on Native issues. In fact, this sentence alone suggests some of the problems he deals with throughout his book. Kings book covers topics as diverse as racism and stereotyping, basketball, and coping with lifes sorrows, but it looks at all of these issues through an exploration of narrative in the forms of stories that we tell ourselves and others. The books main message is one that discusses the importance of seeing people for who they are, and not trying to classify them as one particular race or culture. I think this is a message that is especially important for social workers to keep in mind as they struggle to help those who are not a part of the dominant culture or socio-economic class. One thing that makes Kings message so effective is the personal tone in which he tells all his stories. He frequently speaks to the reader and is not shy about telling us when he is aiming for a story-telling tone. In the first chapter he tells two different creation myths, one Christian and one Native. The tones he uses to tell them are very different, as he points out afterwards. “In the Native story”, he says, “I tried to recreate an oral storytelling voice and craft the story in terms of a performance for a general audience” (King, 2003, p.22). However, the Christian version, told with a less playful tone, used a “sober voice” which “makes for a formal recitation but creates a sense of veracity” (King, 2003, p.23). Kings stories in the book usually use a mix of these two tones, and the result is one which speaks directly to people and seems realistic without being unengaging. Also, the storytelling tone is part of the problem King wishes to speak about, that Native people are never really taken seriously and understood from their own points of view, but lumped into one big category, Native, and viewed as a sort of childish un-advanced race of people. As he says of his Native creation myth, “the conversation voice tends to highlight the exuberance of the story but diminishes its authority” (King, 2003, p.22-23). This, usually in the guise of focusing on Native performers who had to struggle to figure out whether they were still Native Americans or something else entirely, is a central theme throughout the book, along with the stereotyping that causes this main problem. He makes it very clear throughout that one of the big problems with “the Native problem” is unrealistic views of Native Americans handed down from the 18th century or even earlier in a few cases. He relates the story of Edward Sheriff Curtis, a photographer who went around the USA in 1900 taking pictures of various Native peoples (King, 2003, p.32). The problem with Curtis is that he was “looking for the literary Indian, the dying Indian, the imaginative construct”, so much so that he “took along boxes of Indian” props to dress up people who did not fit that image (King, 2003, p.32). King compares this literary Indian to the “Indian of Fact”, which are the real Native Americans who do not fit into peoples expectations at all most of the time (King, 2003, p.32). The problem, then, is not who people are, but what others think they should be based on their own stereotypes. While we might like to assume this sort of thing does not happen again, King mentions a lot of current day examples, including ones that involve himself. He mentions some pointed questions he was made to answer when applying for a PhD grant from the USA government. These questions were “a kind of authenticity test, a racial-reality game that contemporary Native people are forced to play” (King, 2003, p.55). This game, even when its started by other people who are themselves Natives, basically forces people into the roles created by this made-up literary Indian that King talked about earlier. He notes that most people dont even bother asking questions, but instead “simply [look] at you. If you dont look Indian, you arent. If you dont look White, youre not” (King, 2003, p.56). One of the things that King is most worried about is not just racism or stereotyping, but how these play into government decisions. He points out that Northern American nations have not been very good about keeping up with the treaties they made with Native nations. King says that we like to: tell ourselves about injustices and atrocities and how most of them has happened in the past. We tell ourselves that, as we have progressed as a species, we have gotten smarter and more compassionate. … We know better now, and we wont make that mistake again. (King, 2003, p.127) Unfortunately, King says, this is not really true. Now, we just do it more politely. For instance, Native Americans are now dealt with through legislation, which King says has “two basic goals” for Native people: “One, to relieve us of our land, and two, to legalize us out of existence” (2003, p.130). The government does this because it is tired of giving Natives special benefits, or if you are less cynical and accept their logic, because they want there to be “not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question” (King, 2003, p.133). In other words, until the Native peoples have been able to assimilate into everyday society. The reason this worries King so much is because he sees it as a way for the government to get out of honouring its treaties and the commitment it should have been making the whole time to co-existing with Native peoples instead of just conquering them. As King puts it, “in fifty to seventy-five years … well still have the treaties and well still have treaty land held in trust for status Indians … we just wont have any Indians” (2003, p.144). He sees this as just part of the stereotyping and subconscious racism that even those trying to supposedly help Native people tend to fall into. To repeat what he said earlier, “If you dont look Indian, you arent. If you dont look White, youre not” (King, 2003, p.56). The general perception on anything not “White”, per se, is already a deviation from the rule. However, it is inevitable that despite diversity and differences in identities, people interact and interrelate with each other to enhance cultural orientations and to improve one’s way of life. As indicated by Battiste (2004) in her article on Indigenous Knowledge and Humanities, she cited King’s story on the Falling Sky Woman, to wit: “Falling Sky Woman illustrates societal structures that are multi-layered, adaptable, changing, interdependent, with relations of animals and humans based on cooperation, collaboration, and respect for the unknown, and in which each have gifts and transforming powers embedded within each entity. These and other similar origin stories are among the Indigenous humanities that continue to offer multiple layers of lessons and teachings that inspire and enable peoples to find guidance for their daily lives. They represent the living and patterned, habitual, and ceremonial relationship in performance with the land and relationship building with others that become the source for Indigenous humanities” (Battiste, 2004, par. 9). In itself, King’s book relays the crucial lesson, as clearly indicated in one of his comments: “actually, its not as important whether a story is true or not as it is how its told and for what purpose. For instance, humans eat meat. Now you could tell a story about meat eating that was just a description of diet or social norms or you could tell a story about eating meat that was designed to make humans looks like monsters. Many times it not just the story and where it comes from but who is telling the story and what they want the story to do” (Anansi, 2003, par. 21). This is one of the unique messages of King’s book. The manners by which uniquely talented individuals tell a story make the story relevant, vivid, and transforming. Oppression was manifested in King’s lecture in chapter one when he remunerates on the experiences faced by his mother of Greek origin as she struggled to work in the United States, in conjunction with the disappearance of his Indian father, when King was hardly old enough to retain any significant memories of him. As validated by Coates (2004) in his review of King’s book, “King is therefore "mixed-blood" (King, 2003, p. 92), neither categorically European nor Native. Having discussed the ambiguous racial profile he grew up with, King writes toward the discovery of his mission--or, as he ages, just position--in life. He largely sets aside his significant literary, academic, and broadcasting achievements and goes on to talk about his efforts to document photographically Amerindian history, and the attempts that have been made before, by both Americans (Edward Sheriff Curtis) and Indians (Richard Throssel” (Coates, 2004, 1). King’s personal experience of mixed racial and cultural ancestry provided the impetus for his writing the book in this particular style: in the form of narrative stories providing illustrative experiences in analogies and metaphors with repetitive phases that emphasize arguments and contentions but at time, leaving readers in a quandary, as to the accurate conclusions proffered. His comments on the crucial element in storytelling is not the credibility of the story told but the manner and purpose by which it was told, is already indicative of King’s intent. His stories were told in the distinct manner to reveal lessons on triumphs over any form of prejudice or discrimination being accorded to the individual’s pursuit and determination to focus on the positive and to rise above the rest. As a Canadian citizen of Afghan background, I can definitely understand where King is coming from in his book. I have experienced similar racism and oppression where I work as a Client Service Representative. Despite my ideas, which are good ones that would probably help the company to make money, I am continually kept outside of the decision-making process because, I think, I am not White enough. The other eight employees where I work and my manager all have a sort of distance from me, and the first time I hear about important Client Service decisions is usually after they have been decided in a meeting that I was not invited to attend. Although nobody is trying to take away my land or deny me my cultural heritage, I do feel like I am being made a sort of second-class citizen. Perhaps because of my own personal experiences, I think the stories King tells in his book, and the way in which he chooses to tell them, have a powerful impact. The way his tone seems to change between that of a scholar and that of a story-teller, for instance, is useful as a way of thinking about how Native peoples can and do adapt and change, and would seem convincing to people who like to pretend that they are all just sitting around on a reservation being mystical and Indian. Kings choices of stories are also convincing, whether they are from his own experience or whether they are the stories of other people, Native or not. Ultimately the book is a very useful one for those who want to find out more about the way stereotyping and exclusion work in society. I think The truth about stories would be especially useful for social workers, and should probably be required reading. That seems like a strange opinion, because the book is not really about how to do social work or even necessarily about the socio-economic conditions that create a need for it. However, Kings book is about what creates those conditions, at least in part. It is also about the dangers involved in classifying people at all. For instance, if a social worker were to go to someones house who lives below poverty and take with them preconceptions about how that type of person lives, the social worker would be a lot less useful than someone who looked upon the person as a person, and did not make any judgements about them at all—or at least saved them until they had actually met. It also reminds social workers that different cultures are a good thing, and that just forcing people to fit in with mainstream society is not always the right choice. The relevance of reading the book, in a social workers’ perspective, comes in terms of the roles that they play in society. As indicated in the NHS, “social workers form relationships with people and assist them to live more successfully within their local communities by helping them find solutions to their problems. Social work involves engaging not only with clients themselves but their families and friends as well as working closely with other organisations including the police, local authority departments, schools and the probation service” (NHS, n.d., pars. 1 & 2). Since social workers are expected to work with people from diverse origins, encompassing race, demographics, and cultural orientations, King’s contentions that stories control people lives, would accord opportunities to decipher truths from stories told – a way of identifying problems as a means to evaluate alternative courses of actions towards possible solutions. References Anansi. (2003). Forum. Retrieved 20 November 2010. < http://www.anansi.ca/forum.cfm?forum_view=TOPIC&forum_id=5&topic_id=127> Battiste, M. (2004). Animating Sites of Postcolonial Education: Indigenous Knowledge and the Humanities. Retrieved 20 November 2010. < http://www.usask.ca/education/people/battistem/csse_battiste.htm> King, T. (2003). The truth about stories: A native narrative. Minneapolis, MN, USA: University of Minnesota Press. NHS Careers. (n.d.). Social Worker. Retrieved 20 November 2010. < http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/details/Default.aspx?Id=519> Read More