http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/authors/sherman_alexie_speaks_out_on_n
asdijj_31564.asp

Monday, Jan 30
Sherman Alexie Speaks Out on Nasdijj

This week's issue of Time includes an essay by Sherman Alexie (left) in
which he discusses his early attempts to expose Nasdijj as "a literary
thief and a liar," and possibly, as he worried at the time, "a talented and
angry white man who was writing as a Native American in order to mock
multicultural literature." Now that the truth is out there, Alexie writes,
"[Nasdijj's] lies matter because he has cynically co-opted as a literary
style the very real suffering endured by generations of very real Indians
because of very real injustices caused by very real American aggression
that destroyed very real tribes."

I had some questions of my own after reading Alexie's essay online, so I
shot him an email wondering what, if anything, he'd done after his initial
efforts to alert Nasdijj's publisher were rebuffed. "I was aware that
Nasdijj had moved to other publishers, and that he was doing a little bit
of the college speaking tour," he replied. "But I'd given up on exposing
him because nobody seemed to care. And whenever I try to expose these
hoaxsters and exploiters, I'm the one who is accused of racism and
imperialism and essentialism." He adds that the Native artistic community
has long been aware of frauds like Nasdijj, "but white folks don't pay us
much attention. A friend of mine emailed me to say that the whole thing
made her sad because if an Indian of my success and influence can be
ignored and/or dismissed by publishers then what does that say for less
powerful Indians?" For that matter, he wonders, "Do you think the
publishers might listen to me now?" It's a legitimate question, and one
without an obvious answer. After all, as Alexie points out, Ward Churchill
remains a "leftist academic hero" despite the debunking of claims to
Cherokee heritage because he's "exactly the kind of Indian his white
leftist academic compatriots want him to be [...] an Uncle Tomahawk with a
vocabulary."