Throughout Sherman Alexie's book, "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven", Alexie depicts basketball as having great significance on the reservation. The game is invested in several different meanings throughout the stories. The reservation's basketball players are shown as heroes to the Native American people. In order to understand why the basketball players are thought of so highly on the reservation, you must first understand the history of basketball and Native Americans.
Although James Naismith is known for inventing the game of basketball, many Native Americans believe that a Native American man named Aristotle Polatkin was really the first inventor of the game. This was mentioned by Victor in the chapter "The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn't Flash Red Anymore" when he says "Julius Windmaker was the latest in a long line of reservation basketball heroes, going all the way back to Aristotle Polatkin, who was shooting jumpshots exactly one year before James Naismith supposedly invented basketball." (45). Julius Windmaker was the best basketball player on the reservation at the time. To people on the reservation, like Victor and Adrian, Julius was a hero. Basketball players on the reservation are not known for the same reasons a player like Lebron James is known for. In a community filled with disease, alcoholism, and depression, basketball heroes can play some remedial wonders on the reservation. It gives the community hope that maybe someday things will get better. I think that the people of the reservation see basketball players as heroes because they think that one day maybe those players will get out of the reservation and away from all the violence and alcohol that tears down most Indians. They want to live vicariously through the players since they know that they will most likely be stuck on the reservation for the rest of their lives.
Sherman Alexie's book covers many topics and themes including, alcoholism, poverty, basketball, violence, and many more. The importance of basketball and the players is shown throughout the whole book as a continuous theme representing heroism on the reservation. Throughout the novel, poverty and other tragedies of Indian life are portrayed as just another normal part of life. That is why when someone on the reservation has the potential to be a great basketball player and the potential to get out of poverty, people look up to them and hope for the best.
Michelle,
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I love your simile to Lebron James, who happens to be one of my favorite players. The heroes in the novel were basketball players, and I believe Alexie chose basketball players because they work together as a team, yet they all experience unique qualities within themselves as pointed out in Veronica's post. One thing you could have worked on is providing more textual evidence. The textual evidence that you provided supports your claim that he was the creator of basketball to the Native Americans, but what does it prove?
Even though basketball does involve stealing, what ideas of violence do you think could have played a part in the story "The Only Traffic Signal"? What were the meanings that basketball really expresses to the Indian population?
David
I think basketball might have another meaning to it as well. In"Indian Education," Victor talks about his playing basketball on page 179.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the book, there's a theme of white America vs. "Indian" America. I think maybe part of the reason why basketball is so important to the reservation is that it's one of the few ways Indians can be counted as equal to the whites who also play the game.
Thomas Builds-the-Fire's examples of "heroes" and "brave warriors" are all about Indians sticking it to the white guys, so maybe the physical struggle in basketball is the closest the reservations have, anymore (98-100).
I like that you point this out here, Serena. Basketball is obviously something that the Native Americans can stand up and say that they are good at...just as the white man can be. It is almost something Native Americans feel they can have pride in amongst everything falling down around them.
DeleteI cannot image feeling this way (having only basketball to look up and forward to), and it is sad that we as Americans did this to the Native Americans. We have college and professional careers, where as Native Americans have....well.....basketball. Why do they not want to break free from their stereotypical lifestyles and give their fellow people something to truly be proud of? At least in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, there seems to be very few (if any) other forms of heroism.
Good post Michelle but I do agree with David in that I do not understand how your textual evidence fit into your prompt? Perhaps it has something to do with Serena's comment on that it is a continuous battle to win over "white men"? In addition why do you think it is that no one leaves the reservation even though life is tough? There is no money on the reservation so why do they not go elsewhere? Why is it that only the basketball players can leave? What about scholarships given out for education?
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate that you point out the fact that Native Americans claimed to have been the ones who invented basketball. Just another one of the many set backs that have come between them and the population outside of the reservations. There is always an argument about something, always something to be made a fight of. Never can Americans and Native Americans reach a common ground. Besides this, what is really crazy is what Native Americans consider a hero, and what Americans consider a hero.
ReplyDeleteBy no means am I a NBA fanatic or anything, but I do not know of a professional Native American basketball player. (Then again, it may be because of oppression that they have be subjected to by whites.) I hope I'm not the only one who sees the discrepancy here. The rest of the reservation got so exited when one of their fellow Native Americans was good at basketball, so excited that they considered that person a hero. But did one of these players every rise to the level of "heroic", at least in the eyes of an American? Why don't the Native Americans ever get excited about things other than a good ball player, like an extremely bright student who had the potential to go to college?
Maybe we should look at Victor's story. In Indian Education, Victor describes his rise to valedictorian, but it was peppered with so many put-downs, I don't think it's a surprise he didn't end up going to college.
DeleteI'm sure his family and his family's friends got excited about how he was doing, where he could be headed, and all that goes along with those expectations, but maybe the letdown is what makes people stop paying attention. Maybe the fact that even if one or two people manage to get into college, the likelihood of them going isn't great. And even if they do go, will they be able to improve the lives of the people on the reservation?
Going to Jordan's post, I'd say that no, even if people do well for themselves and get out, it's not a win for anyone. Because, with each person that goes out into "white" dominated society, it's one less person to live and work and be a part of the tribe. Perhaps the point is that you can do well for yourself outside the reservation, but you can't help the reservation that way.
The Spokane reservation today is just recently getting damages assessed for the pollution caused by radioactive waste from Midnite Uranium Mine (which opened in the 50's). The people behind that battle are probably considered heroes, because they stayed within the reservation and served the community in some way.
Then again, I don't know. Maybe we're just really weak when it comes to what we were taught as kids. Do you think Victor (or Alexie) considered anyone else in the book a type of "hero?" How come?
With my textual evidence, I really just wanted to emphasize how the Native Americans believed that they were the ones who invented basketball, not the white men. Serena, I like how you pointed out that basketball was really the only thing in which the Native Americans could be seen as equals to the white men.
ReplyDeleteAnd Aryn I think that the Native American people never try and get off the reservation because it is tradition that they all stay with their family on the Reservation. Tradition has always been a huge part of life on the reservation and to break it would be seen as a very negative thing.
But do you think they are happy with they way they are living? Do you think that is why they all distance themselves from Thomas Builds-the-fire because he makes them realize that they have lost their way with his stories?
DeleteAwesome, Michelle! The line that really stood out to me was, " They want to live vicariously through the players since they know that they will most likely be stuck on the reservation for the rest of their lives." In a way, that is most certainly true. Not only was Julius a hero to the boys and the whole town, but he was the example that they all wanted to pride themselves in. It's like when you're the first person in your family to go to college, in most cases, your family is living their dreams through you. I think that is exactly whats going on here. They thought that maybe he was going to be the exception... but he wasn't.
ReplyDeleteI like your post Michelle, I just have some questions about your ending statement. "and hope for the best". I feel like it is so much more than that.
ReplyDeleteI was watching youtube videos, and I came across one that was truly interesting. I wish I would of came across it earlier, so that we could discuss it further. Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJdXX0BXWmI&feature=relmfu
I think it's cool. We have so many different interpretations about what basketball means, but I think it is truly eye opening to hear it from the source.
He says something that truly made me think. "Where whole communities would come. You could rob any community blind if they went to an away game, because everyone in the town was gone, including the Sheriff and the Deputy." This made me truly think. To me, this book had so many illustrations of oppression. I understand that there are various themes within the story. I just feel as if basketball was a fight against oppression. If someone made it to the "all-stars" so to speak, they were finally considered an equal to those that have always been portrayed as so different than them. For instance, an Spokane Indian who succeeded in basketball may have had the ability to gain respect from a white man. At the end of the day, equality has to start somewhere, and maybe that is in the bond of the game.
The word CONNECTION is used so much throughout this interview. I want everyone to think about what sports do. As Alexie said, it causes connection. We are all Red Raiders, we stand in those stands together. Besides the fact that we are college age and attend the same college? What else do we have in common? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. But we are all there for the same reason. Alexie says that watching a basketball game was the first time he ever saw his father cry.
For them, basketball is huge. For your average American white family, basketball can also be huge.
I think basketball has various themes within in this story, but it is much more than "hope for the best". I truly think it was what the Spokane Reservation saw as an integration of their people who have so long been oppressed. The whites treated them so horribly in the past, and American still oppresses them today. Sports. Someone somewhere else is reading about, cheering on, and relating to you and the team you love. Sometimes it may be all we have in common, and because it does not require us to express our personal life. It's the brink of connection. Do you think basketball may not only mean getting a way out? Maybe it means getting a way in. In a sense.