Guest Opinion: Politically correct critics twist story of basketball champs

By HAPPY JACK FEDER

In the 1960s, Stan Lynde's comic strip "Rick O'Shay" featured wily, colorful Indians of the (fictional) Kyute tribe, always outwitting would-be pale-face exploiters at their own game.

Organized protesters demanded the Kyutes be pulled from the strip. On advice from the syndicate that owned and distributed "Rick O'Shay," Lynde (an adopted member of the Crow tribe, who enjoyed the Kyute characters) reluctantly agreed to the politically correct demands.

A March 11 guest opinion criticized my novel "Shoot, Minnie, Shoot!," (www.bigskystories.com, $14.95, 164 pages), on the same flawed premises used to blackmail Stan Lynde's "Rick O'Shay".

Beneficial Indian school

Just as certain fanatical Muslims want to forbid Danish cartoonists drawing pictures of Muhammad, the politically motivated authors of the opinion piece want to forbid me, on the premise that I'm Caucasian, from writing about Indians. And, they don't want you, the reader, to know that some Indians had pleasant, beneficial experiences at Indian schools.

The subject of "Shoot, Minnie, Shoot!" is the amazing and true story of Montana's 1904 Girls Basketball Team from the Fort Shaw Federal Indian School. With their speed and ferocity, the team crushed every opponent with scores of 22-1, 24-2. After the games, they charmed audiences by singing, dancing, reciting poetry.

In the summer of 1904, they lived at the St. Louis World's Fair, performing and playing daily for people from all over the world and winning the title "First World Champions." American Indians never had better ambassadors.

In more than a hundred years, "Shoot, Minnie, Shoot!" is the very first telling not only of the story of Indian girls mastering a white man's game and winning the hearts of the white world, but of certain Indians who enjoyed and benefitted from federal Indian schools. One 1904 Fort Shaw student became the first editor of The American Indian Journal and wrote glowingly of Fort Shaw Indian School. The novel doesn't deny the bad Indian school experiences and readers will easily find dozens of such published accounts.

Neglected history

Both white and Indian readers have responded enthusiastically to the exciting story and its inspiring message. Granddaughters of the original players have wept in thanking me for writing it. Basketball coaches have bought copies for every member of their teams. Many have written in thanks for providing insight into a surprising and neglected chapter of American history.

Yet the gloomy, pessimistic critics say "Shoot, Minnie, Shoot!" is "dangerous" because it presents a truth they don't want revealed. In clever academic coding of blatant racism, they say that I, a white man, an outsider apart from Indian culture, have no right to tell this story. As Lynde had no right to portray Indians in "Rick O'Shay." As Danes, now under penalty of death, have no right to portray a religious figure.

Do these dour critics tell aspiring Indian writers they are culturally, racially and intellectually incapable of writing a novel based on the life of, say, Martin Luther King or Jane Austen?

Imagine a white teacher saying that to an Indian student.

Yet certain self-proclaimed protectors of Indians don't want anyone, white or Indian, to know that Indians have and can accomplish great things. For surely the story of Montana's 1904 Indian girls overcoming their status as second-class citizens has and will continue to inspire generations of young people -- of all colors -- to accomplish other great things, against great and seemingly impossible odds.

To some, that positive message is the dangerous message of "Shoot, Minnie, Shoot!"

Happy Feder lives in Helena, Email Happy Feder

Link to Report

Special thanks to Bea Woodard for the lead!

Contents

March 2006 Reports

Last updated on March 24, 2006