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Editor's ViewpointMeditations Of A Minnesota Mossback |
Parting Ways With Oprah .Or Maybe Not
Once upon a time, I loved a book. I shared it with my dad and mom. They enjoyed it, too.
But last week, Oprah pulled "The Education of Little Tree" from her list of book picks.
Now, I admire Oprah. Not being a T.V. watcher, I don't think I've seen more than half an hour of her show - ever - but I have enjoyed many of her book selections.
She is a bright, compassionate, motivated woman and a great success story, but I was prepared to tell her we were going to have to agree to disagree about her recent decision to remove Forrest Carter's children's book from her list of recommended titles.
Oprah pulled what she described as a "very spiritual" and "loving" memoir because it was brought to her attention that the book, promoted as the real-life account of an orphaned boy brought up by his Cherokee grandparents, was actually written by a white supremacist - and not just any white supremacist, but Asa Carter, former Alabama governor George Wallace's speech writer - and a "Grade A" Ku Klux Klan member.
Who knew? Well, not his publishers, that's for sure. And I didn't, either, although I just discovered that this particular revelation is somewhat old news.
The award-winning book, promoted as non-fiction, first hit the stands in 1977. It was reprinted often. Apparently, suspicions about its authenticity surfaced after Carter died; Carter's brother was later quoted as saying the story was simply an exercise in "creative writing." Some have described it as one of the greatest literary hoaxes perpetuated in modern times.
I don't know about that, but I'd like to make one thing clear - I make absolutely no apologies for avowed racists in general, or Asa Carter in particular.
However, before I knew who wrote "The Education of Little Tree," I enjoyed the book -through reading it, I learned to look at the world through the eyes of a little boy who is discovering his rich ancestral heritage.
Unlike Oprah, who says she no longer feels the same about the tale, I couldn't imagine abandoning this story. I remembered it as a beautifully-crafted work, full of good lessons about love and life.
And, I figured, who am I to say that nothing good can come from wrong-minded people?
(Reminds me of the sign that used to hang in the loft at the Hugo Feed Mill: "No one is a complete waste. They can always serve as a bad example.")
I wondered, did Carter write this book as an act of redemption, atoning for his warped ideas?
After all, people who change can motivate us powerfully.
We invite former alcoholics into our high school gyms to tell our children their stories - of how their personal choices cut short the lives of others when they decided to get behind the wheel.
We read books like "A Million Little Pieces," James Frey's memoir about drug addiction (a book, by the way, that Oprah herself has debunked as also being extensively fabricated, but that still remains on her "pick" list), because there is something about probing the depths of human experience that instructs us.
I concluded that it's short-sighted to think that meaningful contributions cannot come from conflicted people. And then I re-read the book this past weekend.
There is a part of my brain that I like to turn off when I read a novel, but I couldn't this time. In re-reading "Little Tree," I found I was constantly weighing Carter's portrayals of Native Americans, wondering if his characterizations were flights of fancy - or the result of his racial biases.
Parts of it, however, were as good as I remembered, especially the parts about "The Way of the Cherokee," and how Little Tree learns from his grandfather to harvest the weak turkeys from the trap and release the strong ones, thus perpetuating nature's "natural selection" process.
It left me to wonder how an avowed white supremacist could pen such moving scenes - and to speculate what kind of truly significant contribution Carter could have made to society if he'd been the man he seemed to be on paper.