"Gyasi Ross’s work hits you between the eyes.

You’re cruising along, reading Don’t Know Much About Indians (but I wrote a book about us anyways), published this year by Cut Bank Creek Press. You’re thinking that the story or poem is going in one direction, when suddenly it takes a hairpin turn and you find yourself teetering on the edge of your initial set of conclusions, regaining your balance and reorienting your vision along with his.

As advertised, Ross decidedly does not know much about Indians—at least not the ones depicted in the books written about them by white academics who have studied them. He has opinions about them though. And he knows them, rather than knowing about them.

“I do not pretend to be an expert on Indian people. I do not want to be an expert on Indian people,” writes Ross, a contributor to Indian Country Today Media Network (and a Columbia Law School–educated attorney, to boot), in his prologue. “Heck, sometimes I do not even like Indian people. Sometimes I cannot stand Indian people.”"

Get the Story:
Gyasi Ross Doesn’t Know Much About Indians—Or So He Says (Indian Country Today 10/25)

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