Born to Run Heros the Tarahumara are in serious trouble

Well we found a way to get every a-hole in the LR community to post. Impressive.

Terrible news, for sure. Hopefully, they can find some resources or get some aid. Mexican, for the author's sake, not "Indian."

teeeeeebow wrote:

you know how to stop the drug cartels? stop doing drugs AMERICA!

How about legalize 'em, America? Vote Ron Paul and save the Tarahumara!

The Kenyans are involved somehow

Deception is the only felony wrote:

How can you even ask that?

The guy turned them into a caricature - The wise, and noble savages whose "primitive" and "natural" ways can be hocked to affluent "civilized" people . Then he proceeded to make a career talking about what these "savages" taught him. The guy is disgusting.

rojo wrote:

Ca[n] you please elaborate how he exploited their culture?

You're wrong about the caricature. I would have agreed with you after reading the book once. I taught it in a course here at Ole Miss ("The Literatue and Culture of Running") and read it several more times, closely. McDougall actually deploys primitivist rhetoric early in BORN TO RUN when he first invokes the Tarahumara, but he's doing that self-consciously, as a way of setting up his later, and considerably deeper, investigation of what they're about. By the end he's made it clear that El Caballo is staging a reunion of sorts, in his first big race, between an ultrarunning subculture of sorta-kooks (and somewhat serious and misunderstood people, too) and runners from an Indian tribe who share some, though not all, of the same values. El Caballo is the bridge; he's the kook who has gone native. But he's also a complex guy who, despite McDougall's prone-ness to caricature, ends up emerging as a fairly complex guy.

So yes, McDougall does initially depict them as the guardians of the fountain of youth crossed with the ultimate frat party, but he gives all that a chance to fade away into the fellowship of the race.

To answer Rojo's question, he exploited their culture by mythologizing them in less than truthful fashion. Little of his portrayal had any factual basis. He fed the fairy tale to his own end-- selling more books.

Is he responsible for their situation now? Of course not.

And of course El Caballo, aka Micah True, is a complex guy. I hope I made his complexness clear. I'm prone to redundantly repeating myself, iteratively.

the best part about it is that his research and time spent with them was funded by guess whom.....Vibram!

It sounds like the Mexican Government have it under control. Mexico is not a poor, war torn country like Ethiopia was.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't help. But conditions in running mad Ethiopia and Eritrea are far, far worse.

I'd bet my left nut, which incidentally I don't need anymore, that 90+% of the people who are taking a dump on McVibram enjoyed reading the book despite its obvious flaws.

Why are they heroes, exactly ?

The drug traffickers drove them deep into Copper Canyon. Readers who used drugs supported the tarahumaras' oppression.

Looks like help is on the way, but of course it took the people to initiate it. The Mexican (like the United States) government is especially neglectful of it's indigenous community. Once again the power of the internet is being shown though, in the past this sort of thing probably would've been ignored completely.

teamdoc wrote:

I'd bet my left nut, which incidentally I don't need anymore, that 90+% of the people who are taking a dump on McVibram enjoyed reading the book despite its obvious flaws.

I notice most people seem to think it's cool to not like the book. I enjoyed every page!

Glad the Tarahumara are getting help.

Kudzurunner does an excellent job of explaining the literary reasons for McDougall's story-telling methods. His book has reached far beyond the small (sometimes minded) running community and to the masses. I don't agree that he exploited their culture for purely selfish reasons. Would you say the same for Hemingway with cubans or for Faulkner with southerners? Each author uses his style to transfer the story. That's not exploitive, it's creative. Like it or not, Born to Run has changed the running community substantially. I see nothing wrong with offering to help these people the way Caballo Blanco and Will Harlan do and the governments are trying to do now.

Mexico is not a poor country. It needs to save its own peoples. It's not the only nation that needs to get its priorities straight. Help yourself first and then let others help if it's needed/wanted.

Junk Master wrote:

To answer Rojo's question, he exploited their culture by mythologizing them in less than truthful fashion. Little of his portrayal had any factual basis. He fed the fairy tale to his own end-- selling more books.

How so? I'm inclined to trust the guy who actually wrote the book rather than you, unless you enlighten me as to the true nature of the Tarahumara.

teeeeeebow wrote:

you know how to stop the drug cartels? stop doing drugs AMERICA!

Legalize drugs America. Put the cartels out of business. Grow it here, sell it here, tax it here. Just like tobacco and alcohol. Keep kids from using, but if grown adults want to do it, so be it.

Too bad about the Tarahumara. I do wonder how much McDougall has personally donated to help them. No doubt he made several million from the book.