sherman alexie, i really enjoyed this time with you. ank you very much for sharing it. >> thank you, thank you. >> sherman alexei will be joining us at our website, billmoyers.com, for a live web chat this coming tuesday, that's april 16th, at 1pm, eastern time. you can submit your questions on the website or at our facebook page. i'll see you there and i'll see you here, next time. >> announcer: don't wait a week to get more moyers. visit billmoyers.com for exclusive blogs,s says and video features. this episode of missouris & company is available on dvd for $19.95. to order call 1 hf-800-336-1917 write to the address on your screen. >> announcer, funding is provided by, carnegie corporation of new york, celebrating 100 years of philanthropy, and committed to doing real and permanent good in the world. the kohlberg foundation. independent production fund, with support from the partridge foundation, a john and polly guth charitable fund. the clements foundation. park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issue

let's talk now with sherman alexie.e comes from a long line of people who have lived the consequences of inequality, native americans, the first americans. they were the target of genocide, ethnic cleansing, which for years was the hidden history of america, kept in the closet by the authors and enforcers of white mythology. how do you grapple with such a long deed history? if you are sherman alexie, you face it down with candor and even irreverence, writing poems, novels, and short stories, and even movies. here's a clip from "smoke signals" that alexie wrote and co-produced in 1998, >> "you got to look mean or people won't respect you. white people will run all over you if you don't look mean. you got to look like a warrior. you got to look like you just came back from killing a buffalo." buffalo." >> but our tribe never hunted buffalo, we were fishermen. >> what? you want to look like you just came back from catching a fish? this ain't "dances with salmon," you know. >> alexie has published 22 books of poetry and fic