Racial Profiling

The short story “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” was almost odd for me to read. The author’s writing style was different from stories that not only we have read in class, but outside and in other classes I have read. It was a breath of fresh air to read this. It was smooth, fast, and easy to read, and yet was full of dialogue and comments that made you stop, think, and re-read it again. I think the narrator’s cynical tone made the fictional story seem even darker, using descriptive words to create images of death and violence, especially in his dream about the Indians playing basketball with a woman’s head. I also thought that the lamp breaking in the fights with his ex-girlfriend was such a small detail that made the story show his character, one full of frustration and anger not only in his relationships, but in his identity and trying to fit in and assimilate into American culture. His tone was not only cynical, but saddening. The anonymous narrator made it seem as though he could not accomplish anything in his life. He was a college drop-out, became an alcoholic and could no longer play basketball well enough, and could not maintain a job well enough. However, through this sad and cynical language, the narrator seemed as though he were lying in some parts of the story. When the cop pulls him over and discriminates against him because of his skin, it sounds as though it were made up. Would a cop really say that to a person? Would a worker at 7-11 be that cautious of somebody with darker skin? Although the narrator is giving the reader this information, it’s hard to tell if he is being serious or merely making fun of the way people behave and act around those with different skin tones than their own. It makes you wonder, does this type of racial profiling still exist to this extremity? Or are we merely listening to a biased, unreliable narrator voice his cynical opinions through stories?