The Recognition of Racism

The main aspect of "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven", written by Sherman Alexie, which I found to be the most interesting was the perception of the narrator.  In two specific scenes, the narrator focuses on both his perception of people as well as the perception of people around him.  The first scene in which the narrator acts this way is when he walks into the 7-11 late at night to get a Creamsicle.  As a Native American, the narrator seems to instinctively act defensive toward any person of the opposite race.  The store clerk asks the narrator if he needs any help with anything while he's looking around, immediately sparking thoughts in the narrator's mind about how nervous the clerk is about this Native American man walking around his store.  While the narrator's mind is swimming with thoughts of racial intolerance, it is important to notice that the clerk says nothing out of the ordinary to the man.  The number of times I've been in a convenient store late at night, the clerk always asks if I need any help because I'm usually one of the few, if not the only, person in there and he wants to get me out.  When the clerk rings up the narrator, the narrator asks for a slurpee as well and, when the clerk turns around, the narrator says that his body noticeably stiffens once he realizes that he has left his back exposed to the narrator.  I found this thought by the narrator to be particularly ridiculous because he, once again, is assuming that the clerk is made nervous by his presence.

The second scene is when the narrator is out driving late around a neighborhood when he is stopped by a police officer.  The officer states that the narrator should leave the neighborhood because he is making the residents nervous due to him being Native American.  This statement, unlike the assumptions made by narrator himself about the thoughts of the store clerk, is actually racist because it singles out the fact that he is Native American as being the reason for making the neighborhood's residents nervous.  While I recognize the racial issues behind the police officer's statement, if you take out the mention of the narrator's race being Native American, the statement is pretty common.  The neighborhood I live in now, as well as the neighborhoods around me, all call the police whenever they see a car that they don't know, especially if someone is just driving around aimlessly.  While I may be from a closely-knit community, I find it to be commonplace for the police to be called for this type of thing.  Yet, I do recognize the fact that the officer's statement was racist and, unlike the store clerk, there is verbal evidence of racial stereotyping toward the narrator.