Othering in Alexie and the Classroom Othering

Othering in Alexie and the Classroom

Othering in Alexie and classroom

Otherness describes a relationship that is imposed by dominant groups with the power to define who is undesirable or lower-status. This a power relationship where the dominant members justify their own privilege even if the power group is the minority, with a classic example in South African Apartheid where a white minority kept the wealth, power and legal decision-making status for themselves even though they were far outnumbered. Othering by males against females provides a more balanced example where domination results in different pay for equal work; different social roles and different unpaid work expectations for example.

Most often however, stigmatization takes place by dominant groups against minorities where the dominant majority designates itself the norm, and then enacts values the minority group can never share. This allows the dominant group to assign others temporary privileges, but if the identifying stigma is visible at all times, this temporary privilege can be revoked at any time. This allows any dominant member the right to put the other "in their place" because they can never transcend the stigma. These relationships become institutionalized through law, tradition, and ultimately result in "reverse racism" or individual and group self-identification with the stigma as taken for granted and unwanted, but inescapable and appropriate.

B, C. Othering in Sherman Alexie's "This Is What It Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona" takes place on multiple dimensions between individuals, by groups to individuals, and by groups to other groups. Groups labeled 'other' impose that status on individuals even within their own membership. Not all dominant-culture individuals discriminate this way, and the status as other can be suspended when dominant-group insiders find that useful. These relationships are focused most intensely in Alexie's character Thomas Builds-the-Fire, in relation to the protagonist Victor, and between both these individuals relative to the groups they participate in or are shut out of.

On the widest level, both men and Victor's dead father are marginalized by the dominant society as part of a total group that includes all the Indians in the story at least. They live in fact on a reservation, a place set aside for Indians. This 'other' status runs so deep that even if a tribal member dies, sometimes the only reason anyone notices is by the smell a week later (Alexie, 1993, p. 68). All the Indians are victims of this designation as "them" by the dominant group. Not all hegemonic-group members actively persecute them, as the encounter with "Cathy" demonstrates, but this is because they were temporarily members of a transitional group 'people on an airplane,' where "everybody talks to everybody" and this is not the norm, although Victor wishes it was (Alexie, 1993, p. 67).

Within their larger stigmatized group, the other Indians treat the two men in different ways. Victor was a member of the dominant group, those with some kind of income, but Thomas was stigmatized by the other Natives as 'crazy.' This forces Victor to overlook Thomas' status as "other" while he is necessary in resolving the unfinished business of collecting his father's remains. Thomas is really a member of another stigmatized group, "dusty" elders, by his telling of stories (Alexie, 1993, p. 65). Thomas' peers hate him because he had the courage to act toward his dream, but he also represents the traditional native culture through this tie to the elders, to Victor's father, and by his learning and inventing stories in the traditional style.

Thomas's obligation to look over Victor (Alexie, 1993, p. 70) also ties him with the traditional culture the elders are closer to. What this symbolizes is the stigma youth imposes on their elders once they are no longer of use to the newly dominant generation. Since the father's obligation to Thomas was that the young "take care of each other" (Alexie, 1993, p. 61), this is also a rejection of each other. But Thomas demands Victor pay attention to the traditional ways, if only once over the rest of his life. The modern generation represented by Victor feels ashamed to have lost their community (Alexie, 1993, p. 74) by throwing away what they see as useless, dusty old stories even though those are what gives Thomas the power to live out dreams Victor has never been able to achieve by his own choice (Alexie, 1993, p. 74).