Sherman Alexie's Flight Patterns

Barrett Wright

Dr. Price

ENC1101

15 September 2014

“We're All Trapped by Other People's Ideas, Aren't We?”

Plaguing the minds of civilized populations throughout the world, racial stereotyping is a socially imposed norm that looks to categorize people based on generalizations of subjective evaluations. This behavior causes us to be quick to label, and sometimes even write off individuals we never even meet. Fortunately, these mostly inaccurate interpretations often fail us when we realize the actual depth of every human life. Residing within the racially gorged dialogue between the main character and the taxi driver in Sherman Alexie’s, Flight Patterns” is the following declaration: “I have a story about contradictions” (Alexie 58). William, a Native American Indian businessman, serves as the short story’s protagonist who is initially characterized as somewhat racist and confined by his negative perceptions of his life and other people. An intimate encounter with an Ethiopian cab driver challenges his harsh viewpoints and habitual racial stereotyping, calling us to reconsider our own

stereotyping tendencies.
The first contradicting stereotype Alexie presents is his characterization of William; portrayed as a natural Native American Indian turned American, workaholic breadwinner.

Wasting no time, Alexie literally begins his short story with this contradictory stereotype. Alexie expresses of William: “He was an enrolled member of the Spokane Indian tribe, but he was also a full recognized member of the notebook-computer tribe and the security-checkpoint tribe and the rental-car tribe, and the hotel-shuttle-bus tribe and the cell-phone-roaming-charge-tribe” (Alexie 53), highlighting the supposedly contrary lives and depictions of these two “types” of people, both categorizations of which William falls under. Any stereotyping of him that is imposed by the reader is quickly arrested with our interpersonal experience with William that Alexie provides us, allowing us to literally read his

mind.
Existing in parallel to the angry Native American is the stereotype of the African American man as a victim of his circumstances. Fekadu is an Ethiopian taxi driver who entertains William with his life-tale as an Oxford-educated fighter pilot who defected after a soldier’s moral dilemma, leaving his wife and children to be potentially killed. Fekadu proudly contends that Ethiopia has never been conquered by “white people,” and yet he continues by admitting that he was a “coward for leaving” (Alexie 59-60). Fekadu drives a taxi in Seattle because returning home would be dangerous, with “too much history and pain” (Alexie 60). In attempting to frame Fekadu as a brave man who had the courage to leave a life in which he was forced to kill innocent people, Alexie fortifies the stereotype of the Black man as victim of social immobility. Fekadu has made no attempt to go home to see his family and is apparently contented to drive a taxicab in Seattle for the “rest of his days” (Alexie 59).
Another element Alexie uses to contradict stereotypes is through William and Fedaku’s similarities. William and Fekadu are able to relate with one another because they have both faced similar problems dealing with pain, hope, fear, family, and race. William hates to leave his family to go on business trips and his family hates when he leaves. It pains William to do so because he is always afraid something bad might happen to them while he is gone. Fekadu feels the same pain and fear for having to leave his family behind when he fled Ethiopia. They both struggle daily with this, but prior to their meeting, William never would have thought that he’d have a single thing in common with his African American taxi cab driver.
Native American writer, Sherman Alexie, challenges stereotypes in his work, “Flight Patterns”. Not only are Native American and African American stereotypes disputed throughout the work, a connection is made between the main characters and the reader. This connection allows for not only for the protagonist, William’s, interpersonal growth, but for the readers’ as well, as we are forced to come to terms with truth: regardless of race, age, gender, nationality, and religion, we all have our own unique story.

Works Cited
Alexie, Sherman. “Flight Patterns.” The Norton Introduction to Literature.
Eds. Alison Booth and Kelly J. Mays. 10th ed. New York: Norton, 2010 Print.