The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian Summary

Sherman Alexie wrote The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian to convey a mood by making its readers feel the anger and sadness that others who experience stereotypes feel and how that eventually results in implicit bias and prejudice. One harmful reality for Native Americans is implicit bias that has resulted from stereotypes. Implicit bias is a type of bias that influences judgments, how you act, and decisions even if it happens unknowingly(NIH). In chapter 1, “The Black-Eye-of-the-Month Club”, Juniors dentist gave him less pain meds because he believed that Indians felt less pain. To show how he felt about this and how the dentist said it, Junior wrote”Our white dentist believed that Indians felt less pain so he gave us half the

Alexie writes “Our white dentist believed that Indians felt less pain so he gave us half the novocain” and this shows how Indians are affected by this stereotype. This makes many people, including the readers, angry that people are treated this unfairly. He uses words like “Our dentist believed” to show that people actually believe that this stereotype is true even if they don’t have any evidence to back it up. This all shows how implicit bias is affected because even if people don’t have any evidence to back it up they still can believe that the stereotype Indians don’t feel pain is true. People believe this stereotype can affect many things like the medical care they receive. Another harmful reality for Native Americans is prejudice that has resulted from stereotypes. Prejudice is an opinion you have that isn’t supported by logic or any reasoning(Oxford). In chapter 12, “Slouching Toward Thanksgiving” Junior's teacher didn’t believe what Junior was saying and said that his reservation school didn’t have good academics/science. He sarcastically said that there is good science on the