Fresh Ink: An Anthology

The protagonist of “Don’t Pass Me By,” Doobie, is a seventh-grade student and is the story’s narrator. An Indigenous American from the nearby “Rez,” or reservation, he describes himself as having “a big hawky Indian nose, thick lips, and long black hair tied back in a sneh-wheh” (39). Standard practice at his school for other students from the Rez is to try to make themselves as “white” as possible, hiding their Indian heritage to fit in with the other students. Doobie recognizes that given his features, this isn’t possible, and he instead elects to keep to himself and even allow the other Indigenous American students to pretend that they don’t know him so that they can maintain the charade that they aren’t from the Rez. This conveys his level of emotional intelligence: He recognizes the situation around him, and he also shows the strength to isolate himself and take abuse on his own, allowing other kids from the Rez to pretend not to know him.

What Doobie experiences, both externally through bullying and isolation due to his heritage and internally as he struggles with how “white” everything is in his school, reflects internalized racism. He watches as his fellow Indigenous classmates erase their culture to fit in and consciously decides to let himself be mistreated and feel marginalized rather than become the trouble that his teachers and classmates expect him to be.