Notebook prompt: "The grossness of what they're not acts like a stencil for what they are"

In the chapter "Knife Grinder," Jason Taylor gets a vivid picture of how the community of Black Swan Green is reacting to the Romany (or "Gypsy") people in their midst, as they debate the need for a law requiring the nomadic people to "register" with local authorities and hitch their trailers at an approved location. The meeting of the Village Camp Crisis Committee gives Jason's classmates' parents space to articulate their stereotypes and concerns about this local "crisis," and Jason observes that "the villagers wanted the Gypsies to be gross, so the grossness of what they're not acts as a stencil for what they are" (227). Later in the chapter, when he unexpectedly visits the Romany people in the quarry where they have chosen to "hitch" for the time being, Jason makes the same observation about how these people talk about the permanent residents of Black Swan Green: "Gypsies wanted the rest of us to be gross, so the grossness of what they're not acts as a stencil for what they are" (240).

How do you interpret this intriguing metaphor? What is Jason "saying" about how one community perceives (or misperceives) the other through this image of a "stencil" that is outlined by what "we" are not? In what ways do communities tend to define themselves by "othering" marginalized groups? And in what ways might marginalized groups tend to define themselves by "othering" the majority community? If these mirror-image statements from Jason represent his primary "takeaway" from this experience, what do you interpret that takeaway to be? What is Jason learning here about community, cultural conflict, pluralism, and mob mentality? And how does this stencil image help articulate those insights?

Please take 5 minutes now to ponder these questions in your notebook. Be prepared to share your ideas with your table group, and with the larger class.