Black Men And Public Spaces

In Brent Staples’ "Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space," Staples describes the issues, stereotypes, and criticisms he faces being a black man in public surroundings. Staples initiates his perspective by introducing the audience in to thinking he is committing a crime, but eventually reveals how the actions taken towards him are because of the fear linked to his labelled stereotypes of being rapists, gangsters and muggers. Staples continues to unfold the audience from a 20 year old experience and sheds light onto how regardless of proving his survival compared to the other stereotypical blacks with his education levels and work ethics being in the modern era, he is still in the same plight. Although Staples relates such burdens

In “Black Men and Public Spaces”, Brent Staples is in his early twenties and is faced with the menacing crime of being a black man in the 1970’s. As Staples likes to walk the streets at night due to his insomnia, every stranger that comes close enough to realize that he’s a tall black man lets their fear take control of them as they avoid him to the point of fleeing. To the eyes of people (mainly women) at night, he was no different from any other thug or criminal who prowls the street. Having moved to New York, and growing accustomed to being perceived as a threat, Staples learned to properly give people their space to intimidate them less as he walks the streets. Despite being a journalist, he has even had security called in on him at a

Brent Staples, author of “Just Walk on By: Black Man in Public Space.” discusses when the white woman he comes across one day late at night was constantly turning back as if she feared him for the way he looked. Brent highlights racism that has occurred to him during the 1970s. This encounter happened in an impoverished part of Chicago; he describes himself as a “youngish black man--a broad six feet two inches with a beard and billowing hair, both hands shoved into the pockets of a bulky military jacket” as he was walking late at night he did not understand why this woman was acting strange as if she feared him, and she

In Brent Staples’ “Just Walk On By: Black Men and Public Space” he forces women to recognize the feeling of estrangement from the surrounding public that he has endured. He first took notice at the age of twenty two, when his own self-judgement resulted from scaring a woman when solely walking at night near his college, the University of Chicago. He maintained his dejected attitude when he wrote that a few years later, his own work mistook him for a thief instead of a journalist. Brent Staples heightened his frustration by mentioning a black male journalist who was blamed as a killer in a murder, instead of the writer reporting it. In portraying two versions of his story, he proves that this was a rather common and difficult occurrence for not only him, but others of his race. To attempt to resolve this, he decided to attempt to cross the street or sing classical songs to portray innocence. In this article, Staples’ forces his audience to encounter the hypocrisy in which all black men are dangerous. He concluded the essay with the realization that you can't change what people think, only attempt to show them who you are. Brent Staples appeals to the audience through his emotionally charged language with the use of his experiences with unconscious prejudice.

Staple’s “Black Men in Public Spaces” and Rae’s “The Struggle” address misperceptions with ethnicity. Staples and Rae share similar circumstances making it easy to understand each viewpoint. Culture settings and gender define the authors’ differences. Both essays give the readers different perceptions of African Americans’ lives.

Fueled by fear and ignorance, racism has corrupted the hearts of mankind throughout history. In the mid-1970’s, Brent Staples discovered such prejudice toward black men for merely being present in public. Staples wrote an essay describing how he could not even walk down the street normally, people, especially women, would stray away from him out of terror. Staples demonstrates his understanding of this fearful discrimination through his narrative structure, selection of detail, and manipulation of language.

The black men throughout history has always had a negative perceived image of them by those in power. The idea that one’s skin give others pre-deceived notions about them. Stereotypes of black people only illustrates them as negative things in a society. The strong perpetuated stereotypes of black people create a fear based off their image. Staples states his experience “She cast back a worried glance. To her,

Over the years, our generations’ stereotypical views over the issue on young black males being viewed as dangerous has grown significantly. There are different reasons why these stereotypes occur in our society. People feel on edge when running into them in dark passageways, whenever it’s late at night. Also, while they’re sitting at red lights and notice someone walking towards their cars, they instantly initiate down the door locks. People think stereotyping black men this way keeps them safer because they assume the worst. However; other people disagree with instantly judging who they see around them, it hurts more people as well as themselves by viewing black men this way. Brent Staples, the author of “Black Men and Public Spaces,” claims that he’s considered a stereotypical black criminal. In his essay, Staples succeeds because he successfully appeals to people’s emotions, is an expert on human behavior, creates common ground and offers a logical solution.

In Brent Staples’ "Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space," Staples describes the issues, stereotypes, and criticisms he faces being a black man in public surroundings. Staples initiates his perspective by introducing the audience into thinking he is committing a crime, but eventually reveals how the actions taken towards him are because of the fear linked to his labelled stereotypes of being rapists, gangsters and muggers. Staples continues to unfold the audience from a 20 year old experience and sheds light onto how regardless of proving his survival compared to the other stereotypical blacks with his education levels and work ethics being in the modern era, he is still in the same plight. Although Staples relates such burdens through his personal experiences rather than directly revealing the psychological impacts such actions have upon African Americans with research, he effectively uses emotion to explain the social effects and challenges they have faced to avoid causing a ruckus with the “white American” world while keeping his reference up to date and accordingly to his history.

In the short essay, “Black Men in Public Space” written by Brent Staples, discusses his own experiences on how he is stereotyped because he is an African American and looks intimidated in “public places” (Staples 225). Staples, an intelligent man that is a graduate student at University of Chicago. Due to his skin complexity, he is not treated fairly and always being discriminated against. On one of his usual nightly walks he encountered a white woman. She took a couple glances at him and soon began to walk faster and avoided him that night. He decided to change his appearance so others would not be frightened by his skin color. He changed the way he looked and walked. Staples dressed sophisticated to look more professional so no

Brent Staples “Black Men and Public Space” is a look at how people perceive black people in the 1960s. Staples explains how people would treat him on a day to day basis. Even when he was a child he would be looked at differently because of his color. He quickly establishes ethos, logos and pathos credibility tough the many examples. This article shows the injustices done to him while living in New York. Brent Staples Black Men and Public Space uses pathos, ethos, and logos effectively throughout the essay.

As a target of racism and prejudice, Brent Staple wrote Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space. Throughout this essay he explains his personal experience in public spaces and the stereotypes he has faced. Since society has deeply embedded their views of “blacks,” just their presence induces fear and causes unnecessary feelings and emotions to arise. Staples presents no anger in his decision to alter his actions and his appearance to ease those around him despite his skin tone. Societal views on blacks are based on reputations as a whole and not on each individual person, Staples presents this through the uses of point of view, ethos, and pathos.

Brent Staples is an author and editorial writer for the New York Times. His writing is mostly on political issues, cultural issues and controversies including races. In one of his essay written in 1986 which was published in Ms. Magazine “Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space,” Brent Staples explains about his personal experience being black in an American society. Author wants his reader to understand that we are living in a culture with is constantly becoming violent and dangerous. Staples in his essay is gathering sympathy from his audience. He explains his thesis throughout the essay describing different incidents which took place in his life. Staples wants his audience to know how racial stereotypes has affected him as well as many other peoples like him and forced him to change so that he is not misunderstood by people and can prove himself fearless for others.

Author and editorial writer for the New York Times, Brent Staples, skillfully uses both his educational and racial background to exemplify and reflect on the harrowing times black men faced during the mid-1900’s. Growing up the oldest of 9 in 1951, he pushed himself through primary schooling and against the predications of most, was accepted into college where he earned his B.A, and eventually, a coveted Ph.D. His anthology of literary works focus on politics and cultural issues and popularly include, Parallel Time: Growing up in Black and White, which won the Anisfield Wolf Book Award, An American Love Story, and the piece in mention, Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space.

In Brent Staples’ life, he has had many life experiences dealing with racism and has experienced racism first hand. Relaying these personal experiences is what he chose to write about in his essay. A life experience that Brent Staples shared is, “My first victim was a woman - white, well dressed, probably in her early twenties. I came upon her late one evening on a deserted street in Hyde Park, a relatively affluent neighbourhood in an otherwise mean, impoverished section of Chicago…. She cast back a worried glance. To her, the youngish black man – a broad six feet two inches with a beard and billowing hair, both hands shoved into he pockets of a bulky military jacket-seemed menacingly close. After a few more quick glimpses, she picked up her pace and was soon running in earnest. Within seconds she disappeared into a cross street.” (Staples