Brent Staples Ideas: Unsafe For A Black Man

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

African Americans are judged more for their race than for their self-perception. Brent Staples is an African American male who is treated unjustly for being black. In his story entitled “Black Men and Public Space”, he describes himself as “a softy who is scarcely able to take a knife to a raw chicken”, yet he is “often being taken for a criminal”. In his mind, he is a harmless man who could never cause harm to anyone. This is not how he is treated by others; instead other racially profile him as a dangerous man. For example, one night he is walking around the city due to his insomnia. A woman sees him walk her way, and she runs away. Obviously, she judged him based on his race instead of his personality. She believed that he was “a mugger, a rapist, or worse”. Staple is not the only black man to be discriminated against. In American, there are hundreds of stories about how blacks are discriminated against, especially by law enforcement officers. They claim to be stopped by police officers often for being black. This happens so often that it has been labeled “driving

The text begins by setting the scene with a description of where Staples interacted with his first victim. Staples innocently walks, “on a deserted street in ... a relatively affluent neighbourhood,” that is near an impoverished area. This may have been his first mistake, as a young black male at, “a broad six feet two inches with a beard and billowing hair,” walking in a wealthy neighbourhood alone at night can cause some trouble. A lot of the prejudice and racism towards black

In his article, staples uses personal facts to be able to connect with the audience that may have been through the same situations he has faced thought out his personal life and professional life. Staples states, “As I swung onto the avenue behind her, there seems to be a discreet, uninflammatory distance between us” (staples 1). His first encounter with discrimination was while he was walking in Chicago and seeing a young woman assume, based on race that he was going to harm her. This would not be the last time staples would feel discriminated against. When working in Chicago as a journalist, staples had yet another unfortunate instance being falsely labeled based on his race by law enforcement, “One day rushing into the office of a magazine I was writing for with a deadline story in hand, I was mistaken as a burglar” (Staples 2). Solely based on the color of his skin Brent faced racial profiling for simply entering the building where he worked at and being mistaken for a burglar. In the many stories Staples writes about his goal is to

In the essay, "Black Men and Public Space" by Brent Staples, the main idea states that the main character, whose name was unknown, gave a negative perception to the general public by the way he looked. Staples goes on to say that the unknown character could cross in front of a car stopped at a traffic light and hear the hammering of door locks as people were scared of the possibility that he might approach them. The author says that the character moved to New York and often saw women who would fear the worst in him. Staples writes about how one of the character’s worst moments was when he worked as a journalist in Chicago, he was mistaken for a burglar. Concluding the essay, Staples describes how the character comes up with the idea to imitate

We probably know discrimination occurs in any situation, anywhere. I think discrimination depends on individual reasons or social problems because everything around us can make us fall prey to discrimination. Today, we know discrimination of race is unlawful, but it is still existent in some people, and it gets skillfully concealed under some form, or another. For example, in the essay “Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public” by Brent Staples, the author is a black man. He explains a few encounters in which he has been a victim of discrimination because of his skin color. I love America, because this country includes many different races; it makes me think of the beautifully-diverse prairie flowers. I thought

He is a successful and educated graduate student from the University of Chicago. Firsthand he experiences discrimination from a woman as staples described her "my first victim" (613). People are always biased when they approach him because they feel threatened. People have the wrong impression of him even though is very smart and soft person. For this reason, Staples comes to a realization and say's "I now take precautions to make myself less threatening" (615). He has to change his daily lifestyle so he could fit in society. Staples states that he understands why his intended audience may fear him is because he is black, tall and intimidating. He also shows a sympathy when he says "Women are particularly vulnerable to street violence, and young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of that violence"

Brent Staples memoir "Just Walk on By" is a short powerful story of what his daily life is like as a black man in America. Staples works for the New York Times as an editorial writer and also an author. He has written two books, the first a memoir named Parallel Time: Growing up In Black and White and second called An American Love Story (wikipedia.org). He is a well-educated man who not only received his BA in behavioral science but also continued his education as far as receiving his Ph.D. in psychology (thehistorymakers. org). Due to his successes, it makes his memoir more shocking to see that despite his life accomplishments, he still struggles in a world that has racial stigmas. Brent Staples is a great example of how to write a memoir due to his organization of the text, literary devices, and his use of rhetorical appeals. In the following essay, these rhetorical strategies Staples uses will be broken down further to show why his essay is a strong mentor text.

Staples starts his piece by talking about an experience with a white woman while walking in Hyde Park, which was a “relatively affluent neighborhood in an otherwise mean, impoverished section of Chicago,” (Staples 542). His description of how the woman reacts to him- worriedly glancing behind her at him before running off, scared- contrasts with how Staples describes himself: a shy, kind black man who isn’t one for violence, like many might perceive him to be. This contributes to his ethos, as it gives the reader a taste of what it is like to be a black man, which will be handy when Staples delves even further into his experiences as a black man, giving the reader a look into what he experiences daily. This also lets the

The essay "Black Men and Public Space" written by Brent Staples displays racism and stereotyping toward black men by the way people perceive them and how they are treated in public. Staples writes how people, especially women, are scared and threatened by him by the way the act while he is around them. This essay shows how judgmental society can be and how race can affect how people treat others. I think that Staples uses his own experiences so that people can see what he goes through and to try to make people understand that everyone should be treated equally.

In his essay, "Black Man and Public Space," Brent Staples describes the discrimination he has had to face due to the stereotypes that go with being a black man in society. In the first paragraph, Staples recalls an instance when he was walking late at night and his appearance caused a frightening encounter amongst a young white woman. The women felt distraught by his presence and ran off thinking he was going to harm her. Staples still remembers this incident that happened more than a decade ago, proving that it still hurts and frustrates him to this day the fact that people falsely judge a person based solely on their appearance. The first paragraph draws the readers into reading more about the authors piece by expressing sympathy for the issues that people suffer due to racism. The narrator is not a dangerous man, he is a fine, respectable person who has a PhD in psychology from the university of Chicago. However, the horrible phenomena that is widely

In the short story “Black Men in Public Spaces” by Brent Staples, Brent explains his life of being an unknown black man in a public space. Brent focuses his passage on the negativity he receives from the other ethnic groups. He illuminates their reactions of anger and fear. In the short story “Strangers in The Village” by James Baldwin, Baldwin explains his amusing emotion to the prejudice comments that are being made about him. Baldwin’s emotions were positive and humorous. Though both authors encounter prejudice actions and comments about their race, their responses to the situations were different.

Brent Staples clearly argues that racism was a factor in his society that was an issue. By using ethos, Staples creates his credibility through personal examples. For example, “My first victim was a woman-white...As I swung onto the avenue behind her,, there seemed to be a discreet, uninflammatory distance between us” (Staples 542). This supports the message by displaying the distance between whites and blacks. This distance Brent Staples felt was through that he was black; she was white. The gap between races was not

In the essay “Black Men and Public Space,” Brent Staples explains how people showed alienation towards him and he found ways to be less threatening to the people. Brent Staples is a twenty-year-old graduate student from the University of Chicago. He says the people around him see him as a bad influence because he is black. For example, people judge him in many ways such as a mugger, a rapist, and a robber. In his surroundings, he tells us people saw him as dangerous and frightening. In addition, Staples illustrates “language of fear” when women are scared of him being on the streets. In public places people illustrates him differently like mistaken for a burglar and showing discrimination. Staples shows how he learned to take precautions

Brent Staples uses imagery to convey the message of the detrimental effects of stereotypes that exist within a society upon all of the members of that society. The imagery that Staples uses in his essay Black Men and Public Space allows the reader to sympathize with the main character who has been stereotyped by the society he lives in as a criminal due to his race, and also with other individuals who have been stereotyped in any society, to a much greater extent. Staples uses imagery to give the reader a visual and psychological appearance of the narrator, show the emotional changes caused by stereotyping and describe relatable examples to the reader to allow the reader to contemplate on the message of his essay.