Brent Staples In Just Walk On Analysis

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

Staples begins to relate to his audience members when he tells them of the time he got mistaken for a burglar in his own office building (544). The security guard of the building has most likely seen him dozen of times as he entered the building. Nonetheless, the one time Staples enters the building, he is mistaken for a criminal. With this, Staples humanizes himself by telling the audience that he too has faced discrimination. The audience no longer thinks that he is some entitled person that has never faced persecution,but another member of the growing population of minorities that has dealt with the problems that have cast down upon them. Furthermore, Staples continues with his use of emotional appeal when he mentions that he has buried a “teenage cousin”, a “brother of twenty-two”, and a “childhood friend in his mid twenties” (543). Staples describes these friends and family as kids, making the audience feel even more sympathy due to the fact that their lives were taken away at such a young age. Credibility is also gained with this because readers understand that Staples has dealt with violence for a majority of his life or they may have also lost loved ones due to similar reasons. An unlikely expert, Staples refers to Norman Podhoretz and how black people are the reason for the fear that

In “Just Walk on By” by Brent Staples, the author uses pathos and ethos to get across his message on how subconscious racism and prejudice is still prevalent in today’s society. His main focus is the stereotypes, and the struggles as a result of those stereotypes, that black men have to deal with in society consistently that can affect daily life in ways that many don’t tend to consider.

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.

Staples starts the essay writing about how his skin color has a negative change on the public perspective. “Black Men in Public Spaces,” written in December 1986 by Brent Staples, tells about his life in Illinois as a frequent “night walker.” He starts

Through manipulation of language, Staples demonstrates his comprehension of the effect this discrimination had on innocent black males. Since he has had firsthand experience in this matter, Staples discerns his situation as an “unwieldy inheritance” with “the ability to alter public space in ugly ways.” Clearly, Staples feels as if he was cursed, for he was constantly treated like a “fearsome entity with whom pedestrians avoid making eye contact with.” This put him in an

Staples explained what he went through when he was in Chicago, New York, and Pennsylvania. He tells us a story about why people looked at him in a different way and how they acted towards him because of his skin color. Staple’s voice showed strong emotions of frustration and anger in his story. His tone is very serious and calm. In his essay “Just Walk On By: A Black Man Ponders His Power To Alter Public Space” He uses diction, figures of speech, and syntax. He wants everyone that is reading to feel and try to get the reader to see what he went through and how bad it was to get around town.

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.

The message that Brent Staples is trying to convey to the audience in his essay Just Walk On By, is that as a society we have positive and negative preconceived thoughts of other people who are of either the same or different race and gender. For Staples, this means that as a tall black man he has to deal with being seen as deadly and threatening to people who don’t know him. These people let their fear of biased opinions of black men think that all tall, black, and athletic men are going to attack them. Brent uses his stories of people’s fear and judgement of him, to allow the reader to both understand what the people were feeling and how he felt being judged.

Brent Staples use of pathos though invoking a sad emotion that is invoked through me due to the situations he is put through with police, and people in general. “I could cross in front of a car stopped a traffic light and elicit the thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk of the driver – black, white, male, or female- hammering down the door locks” (174). This also invokes some anger at those people who are simply rude. “Then there were the standard unpleasantries with policemen, doormen, bouncers, cabdrivers, and others whose business it is to screen out troublesome individuals before there is any nastiness” (174). These instances not only show how only Staples was treated but how all of the black community was being treated in a dark era in American history. “The fearsomeness mistakenly attributed to me in public places often has a perilous flavor.”

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.

In Brent Staples’ essay, “Just Walk on By” the author describes his experiences, feelings, and reactions towards the discrimination he has faced throughout his life as a black man. Staples describes several different personal experiences of when he felt that he had been judged or discriminated against by other people based on the color of his skin and how that contributed to his overall appearance. Staples has continuously been perceived as a danger or criminal simply because of his skin color, leading him to have to deal with many uncomfortable situations. The author has even gone so far as to take precautions when he is on the street just so that he will not be

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