Brent Staples Where Fear And Weapons

Like so many people, Brent Staples was judged based on ethnicity and gender. Brent Staples, an African American man, has been mistaken for a criminal countless times because of his race. The first time this happened, he scared a young white women when he turned the corner at night, and she ran off, convinced that he was “a mugger, a rapist, or worse.” Brent shares instances of people locking their car doors or crossing the street when he walked by, but he says he can’t blame them, as “young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of… violence.” He discusses his childhood in Chester, Pennsylvania where there is “gang warfare, street knifings, and murders” that many of his friends and family have gone to prison or been killed over. He mentions two extreme situations in which he is mistaken for a burglar and tells the story of a journalist mistaken for the killer he was reporting on. Brent Staples makes it clear that these occurrences are continuous and common, and so he has had to make changes to accommodate for these terrified white people in public places by, for example, whistling classic music at night. The point he is trying to make with this article is that Caucasians have some common misconceptions about African Americans, often assuming they are all criminals, even though Brent has clearly illustrated himself as “one of the good boys.”

The brutality of the police force has been a long worldwide problem, but especially between the years of 2012-2016. Black people are being unjustly beaten and shot in plain sight for doing nothing while being unarmed. Journal of African American Studies “Blacks are viewed as deserving of harsh treatment in the criminal justice system” (482). “Black males with more “Afrocentric” features may receive longer sentences than blacks with less Afrocentric features like lighter skin and straighter hair”(482). Nowadays it is important to know about the police force. It’s important to know our rights as citizens and be careful around cops. Not everybody is good, but not everybody is bad also. In The New York Amsterdam News 21 people were killed by Chicago police in 2008. Entire families were being attacked. They believe it’s because of their skin color and how they are different. The year of racism started off with the world seeing the police murder of Oscar Grant. “The media have pushed people away from hearing the issue of police brutality, and it has fallen off of the radar screen.”(2) “You can’t give in. They will try to make an example out of you, try to break your spirit!”(2) African Americans say do not trust the cops with anything. “They will ruin you.”(2)

I commence with this anecdote for several reasons one of which is to humbly acknowledge my unique, and privileged position as a Black female scholar in the midst of a war waged against Black bodies. Another reason is to recognize police brutality as a national endemic that plagues Black communities, unveiling remnants of anti-Black racism that legitimately suppresses the lives of Blacks in America . The non-indictments in each case concerning the sanctioned murder of Black youths evoke a

Paula Austin, addresses police brutality and their relationship with guns. She opens up her discussion by providing us with images of newspaper articles that demonstrate the image of police brutality. She then goes further in depth and illustrates the increase in gun kills demonstrated by the police force. She provides us with statistical data on the increase in deaths caused by police through guns. Moreover, she then draws the connection between police and race. She addresses to us on how African Americans are way more targeted against by police than any other race. She provides us with the most recent example of “ Stephon Clark” an unarmed black man who was killed by police on the notion that he was “armed”. She then examines this event and illustrates the further connection towards guns and

Brent Staples’ essay, “When the Paranoids Turn Out to be Right,” acknowledges the issues of racism and racial profiling committed by police. In “Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun,” Geoffrey Canada also expresses views on this issue when he asserts that police fail to protect and serve individuals in poor neighborhoods. Staples contends, “Among the day-to-day acts of discrimination that shadow African Americans, none are more stressful or dangerous than those committed by police, some of whom treat black people as criminals until proved otherwise.” (Staples. 380) Although statistics show that the looming presence of narcotics and violence is more prevalent in urban neighborhoods, police should apply the same effort to protect individuals in these

Lately in the media police brutality has been a very popular topic. Most of the instances reported in the media are of white police officers killing African Americans for seemingly nothing. These reports have strengthened the divide between both races. In “White Rage” by Carol Anderson the issue of police brutality is touched on within the first few words of her essay. Anderson talks about many acts of aggression at the hands of white men, and she seems to really focus on an unarmed African American male who was shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. “Black and Blue,” by Garnette Cadogan continues with the struggles of police brutality in America, but also touches on the abuse in his home country of Jamaica. Cadogan

Throughout American history African Americans have been racially profiled as criminals and thugs for many years by other ethnic groups. Brent Staples, a journalist talked about his experiences being falsely labeled as a criminal by many, in his article written in 1986 titled, “Just Walk On By”, originally published in Ms. Magazine. Staples begins to build his credibly by using personal facts, testimonies, and using several emotional appeals.

Police brutality, or the general brutality towards black people, is not a new issue in America. Over 700 unarmed African-Americans were murdered in 2015 alone. Michelle Alexander argues in “The New Jim Crow” that the criminal-justice system in America has purposely been used as a means for oppressing black people after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. In 1903, Hon. Frank Moss, a former police commissioner of New York City, published this paragraph:

“All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these, are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Deplorable, though, is the fact that people of color have systematically had their liberty violated unceasingly throughout our history. Fifty-two years ago, in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther King, Jr. declared, “We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.” Uttered decades ago, these words should have no pertinence in today’s society; yet they still ring loud and reveal the same plight that people of color share today. The real argument, though, is that under the constitution, police have no legal right to rob people of color, or any people for that matter, of their civil liberties; however, people of color are continually targeted, and are treated with such an abysmal impertinence that it should no longer go unnoticed.

Written by Robert Staples the article “White Power, Black Crime, and Racial Politics” begins by explaining the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr., a Harvard professor, who was arrested because he was attempting to get into his own house. Staples continues by explaining the history of police brutality in the United States. He discusses the political movement reflected in the media arguing that African Americans pose a threat to other races. Racial profiling and police brutality are also mentioned in this article.

The author of this paper explores the practice of demonizing black American males. The recent legal murder of Trayvon Martin and the New York City anticrime program called Stop-and-Frisk are used to illustrate how America, at the local level, continues to utilize legal measures to perpetuate the subjugation of black

Even throughout the bloody civil war and the abolition of slavery in 1865, racism and ethnic inequality has always been prevalent all throughout the history of America and loomed large in society. Racial disparities affect people when it comes to securing the qualities of education, employment, healthcare, and much more. In Just Walk On By: A Black Man Ponders his Power to Alter Public Space, Brent Staples tells his perspective of racial profiling. Throughout the text, he notes several valid observations of racial discrimination: a woman who walked further away from him on the street, Podhoretz’s racial profiling in New York, a journalist who feared his appearance, and many more. These instances of profiling are accurate because he expresses his indignation of prejudice towards African Americans in his experiences, is

Many people in the United States have either experienced or witnessed some form of discrimination in their lifetimes, and one person, in particular, was Brent Staples, an African-American man who lived in New York during the mid-1970’s, which was not too long after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. Racial tensions in the United States were still considerably high back then, and this led to racism and discrimination towards others based on their social statuses such as race, class, and gender, and Staples himself has dealt with this issue numerous times in the past, which inspired him to write and to share his own thoughts and experiences about this controversial topic. He believed that even though black men were statistically more likely to get convicted of crimes than any other racial or minority group, it didn’t mean that all black men were violent criminals. He chose to format his writing into a personal essay for his story to have a more personal tone to it that anyone who reads it can easily relate to. The purpose of this text was to raise public awareness of the unfair discrimination in a society that Staples, along with many others, had encountered time and time again. It was written for both the general public and anyone who has also experienced discrimination to use as motivation to try to better themselves and make people realize that not all of them fit the stereotypes that society has set towards certain minority groups. In his text, Just Walk on By, Brent

“The brutality with which official would have quelled the black individual became impotent when it could not be pursued with stealth and remain unobserved. It was caught—as a fugitive from a penitentiary is often caught—in gigantic circling spotlights. It was imprisoned in a luminous glare revealing the naked truth to the whole world” – Martin Luther King (8, Kasher)

Throughout the history of the United States, discrimination and racism are prevalent. These notions are so prominent that the bases of American prosperity during the revolutionary period was the use of African slave labor. As recent as the mid-19th century African Americans who faced discriminatory practices revolted in lieu of the consequences. Figures such as Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks lead a peaceful revolution towards equality. Although they strived for isonomy, it has still not been achieved today. Recently the news has been filled with stories of innocent blacks being shot down by the police, people who are meant to protect citizens not to be the cause of their deaths.