Essay On Black Men Stereotypes

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.

In the present scenario, the main challenge of our society is the stereotype that exists. One of the common stereotypes is that we deem black men as dangerous. Most people grow up with such a perception and feel it be true. In ‘Just Walk on by: Black Men and Public Space’ Brent Staples describes the way black men are perceived as dangerous individuals to society by his own experiences. He rightly acknowledges the occasional hatred that black men are subjected to in everyday social situations. Staples begins his writing with an anecdote using an ironic tone, describing the concerns successfully with emotional and logical appeals in chronological order. He aims to see the problems from the white American perspective and he makes efforts so as to clear their concerns with ease through the use of diction, ironic tone, ethos & pathos.

When people hear the word stereotype, they usually think of black people, Mexicans, Native Americans, women, and other races. Most people do not think there could be a stereotype against white males. People usually think that it would be the white male that would stereotype other races and not be stereotyped themselves. The truth is that white males get stereotyped just as much, if not more, as other races. White males have been categorized as hateful, major racists, skinheads, and over-privileged. In today’s society, a white male can’t criticize any other race without fear of being called a “hater” or a “racist”. One of the biggest forms of racism towards the white male is what the government calls “Affirmative Action”. Affirmative

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 today’s American society, being born black is often life threatening and comes with many struggles and fears. The author Brent Staples visibly demonstrates the presence of black men, in his article “Black Men and Public Spaces”. Staples illustrates to the readers how black men attempt to live their lives as normal as possible, but are unable to because of the fear society has of them. Brent Staples attests to the turbulent lives black men face in society, from their childhood to an adult age. Staples is able to demonstrate the various issues black men face in society with the use of logos, ethos, and pathos.

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” 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.

In the 1960s, Black masculinity was reshaped by the newly acquired political power of the Civil Rights era. Notions of the ‘good negro’ (or obedient/deferential negro) were purposefully destroyed and replaced with a more defiant/revolutionary representation. The 1960s-70s played a pivotal role in the creation of this aggressive male identity. Specifically, the combination of the media’s portrayal of the antagonistic Black Power Movement, and record crime rates in African American neighborhoods, created feared images of African American men (Milton).”

The stereotypical misrepresentations of African-American women and men in popular culture have influenced societal views of Blacks for centuries. The typical stereotypes about Black women range from the smiling, asexual and often obese Mammy to the promiscuous Jezebel who lures men with her sexual charms. However, the loud, smart mouthed, neck-rolling Black welfare mother is the popular image on reality television. The typical stereotype about Black men is the violent, misogynistic thug, and the ever-enduring pimp. These images portrayed in media and popular culture createpowerful ideology about race and gender, which affects daily experiences of Black women in America. With few healthy relationships portrayed in the media, Black women

The black male has often been depicted as a thug, hoodlum, a gangster, and as a man with an itchy trigger finger. This is obviously why many young people have grown to be subtly racist their toward fellow Americans, while others have grown such hatred that they form radical organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, Neo Nazis, and skinheads. Hate crimes are still evident and not as uncommon as many people

Similar to Dumas’ struggle in America as an Iranian, Brent Staples’ “Black Men and Public Space” details the struggle of being a black man in America. There are countless stereotypes implanted in the minds of Americans of the typical black person, aggressive, dishonest, ruthless, and overall ill intentioned. The first encounter with this racist outlook on blacks Staples had was in a wealthier area of downbeat Chicago, who began to appear worrisome and soon after proceeded to run from the author, who had done nothing intentionally to provoke fear in her. I agree that women should always place their safety as their first priority and should remove themselves from any situation in which they find themselves uncomfortable or at risk, but if blacks and whites can’t manage to walk the same streets without one race thinking the other is going to attack at any given moment due to the misconceptions floating around in their heads, then America really isn’t a land of diversity. It then becomes a land of hierarchy. As he says, Staples is too scared to even wield a knife at a chicken, let alone wield a knife at another human being, but by the color of his skin and appearance, one would never know this. Being perceived as dangerous, he writes, is a hazard in itself, and could easily land him in the back of a police car

The existence of police brutality affects the mental health of Black youth, in regards to heightened depression and suicidal ideation. Even though people of color in the United States make up less than 38% of the population, "almost half of all people killed by police are minorities" and more than half are unarmed victims (The Guardian 2015). According to Mapping Police Violence, law enforcement has killed at least 263 Black individuals in 2016 including adolescents; 346 Black Americans were killed the previous year (2016). There has also been an increase in capturing these police shootings on film and then posting to social media for users to view soon thereafter. Black youth in the United States are exposed to this violence through a variety of outlets, such as news reports, social media and their personal encounters with police. The never-ending replays of unarmed Black citizens being shot to death by police officers is traumatizing and induces a constant state of fear that renders Black people hopeless for a country that will perceive their lives as equal and deserving of justice as non-minority individuals.

The article that I will be examines is “Booty call sex, violence, and images of black masculinity” by Patricia Hill Collins. The author has examined the black experience and how the media misrepresents black men; these effects are still felt in the present. Collins was using different forms of media such as sport, film, and historic events. To help the readers to learn where hyper sexuality, violet, and criminal stereotypes of black male come from.

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)

Racial stereotypes have always been a serious issue in society. The stereotypes impact many aspects of our life. We more or less get carried away by our perceptions toward race, and judge people in a certain frame unconsciously, as Omi set forth in In Living Color: Race and American Culture. Taken by Hilary Swift, this photo presents an African American woman, waiting for a bus that can take her to the Kitchen of Love, a food pantry that located in Philadelphia aiming to feed people suffering from hunger, where she volunteers. It happens in dawn so it’s still dark outside. The surroundings give us an idea that it should take place in a black neighborhood (Stolberg “Black Voters, Aghast at Trump, Find a Place of Food and Comfort”). The woman is staring at the direction where the bus is coming, with a smile on her face. As a photojournalistic image, this photo is aiming to portrait a kind and helpful African American woman, however, does this photo really “positively” portrait an African American woman?