Just Walk On By Brent Staples 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

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 “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.

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.

In his essay, "Just Walk on By" Brent Staples explains how throughout his life, it is hard being a black man without having others discriminate against him because he is a tall, black man who works as a journalist in a predominantly white field. In Ta-Nehisi Coates book Between the World and Me Coates is addressing his son about the truth of being black in a society that is inherently races and the constructed stereotypes on them by those in power. Both Coates and Staples agree on the fact that the black body is being systematically oppressed by the powers of this society. Being born black which is something Coates and Staples has no control over, causes them to be perceived as a negative stereotype of black people. This is a world where the black body has been oppressed and damaged throughout history, but yet maintain a fearful presence implied by Staples piece. In Brent staples “Just Walking by”, a black male’s body is capable of altering public space because the stereotypical projection of their race, causing others to do irrational things damaging he black body.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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