What Are The Rhetorical Devices In Just Walk On By Brent Staples

Brent Staples’ article “Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space” (1986) discusses his point of view on racial profiling. He talks about how race and gender effect how people view each other consciously and unconsciously. Throughout his article, Staples uses the arrangement of his debate, structure of his paragraphs, and figurative language to help in his persuasive argument against racial profiling.

Stereotypes are a form of prejudice everyone will once experience in their lifetime. Stereotypes are centered around an individual's race, gender, social class, religion, and age. They have been known to be elements people use to make judgments and subjectify people to one key feature. As Gordon Allport states, “ To state the matter technically, a noun abstracts from a concrete reality some one features and assembles different concrete realities only with respect to this one feature”(364). Mr.Allport’s words can be summed up to say stereotypes have been used as key fundamentals to associate one feature or aspect of a person with a group that represents it, typically in an unfavorable way.

Staples exhibits a strong knowledge of pathos through his use of diction in his essay “Just Walk on By”. He uses diction to connect the overall feeling of fear and disappointment: the fear he sees in other people as a result of his presence, the disappointment in his reaction of witnessing this fear consistently. At the beginning of the essay, Staples uses

Stereotypes are socially constructed, over-generalized views regarding a particular group of persons with certain characteristics that are widely accepted, and usually expected, in a society. The dominant group of a certain society, which in this case is probably Caucasians and men, usually creates these social constructions. Claude M. Steele, a researcher from Stanford University, performed multiple research studies on the idea and psychological effects of stereotypes on its victims. In his studies, he coins the term “stereotype threat” as the “social-psychological predicament that can arise from widely-known negative stereotypes about one's group,” which implies that “the existence of such a stereotype means that anything one does or any of one's features that conform to it make the stereotype more plausible as a self-characterization in the eyes of others, and perhaps even in one's own eyes” (Steele 797).

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.

When Americans meet someone new they are already sticking that person into some sort of category because of their appearance. If someone looks different than Americans are use to, they automatically stick some sort of stereotype to them. Stereotypes are strongly displayed in the media; stereotype can be based of someone’s color, culture, religion, or sex. In Black men in public spaces by Brent Staples, and in The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria by Judith Ortiz Cofer, the authors talk about stereotypes based on their gender and ethnicity and the experiences they both encounter because of their ethnicity and gender which have many similarities and differences. Stereotypes can lead

Stereotypes are defined as an oversimplified image or idea about a specific type of person. It is believed that stereotypes about African Americans began in the United States around the 18th century. Anti-Black stereotypes arguably the most developed racist stereotypes in racial framing and have been used as foundations for the capture, enslavement, and later, the subjugation of African American people. Stating that stereotypes are just a joke is an understatement of the consequential after – math racial images and stereotypes have on the African American population. Even stereotypes that are considered positive are often concealed with negative implications and reasons as to why they exist. Most people may think they only hold stereotypes in the back of their head, but studies show that people are more likely to fall back on them in making judgments when they feel challenged, face uncertainty, or experience sensory overload. Using information from class, comparisons from the films we have watched and Ed Guerrero’s Framing Blackness, this paper will analyze the stereotypes in the television show Empire.

Stereotypes are no secret. Everybody develops them in some way or another and uses them in social interactions. These generalizations, both positive and negative, about a characteristic(s) of a group (“Stereotypes) have existed throughout modern and historical societies. The husband in Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” interacts with Robert based off of stereotypes formed from social norms and media portrayals of disabled persons. He treats Robert in a negative manner at first relying on those prejudices, but as he comes to know Robert, he re-develops his stereotypes and interacts with Robert in a more positive way.

Stereotyping is a normal part of every one’s life. Humans, by nature, classify things. We name animals and classify them by common characteristics but stereotyping can have negative repercussions, and everyone does it. In a recent study it was proven that everyone has an unconscious need to stereotype (Paul). In Junteenth and The Invisible man, Ralph Ellison argues that stereotyping can cause mayhem by making the people become something they are not.

Throughout the years, racial stereotypes have played a major role in society. Even today, one combines racial stereotypes and prejudice thoughts before one even says a word to the person. Just seeing an African- American man while in a parking lot and pulling out ones phone, can be a simple example of modern-day racial stereotypes.

In life, there is a common ground on which most every person can relate. At one time or another, we have all been promoters of or victims of the unremitting nature of stereotypes. According to the Webster’s dictionary, a stereotype is defined as “a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group.” Most stereotypes take on a negative form and are based on characteristics such as age, gender, race, status, and personal beliefs. Generally speaking, the greatest problem that arises with stereotypes is that they judge group of people by the characteristics and actions of their ancestors, rather than on an individual basis. More often than not, these assumptions will

“To believe unfairly that all people or things with a particular characteristic are the same” is one of many definitions for a stereotype. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary makes it seem like it’s nothing at a;l and something small and innocent when, in all honestly stereotypes are cruel and wrong. Using stereotypes in our daily lives should not be allowed because it causes people to think less of themselves and limit themselves from one 's full potential. Having these stereotypes in our minds really limits our thoughts and opinions about certain things or people. Both essayist Judith Ortiz Cofer, and Brent Staples have personally experienced stereotyping and people thinking wrongly of them. In Cofer’s essay “ The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” and Staples “Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Spaces”, they talk about what they have been through with racial stereotyping and what affects it has them, personally. But even with those stereotypes in play they both prove that stereotypes do not determines someone 's future and people are able to prove stereotypes wrong.

Staples illustrates how the nature of stereotypes can affect how we perceive others around us in either an excessively admirable light or, in his and many other cases, as barbaric or antagonistic. In his introductory

Brent Staples uses vivid language and rhetorical devices to express and convey the elements of fear, anger, and violence. We all make many decisions based on past experiences. That’s how we learn to avoid touching a hot stove burner for example. It’s also about how we learn to do things that bring us pleasure. So we all develop discriminating behavior, but when that discrimination is based purely on the color on that person’s skin, or his ethnicity, without knowing anything else about that person, it becomes racism. Being a malicious looking black man, walking the streets at night may give someone the idea that you’re a rapist, killer, robber, or even a stalker. Nearly everyone has experienced these same emotions before and each has

The presences of stereotypes are overwhelming and are developed by both the environment a subject is raised in and their family. Stereotypes, which are pervasive throughout different societies, become intertwined in the collective values of the society as justification for all forms of social, economic, and political inequality among groups (Devine and Elliot 2000;Kaplan 2004; Operario and Fiske 2004). As people become more exposed to stereotypes they start to become a permanent part of a person’s life, they begin to stereotype themselves almost always involuntarily.