Black Men And Public Space Summary

In “Black Men and Public Space” by Brent Staples, he explain in the short story that the presence of black people in public spaces scare white people. It scares while people because they could not differentiate between a black person from a mugger. The time when this was happening, there was a lot of racism going in the United States. I still see this in today’s society but only racism but also sexism.

In United States, women’s personal space is being altered. Especially in big cities like New York, Miami, Chicago, Philadelphia, and etc. A woman can’t walk down the street or go anywhere without guys throwing comments at them. A friend of mine who lives in New York City was complaining to me how guys are always throwing sexual comments at her. Me being me I told her to just ignore the guys and walk away like noting happen. I didn’t realize how scary that is until it happen to me last year.

Last year, my personal space was altered by a under classmate from my high school.

I wasn’t the only who was targeted, there were a lot of other girls who were being followed by this boy. At first, I didn’t know I was being followed until a friend of mine was telling me about it. So the following day, I paid more attention to who was around me till I walked from school. I noticed a boy has followed me all the way from school to home, but I didn’t think he was following me because he minded his own business and walked along the sidewalk. The next day in morning, a friend of mine was going to give me ride so I was waiting for. While I was waiting the same boy who walked behind me the day before came up to me and asked what time is was. After I told him the time, he just stood there not moving an inch and just looking at me. Lucky, my friend pulled up, after I got in the car, my friend was yelling at me for talking to the stalker. Then at that moment I realize it’s him who’s following

girls.
At that moment I realize how dangerous and scary it is to being followed and alter my personal space. I was so scared to the point I was afraid of going home alone or walking anywhere in general. A week passed by and he was still following others. One day, I saw from my window that he was harassing a young girl, so I went outside with my home and threaten him that I will call the police on if I see or hearing him following girls. Since then he hasn’t followed my friends and me.
I think that we shouldn’t a judge a person by its cover, because we may not know the person actually is. For example, a well-dressed person could be in mafia and a person who looks he/she hasn’t showered days could be down to earth. So we shouldn’t judge based on their race, cultural, gender, and appearance.