Publication information Staples, Brent. “Black Men and Public Space.” Reading Critically, Writing Well. Sixth edition Eds. Rise B. Axelrod and Charles R. Cooper. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002. 134-136. Print. Brief Summary In this essay, Dr. Brent Staples recounts his first time unintentionally scaring a young white women located in Hyde Park, Chicago. He recounts her worried posture, her hurried steps, and her repeated glances before she took off down the road. Dr. Staples, being a person of color, took slight offense to this. Before he had never really thought much about his skin color being a factor of intimidation, but rather just a piece of “normal” discrimination. It was the mid 1970’s after all, and it was no secret to anybody …show more content…
One question that stuck out in my mind was, “Where did this guy live before coming to Chicago?” The fact that he hadn’t experienced what he was going through before he hit age twenty-two struck me as odd. This led me to assume he originated from a mostly black community where white fear wasn’t common to him. The next thing that struck interest in my mind was the automatic assumption that the women in the alley feared him because he was black, and not because of the fact he was a rather large male at six-feet, two-inches, and had a beard. Not to mention that he was walking behind her late at night down an alleyway with no witnesses. Naturally even I would be wary of a man walking behind me in a situation like that, even if “the stalker” was a women. I do not blame that women for getting out of that situation. With the news, stereotypes, and racism I can see how once he moved to a new area he would be more sensitive to whites fearing him. He may not have thought about it before in the comfortability in his home town. It is instinct to be more aware of things we as humans don’t usually think about in a new environment. Things are not always as they seem to be. He perceived false judgment at times, but at other times he had experienced true prejudice against his skin color and quite possibly …show more content…
He felt the need to “whistle melodies of Beethoven and Vivaldi” to educate the people around them that he didn’t mean harm and was a calm person. I can connect to this though, believe it or not. Being a football player many people have seen me as a jerk or otherwise unapproachable, so to try and defeat that sometimes I walk in a different manner that, to me, is more welcoming. I try so hard to give off a different vibe to those who feel I am not a kind person and it gets tiring trying to advertise yourself in such a way. Yet, that doesn't compare to fearing an entire army of racists and corrupt lawmen everyday, so I am thankful for
Brent Staples and Richard Rodriguez’s autobiographical essays both start out with a problem, but they deal with it in different ways. Brent Staples’ “Just Walk on By” deals with the issue of racism and social judgment he faces because he is African-American, while Rodriguez’s essay “Complexion,” details the self-hatred and shame he felt in his childhood because of his skin color. Both of these essays deal with race, appearance, and self-acceptance, but the authors write about them in different ways. When looking at the similarities and differences together, the points of these essays have a much stronger message about how to deal with discrimination.
Staples, Brent. “Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space.” 50 Essays. Ed. Samuel Cohen.
Since 1945, in what is defined by literary scholars as the Contemporary Period, it appears that the "refracted public image"(xx) whites hold of blacks continues to necessitate ...
Although he learned of his true identity at an early age, it seems as though the narrator preferred to be white. This could have possibly been influenced by his upbringing during his early childhood and the mistreating of blacks as opposed to the higher regards for whites. He seems to accept a white, and sometimes often racist view of the world in general. This can be noted in ways such as when he states he never forgave the teacher that led him to understand he was black. Also, in his travels throughout the South, the way he observes his surroundings is often like those made through the eyes of a racist white man. He picks out the "unkempt appearance, the shambling, slouching gait, and loud talk and laughter” of the lower-class blacks that he meets (p. 40). He also admits that he never really enjoyed seeing a rich white widow have a black companion. Then, after partaking in a debate about race among several white passengers on a train, the narrator expresses his admiration for the most racist man that was involved in the discussion. It also seems as though he only had eyes for white women and he eventually married one and had children with her. Although he may have preferred to
all through his life which resulted in a change in how he saw and interacted with white people.
Prejudice is a cancer that spreads hate among its perpetrators and victims alike. In 1930 Langston Hughes penned the novel, Not Without Laughter. This powerful story, written from the perspective of an African-American boy named James “Sandy” Rodgers, begins in the early 1900’s in the small town of Stanton, Kansas. Through the eyes of young Sandy, we see the devastating impact of racism on his family and those they are close to. We also see how the generations of abuse by whites caused a divide within the black community. Among, and even within, black families there were several social classes that seemed to hinge on seeking equality through gaining the approval of whites. The class someone belonged to was determined by the color of their skin, the type of church one attended, their level of education, and where an individual was able to find work.
Margolies, Edward. “History as Blues: Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.” Native Sons: A Critical Study of Twentieth-Century Negro American Authors. J.B. Lippincott Company, 1968. 127-148. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Daniel G. Marowski and Roger Matuz. Vol. 54. Detroit: Gale, 1989. 115-119. Print.
Staples, Brent. “Black Men and Public Space.” Reading Critically, Writing Well. Sixth edition Eds. Rise B. Axelrod and Charles R. Cooper. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002. 134-136. Print.
After reading “Just Walk on By” by Brent Staples I found it to be a very interesting essay. Brent Staples have a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Chicago , which is one of the top College’s in America so Staples has a good understanding of how people think. In the essay Staples talks about how a Black Man could be viewed walking down the street late at night which he would be viewed differently than a White Man. The essay also talks about how a Black Man could be viewed as a Mugger, Rapist, or killer and how being view as these characters that people fear can put them in dangerous with police where Staples say “fear and weapons meet-and they often do in urban America- there is always the possibility of death. In the essay Staples
McLendon, Jacquelyn Y. “‘A Round Unvarnished Tale’: (Mis)Reading Othello or African American Strategies of Dissent.” Othello: New Essays by Black Writers. Ed. Mythili Kaul. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1997.
In “Just Walk On By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space,” by Brent Staples has a different perspective of the people who is discriminated against by their appearance. This short story gives the audience an overview of a young African American male who is categorized as a criminal. Although, Staples was discriminated against he sees the perspectives of White Americans’, and tries to go out of his way to ease their concerns. Staples created this short story to give people an outlook of his life with the color of his skin. Staples accomplishes this through figures of speech such as Point of View, Hyperbole, and Idioms.
It is pretty evident that race plays a significant part in molding the American history. Authors and poets have written works to express that part of adversity, that has prevented people from certain ethnic groups from achieving the American dream. Brent Staples author of the short story “Just Walk On By” narrates different flashbacks of when he was the subject of racism. Marilyn Chin, who wrote the poem “How I Got That Name”, dealt with the difficulty of fitting in and on top on the expectations from her as a Chinese American. “American” by Claude McKay, includes the struggles he faced while living in America using similes and metaphors. All three texts delivered literary devices to illustrate race and how it can limit individuals from different ethnic groups, which results in unequal
Brent Staples focuses on his own experiences, which center around his perspective of racism and inequality. This perspective uniquely encapsulates the life of a black man with an outer image that directly affects how others perceive him as a person. Many readers, including myself, have never experienced the fear that Staples encounters so frequently. The severity of his experiences was highlighted for me when he wrote, “It also made it clear that I was indistinguishable from the muggers who occasionally seeped into the area from the surrounding ghetto.” (135) Having to accept that fact as a reality is something that many people will never understand. It is monumentally important that Staples was able to share this perspective of the world so others could begin to comprehend society from a viewpoint different from their
The author was born in Washington D.C. on May 1, 1901. Later, he received a bachelor’s degree from Williams College where he studied traditional literature and explored music like Jazz and the Blues; then had gotten his masters at Harvard. The author is a professor of African American English at Harvard University. The author’s writing
Over the course of the century chronicling the helm of slavery, the emancipation, and the push for civil, equal, and human rights, black literary scholars have pressed to have their voice heard in the midst a country that would dare classify a black as a second class citizen. Often, literary modes of communication were employed to accomplish just that. Black scholars used the often little education they received to produce a body of works that would seek to beckon the cause of freedom and help blacks tarry through the cruelties, inadequacies, and inconveniences of their oppressed condition. To capture the black experience in America was one of the sole aims of black literature. However, we as scholars of these bodies of works today are often unsure as to whether or not we can indeed coin the phrase “Black Literature” or, in this case, “Black poetry”. Is there such a thing? If so, how do we define the term, and what body of writing can we use to determine the validity of the definition. Such is the aim of this essay because we can indeed call a poem “Black”. We can define “Black poetry” as a body of writing written by an African-American in the United States that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of an experience or set of experiences inextricably linked to black people, characterizes a furious call or pursuit of freedom, and attempts to capture the black condition in a language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm. An examination of several works of poetry by various Black scholars should suffice to prove that the definition does hold and that “Black Poetry” is a term that we can use.