Just Walk On By Brent Staples Essay

Brent Staples, who was a journalist for the New York Times, and studied mental philosophy from the University of the Chicago, shows the different subject position in his published version of the “Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space”, and his own memoir in 1994 of the “another version of ‘Just Walk on By’”. Brent Staples wrote two different versions of the essay, but the each essay’s subject position delivers pretty different meanings and messages to the readers. If the reader reads this essay without the title and the author’s name of the writing, those two personal essays look like entirely different to the readers. Also, each subject position of these essays makes the same event vary. Dissimilar perspectives

and ways of looking make two different essays from the same situations and the same experiences. Differences of how the author describes himself in each essay effect to the tone of the contexts, and it causes many different factors that reader can feel two unlike voices of the two essays. Brent Staples' published version in Ms. Magazine in 1986 of “Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space”, and his own memoir version in 1994 of “Another Version of ‘Just Walk on By’” have three different characteristics, which are the differences of each essay’s subject position, word choices, and tone of the each essay in the “Just Walk on By”. Brent Staples, who is the author of two different versions of essays “Just Walk on By” with the same experience, makes these changes because essay for Ms. Magazine and own memoir have enough different features, and the author wants to show how the subject position of the essay makes the same events vary. The Brent Staple’s perspectives, dictions, and tones construct different subject positions of the two dissimilar essays, and each different subject position of the two essays produces unlike messages to the readers, who read two kinds of different version of the essays.
In brief, each different subject position describes the same situation quite diversely by illustrating each way of looking based on dissimilar perspectives. Brent Staples’ published version in Ms. Magazine in 1986, he describes himself by saying “I was twenty-two years old, a graduate student newly arrived at the University of Chicago”(Staples 240). He used the first person perspective in his essay for Ms. Magazine. Indeed, Staples says, “To her, the 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—seemed menacingly close”(Staples 240). However, in another version of the essay, which is his own memoir in 1994, he draws himself “I was wearing my navy pea jacket, the collar turned up, my hands snug in the pockets”(Staples “Another Version”). He used the third person perspectives in his memoir version of essay. In the memoir version of his essay, there is no description of the woman’s point of view, which ran away after seeing the writer of this personal essay, and the author of the memoir version does not mention that he is an African American in his essay. Those two different perspectives of the two essays, which are first person perspective in the Ms. Magazine version and third person perspective in the memoir version construct the different subject positions as the writer, who describes himself in the context, and this differences approach to the readers with different messages and meanings.
Consequently, two different versions of the essays have pretty different word choices, which means dictions of the two essays in each context. Based on my understanding as one of the readers, the published version in Ms. Magazine consider only for the reader who reads the Ms. Magazine. In other words, the diction of the published version in Ms. Magazine in 1986 considers and thinks that how the reader and other people look Brent Staples. The writer describes the whole essay like someone observing this event in Ms. Magazine version, and it also affects to the diction of the essay. On the other hand, the reader who reads his memoir version in 1994, they might not have sympathy towards the author from the diction of the essay. The memoir version of the essay sounds like he talks about his experience and his feelings to his close acquaintance or friends. Because the author says the story from a position of himself, the reader can recognize how many times the writer says “I” in his memoir version. However, the reader who reads published version in Ms. Magazine, can have equal feelings with the essay because the diction of the Ms. Magazine version is for reader’s position, and understands the author because the diction of the essay was described how other people and reader look at the writer’s experience. The author of the published version in Ms. Magazine reflects how other places and things act for him, and this means that he wrote the essay with the subject position of other people who observe, understand, and imagine the writer. In my analysis, those essays are different with the word choices in each paragraph, and this little difference makes, causes the enormous development of thinking and understanding of these two different essays to the reader.
Simultaneously, two different versions of the essay have different tones in each paragraph.

Each different tone makes dissimilar essays to the reader by explaining same events. Furthermore, the published version in Ms. Magazine in 1986 of Staples essay ”Just Walk on By”, and his memoir release in 1994 of the Staples “Another Version of ‘Just Walk on By’” have different tones relates to subject positions and it changes the angle of victim and wrongdoer in two separate essays. The memoir version of the article has quite the offensive tone to the reader and observer, but published version in Ms. Magazine in 1986 has the entirely defensive tone to the reader and listener. As the reader’s view, these differences are quite clear to understanding with examples of the essays.

In Brent Staples “Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space” (Published Version in Ms. Magazine in 1986):

I was surprised, embarrassed and dismayed all at once. Her flight made me feel like an accomplice in tyranny. It also made it clear that I was indistinguishable from the muggers who occasionally seeped into the area from the surrounding ghetto. (Staples 240 - 241)

In Brent Staples “Another Version of ‘Just Walk on By’”(his memoir in

1994):
This time I veered toward them and aimed myself so that they'd have to part to avoid walking into me. The man stiffened, threw back his head and assumed the stare: eyes dead ahead, mouth open…I suppressed the urge to scream in his face. Instead, I glided between them, my shoulder nearly brushing his. A few steps beyond them, I stopped and howled with laughter. I called this game Scatter the Pigeons. (Staples “Another Version”)

The two paragraphs describe the same situation of the events that relate to the writer and anonymous women who after seeing the writer and running away. They have different tone relates to subject positions, and the two different paragraphs shows quite a different style and diverse perspectives based on the tone of the writer. As the reader’s perspective, the published version in Ms. Magazine in 1986’s writer’s tone tends to avoid that he was treated as a dangerous person by another person and observer. Otherwise, his memoir in 1994 version’s writer’s tone seems like enjoying this situation that he can be a fear of another person. From this understanding, the tone of the essay relates to subject position means that the writer says himself or herself in the essay, and at the same time, it also means the image of the writer after the reader reads the essay. Therefore, each different tone of the essays says and shows completely different way as the reader’s view.
Furthermore the writer’s subject position is different because the author wants to show the problem of ‘negro’, which means the African American people’s discrimination by another, American. The two essays are totally different and it shows the Negro problem in the America exactly. In another memoir version of the Staple’s essay in 1994, the reader cannot know his race, and the writer only mentions himself, he is a normal safe person who wears the navy jacket. However, in the version published in Ms. Magazine in 1986 of the essay, the author mentions that he is a tall black person, and the reader can know his race. The author, Brent Staples wants to shows these kinds of things in his essay, and Staples shows to the reader this problem obviously. By extension, two different versions of Staples essays give the question that why the author changes the subject position in the published version? Moreover, this essay asks the question ‘what is your understanding of the diversity through my example?’ to the reader. This writer does not say to the reader that diversity is good or bad things, and Staples entrust the right to think about the diversity of the reader in this essay. In this way of looking the essay, the author wants and needs to make the reader think that ‘Do we need diversity truly in our life?’ or ‘What is the other example of the Staples story around you?’ Therefore, the author needs to make the reader’s sympathy to this story by changing the subject position of the essay. As the reader’s perspective, Brent Staples wants to tell to his story as himself, which means the writer wants to speak his opinion from the first person perspective in his memoir essay. This is the critical reason why the two different essays have different subject position. Subject position, as the image from other people’s observation, makes easy to convince the reader the idea that ‘we need to think the diversity in our life’ The writer, Brent Staples, wants to understand himself in this diverse society, and wants to talk to the reader as the way of showing his personal story by changing subject position as the image of what we look and imagine him.
Finally, Brent Staples shows each different subject positions in his essay as the tall black guy, who wears the jacket and blue jeans surrounding ghetto, the graduate student who majoring in the psychology at the prestige college, For anonymous women he is a dangerous person, and for me he is the writer who wants to talk diversity and his personal story from his essay with whistling Beethoven and Vivaldi. The two different essays show each different tone, diction, perspective relates to the subject position of the essays, and Brent Staples want to show that the differences of other people’s point of view and his point of view as a black man, who was treated as a potential danger by other people in the United States of America. Different subject positions of the writing in these two different essays make totally different style of two essays and give completely unrelated and different ideas to the readers.