Rhetorical Analysis Of Black Men And Public Space By Brent Staples

670 Words2 Pages

Rhetorical Analysis of Black Men and Public Space The author of Black Men and Public Space, Brent Staples, is an African American man who has a PhD in psychology from the University of Chicago and he is a member of the New York Times editorial board. Staples published an article that described several personal experiences in which he felt that the people around him were afraid of his presence. Staples’ purpose is to bring to light the prejudice that exists in everyday life for African Americans. In Black Men and Public Space, Staples appeals to pathos by using imagery and strong diction, and he uses a somber yet sarcastic tone to portray his message. Staples uses diction effectively throughout the article to reveal prejudices that he and …show more content…

He creates this tone to convey his purpose to the reader which is that prejudice is still an ongoing problem in American society, and that it will never be a thing of the past. Staples gives many personal anecdotes that are very somber; the readers are affected by this because they can emphasize and feel the prejudice that the victim, Brent Staples, faces. Although Staples is never delighted with the positions he is in, he never shows his resentment. In one part of the article, Staples said, “It is not altogether clear to me how I reached the ripe old age of twenty-two without being conscious of the lethality nighttime pedestrians attributed to me.” (Staples, 2). Staples attributes that he knows many people in American society automatically assume that he is a threat to “their” society because of Renovales 3 his race but he does not express it in an angry tone; which would be totally acceptable given his situation. He expresses that he is annoyed in a sarcastic somber tone which helps the reader understand his position. Brent Staples effectively used his personal experiences personal experiences that he has had in the past and present to convey his message to the reader. Staples conveys his message with the Prejudice is still occurring. The article Black Men and Public Space for Harper’s Magazine was effective in the rhetorical strategies staples used such an appeal to pathos with strong diction and imager, and

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Just Walk On By Brent Staples

    1088 Words  | 3 Pages

    Brent Staples, who was a journalist for the New York Times, and studied mental philosophy at the University of the Chicago, shows the different subject positions in his published version of the “Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space”, and his draft version of the “Just Walk on By”. Brent Staples wrote two different versions of the essay, but the essay’s subject position is pretty different to the reader. Also, each subject position describes the same situation quite differently by illustrating each way of looking based on dissimilar perspectives. In his published version, he describes himself as “I was twenty-two years old, a graduate student newly arrived at the University of Chicago”(Staples 240). Also, the published version says, “To her, the young 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).

    Read More

  • Dr Brent Staples

    769 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Shelby Steele's On Being Black And Middle Class

    1241 Words  | 3 Pages

    In his essay, “On Being Black and Middle Class” (1988), writer and middle-class black American, Shelby Steele adopts a concerned tone in order to argue that because of the social conflicts that arise pertaining to black heritage and middle class wealth, individuals that fit under both of these statuses are ostracized. Steele proposes that the solution to this ostracization is for people to individualize themselves, and to ‘“move beyond the victim-focused black identity” (611). Steele supports his assertion by using evidence from his own life and incorporating social patterns to his text. To reach his intended audience of middle-class, black people, Steele’s utilizes casual yet, imperative diction.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Audre Lorde And Brent Staples

    661 Words  | 2 Pages

    America have a long history of black’s relationship with their fellow white citizens, there’s two authors that dedicated their whole life, fighting for equality for blacks in America. – Audre Lorde and Brent Staples. They both devoted their professional careers outlying their opinions, on how to reduce the hatred towards blacks and other colored. From their contributions they left a huge impression on many academic studies and Americans about the lack of awareness, on race issues that are towards African-American. There’s been countless, of critical evidence that these two prolific writers will always be synonymous to writing great academic papers, after reading and learning about their life experience, from their memoirs.

    Read More

  • Men Of Color To Arms Rhetorical Analysis

    628 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the first two years of the Civil War the freedom for slaves, and increased participation amongst the blacks became a necessity. On January 1, 1863 when President Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation got signed, more than three million slaves were freed. After a couple years into the Civil war the North was in desperate need of some troops. This gave the recently freed slaves as non-American citizens interest to fight for the Union. One of the people responsible for the advancement of race equality and the main source of recruitment to the Union is Frederick Douglas. Frederick Douglas delivered a speech titled “Men of Color, To Arms” which strongly urged African Americans to join the war to finally coincide with the proclamation and get there

    Read More

  • Impact Of Mass Media On Black Men

    870 Words  | 2 Pages

    The mass media being one of the greatest influencers of public perceptions, their false portrayal of black males significantly impacts how the public perceives and behaves toward them, how black males see themselves as well as their the opportunities and achievements. But the mass media canbe part of the solution. Of course, the responsibility is not the media’s alone. But the media, as the public looking glass, can and should show the full spectrum of the lives of black men and boys.

    Read More

  • Martin Luther King Speech Ethos Pathos Logos

    614 Words  | 2 Pages

    Persuasion Throughout history there have been many struggles for freedom and equality. There was the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. There was the fight against government censorship in Argentina, spoken against by Luisa Valenzuela. And there was the struggle for women's equality in politics, aided by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

    Read More

  • Black Lives Matter: Rhetorical Analysis

    573 Words  | 2 Pages

    Does “Black Lives Matter” really believe in the slogan they advocate for? Black Lives Matter or BLM was founded in 2013 carrying the slogan “hands up don’t shoot” following the shooting of Michael Brown by a Hispanic Officer. Black Lives Matter believes that we live in a society plagued by Racism(Rightsidenews). Looking at BLM as a movement makes it readily apparent that they’re the racist ones. Black Lives Matter should be abolished because they ironically enough don’t care about black lives, they skew facts to further their narrative and spread violence.

    Read More

  • Analyzing Brent Staples' Rhetorical Strategies in 'Black Men in Public'

    588 Words  | 2 Pages

    How does Staples use pathos, ethos, and imagery to extend his writing in his article of Black Men in Public? Black Men in Public is an article about what it was like to be a black male in the 1986. It wasn’t really about how other blacks males felt but how staples felt and what he did to go out of his way to make himself less threatening during the 1896. Staples uses pathos, ethos, and imagery in this article,  pathos means how is he showing his emotion, to give you an emotion of the article, ethos shows how he is credible his writing and if he has enough experience, and imagery is giving you a visually descriptive of writing, so details.

    Read More

  • Brent Staples Just Walk On By Black Men And Public Space

    1214 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Brent Staples, “Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space,” the writer acknowledges the hardships of being a black man in this prejudice society. Examples of different situations that involve black stereotypes are embedded in the piece, for instance, Staples tells of a police officer who mistook a black reporter for a killer. Further, he states that black men exchange stories like this all the time, demonstrating how real unfair stereotypes are. Too often people assume that black males are criminals because of the negative stereotypes in our society. These inner judgments create a harmful environment which endangers minorities.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Ta-Nehisi Coates A Letter My Son

    217 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the article, “A Letter My Son,” Ta-Nehisi Coates utilizes both ethical and pathetic appeal to address his audience in a personable manner. The purpose of this article is to enlighten the audience, and in particular his son, on what it looks like, feels like, and means to be encompassed in his black body through a series of personal anecdotes and self-reflection on what it means to be black. In comparison, Coates goes a step further and analyzes how a black body moves and is perceived in a world that is centered on whiteness. This is established in the first half of the text when the author states that,“white America’s progress, or rather the progress of those Americans who believe that they are white, was built on looting and violence,”

    Read More

  • On Individualization And Victimization In Shelby Steele's On Being Black And Middle Class

    1259 Words  | 3 Pages

    In his essay, “On Being Black and Middle Class” (1988), writer and middle-class black American, Shelby Steele adopts a concerned tone in order to argue that because of the social conflicts that arise pertaining to black heritage and middle class wealth, individuals that fit under both of these statuses are ostracized. Steele proposes that the solution to this ostracization is for people to individualize themselves, and to ‘“move beyond the victim-focused black identity” (611). Steele supports his assertion by using evidence from his own life and incorporating social patterns to his text. To reach his intended audience of middle-class, black people, Steele’s utilizes casual yet, imperative diction.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Brent Staples's 'Black Men And Public Space'

    745 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Black Men in Public Space

    664 Words  | 2 Pages

    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 one would expect him to be a mugger. Whistling classical music was referred to the “cowbell that hikers wear when they know they are in bear country”(Staples 226). The cowbell is used to protect hikers from bears. But in Staples case, it was to not be stereotyped and show that he is harmless. The general purpose of Staples essay was to inform the readers that stereotypes could affect African Americans and any other races.

    Read More

  • Life as a White Man in The Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man

    819 Words  | 2 Pages

    "...the effect is a tendency toward lighter complexions, especially among the more active elements in the race. Some might claim that this is a tacit admission of colored people among themselves of their own inferiority judged by the color line. I do not think so. What I have termed an inconsistency is, after all, most natural; it is, in fact, a tendency in accordance with what might be called an economic necessity. So far as racial differences go, the United States puts a greater premium on color, or better, lack of color, than upon anything else in the world."

    Read More

More about Rhetorical Analysis Of Black Men And Public Space By Brent Staples

Open Document