Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space, Brent Staples

Just pass on By Black Men and Public Space, Brent StaplesIn the essay, Just Walk on By, Brent Staples succeeds greatly in demonstrating the current negative view of forbidding men in America and the fact that racism is still lively today. He narrates a personal anecdote about the path he takes to understand the effect his appearance can have on his environment. Staples describes his extreme thwarting at the fact that racism plays such a large role in his life. The essay illustrates that prejudice and racism are still prevalent by using many a(prenominal) another(prenominal) examples, his intended audience, imagery, and comparisons.In this essay, Staples describes how he has always been discriminated against for being a scorch journalist in a dust coat area of work. He first realizes this as a graduate student when he takes a walk late at dark and frightens a white woman who believed he was following her. He agrees that the world is violent and that the woman had a right to be precautionful of him, only when it perturbs him that he cannot change the fact that he was the stir of the fear. He begins to understand that he has a quality to change the environment round him solely because of the color of his skin. However, he does not become angry but maintains a sense of calamity throughout the essay. His newfound understanding causes him to begin actively trying to make himself look less intimidating to others around him.Accordingly, Staples uses many examples to express the racial stereotype he acquires to his intended audience, which are white women and black men in general. He describes two common times when heap unreasonably mistook him for a burglar and a colleague of his as a killer. These examples begin to make the reader feel sympathy towards black men as a whole and the prejudice they cannot escape. He explains a time when he entered a jewelry store to write an article for a newspaper and was greeted with an tremendous red Doberman pinscher. Readers realize the hardship of the lives of black men who cannot even enter a jewelry store without causing alarm. Women in particular are victim to this behavior of racism, and some will realize their prematuredoings when reading the essay. Staples, however, will not let this stereotype of being a threat to society overcome his emotions. To lighten up the environment around him, he whistles classical music to assure others that he is not a perilous man and that they should not fear him. Through these actions, he suppresses the personal notions of feeling desire a thug while also lessening the aspect of terror felt by nearby people. The whistling allows others to picture the accurate representation of Staples that they can only see once they put their racism aside.Furthermore, Staples uses much vivid imagery to help his readers imagine the situations he has to coping with. The image of Staples barely being able to take a knife to a raw chicken shows readers that Staples is i n fact a harmless person. Also, Staples describes white women who walk the street as night as seeming to forge ahead as though bracing themselves against being tackled. The women are intensely protect themselves from black men who they do not know based solely on stereotypes. These images facilitate the readers ability to fully experience the depth of Stapless story. His diction portrays this evasive action from the very beginning of his essay. Staples states that his first victim was a woman causing many readers to jump to the conclusion that Staples hurt this woman in some way, like the predisposed notion of black people causes many to presume. Readers soon realize this mistake and recognize that he or she just made the assumption that many people make prejudicially every day.Additionally, Staples uses comparisons to enhance the descriptions of the fear that others feel by Stapless presence. Staples explains that the womans quick getaway when she saw him on a street at night made him feel like an accomplice in tyranny that was indistinguishable from the muggers. This experience shows how the womans racism affected her own actions but also how it negatively influenced the black man emotionally. He also uses an onomatopoeia to recreate the atmosphere of walking the streets at night when he says he could cross in front of a railroad car stopped at a traffic light and elicit the thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk of the driver-black, white, male, or female-hammering down the door locks. The sound of the cars locking creates an uneasy feeling among readers and shows the extent of prudence that not only women took as a result of his presence.Staples effectively persuades his readers to believe that not all black men are harmful and to stop fuel racism. He also convinces his readers to feel sympathetic towards black men. I have been on both sides of this situation by being the one causing fear and the one falling victim to prejudice. I constantly find myself making sur e that I am fully aware of my surroundings and the people around me when I am out alone. This prejudice has been passed down to me by my aunts who always encourage me to have pepper spray with me at all times and walk back to my car with my car key poking out between my fingers as a defensive action. I now realize that these notions are wrong and that black men do not deserve this unfair treatment. I know how horrible it makes me feel whenever people fear me in an airport, and I should not encourage this behavior by engaging in it. Stapless essay successfully reveals the emotions felt by black men when they are prejudiced against and the injustice that black men have to deal with still today.