Compare And Contrast Graham And Brent Staples

Have you ever been discriminated because of the color of your skin or the way you look? Have you ever done something to prevent someone or yourself from getting discriminated? For millenniums, African Americans have been fighting to stop the unequal world that Americans had built of racism and discrimination against all races. However, until the 1960s, Africans Americans had finally shattered the window of racism and open the window of opportunities through nonviolent protest and sittings. Around this time Lawrence Otis Graham and Brent Staples both have experienced the dark shadow that discrimination have laid upon their race for being African American in the United States. In other words, the life of an African American has never been “truly”

For instance, when a “white [and] well dressed” women in Chicago “glimpses” at Staples “she picked up her pace and was soon running in earnest.” Another example of Staples experiencing discrimination, is when he worked as a journalist in Chicago. Per to Staples, “One day, rushing into the office of a magazine I was writing for with a dead line story in hand, I was mistaken for a burglar” (240). In other words, Staples is viewed as a “youngish black man-broad six feet two inches with a beard and billowing hair, both hands shoves into [his] pockets” (238). Therefore, people assume that he’s a “mugger” or “rapist” based on his

However, Staples overcomes discrimination differently than Graham did. For instance, the writer took “precautions to make [himself] less threating” by “[whistling] melodies from Beethoven and Vivaldi and the more popular classical composers,” and “letting [people] clear the lobby before [he] return” so that they wouldn’t assume that he’s “following them.” In order to convince other that his not a “mugger”, “rapist”, or a typical “young thug.” Therefore, Graham uses this “tension-reducing measure” to convey to other that he nor all African Americans are not