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Effects Of Just Walk On By Brent Staples

691 Words3 Pages

In modern society stereotypes and racism are still well and alive, and seen on a daily basis. Its seen everywhere and it greatly affects certain people more than other due to many negative connotations or saying associated by that typical race. For some its a part of everyday life, while some are not greatly affected on their day to day life , some people are greatly influenced and impacted by it. In Brent Staples;s “just walk on by : black men and public space” we are shown how Staples is being affected in his daily experiences. Staples argues how racial profiling has greatly impacted his life on a day to day basis through the use of diction, irony and Staples , using stereotypes and good diction describes his experiences with a middle age woman to show how stereotypes are presented towards him every day and the displeasure he felt. Staples noted “ My first victim was a woman...to her the youngish black man...seemed menacingly close...she disappeared into a cross street...” In this example we see Staples being avoided due to the fact that he had his hands in his pockets and was walking on the same sidewalk as a white female, and an impoverished area of a chicago neighborhood. Staples begins to grow accustomed to these sort of things since he knew stereotypes don't go away or change and we see him develop around it as he moves on with …show more content…

Staples said “ And i soon gathered that being perceived as dangerous is a danger in itself.” He describes how being thought of as a dangerous person is actually more dangerous than being an actual danger or a menacing person to society, as well as how people avoid him and even walk more, and cross streets to avoid walking by him or next to him .How people perceive a certain race usually has a negative meaning, most stereotypes do as

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Because Staples is black, the woman thought he was threatening and chose to avoid him. Michael Wines and Frances Robles, in the article “Key Factor in Police Shootings: ‘Reasonable Fear’” gives reasoning that police sometimes will use deadly force when put under life or death situations. Wines and Robles statement referring to an officer that shot an unarmed black man, “If an officer believes he or someone else is in imminent danger of grievous injury or death, he is allowed to shoot first and ask questions later,” is morally challenging because it is not right that a police officer should be able to use guns on a potentially unarmed and non-dangerous person because of the stereotype that black men are a lit stick of dynamite waiting to go off. Despite untrue thoughts about individuals, people still make fearful judgments based on profiling and

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Staples uses words such as ‘victim’ and ‘mean’, by doing this he sets a picture in the readers head that when he came up behind this lady on the street, something was going to do happen to her. One strategy of ethos appeal that staples uses to represent himself as exactly the opposite of the negative stereotypes. He states “As a softy who is scarcely able to take a knife to a raw chicken – let alone hold it to a person's throat – I was surprise, embarrassed, and dismayed all at

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Staples understood that he was unwelcome in the store and left wishing her a goodnight. As Staples was growing up in the sixties he says how he was “scarcely noticeable against a backdrop of gang warfare, street knifings, and murders” (2). Around him he sees his friends, family, and neighbors, “all gone down in episodes of bravado played out in the streets”(2). He is fearful from these things because at any point in time that could be him who lays dead. In the essay he even says, “ Where fear and weapons meet-and they often do in urban America -there is always the possibility of death”(1).

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He starts to allow the reader to empathize with him by going from identifying the woman as his victim to stating how her response caused him to feel bad about himself. Staples does an excellent job in drawing a guilty sensation from the audience, which is important when gaining an emotion response. "I grew accustomed to but never being comfortable," in my opinion, this is the most influential statement because it makes the readers feel guilt and think about being in the writer 's shoes (614). He accomplishes a rhetorical goal by pulling emotion from his audience. He makes the audience see from his level that racism still exists whether society chooses to believe it or

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He is seen as a threat to women as they "are particularly vulnerable to street violence, and young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of that violence" (Staples 5), having to be aware of the stigma that follows him constantly. As his racial appearance was maximized, Staples saw how his actual character was being minimized as he has done nothing to appear as a threat, even actively avoiding violence, "as a softy who is scarcely able to take a knife to a raw chicken--let alone hold one to a person's throat" (Staples 2). He understood that the majority of people whom he would encounter throughout the night would not look upon him favorably. Young women would fear him, pedestrians would be wary of him, and people, in general, would be cautious of his presence. Staple describes the situations where he had to experience the maximization of his identity using onomatopoeia to help provide better imagery and sensory effects.

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The misconceptions people have about Staples because he is a young black m an is that he is a mugger, gang member or up to no good for that matter. He feels that he causes these thoughts to people especially white females because whenever he is around people with a white skin color get tense. When he walks by a women she gets nervous in which her body language shows. She tenses up, holds her purse tighter, walks faster and sometimes even crosses to the other side of the street.

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That it is reality and not just a concept based off of racism. Within these anecdotes Staples uses hyperbole to create suspense and kind of overstate the real issue at hand in order to show how terrible his position truly is. Such as in the opening sentence, “My first victim was a woman - white, well dressed, probably in her early twenties…(542)”. The woman is not an actual “victim” to any physical harm. Nothing happened to her except she feared for possibly her life.

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In his essay entitled Black Men and Public Space (1987), Brent Staples talks about how people will have a common misconception on the black community by thinking that they are all mugger ,rapist or thugs. Staples supports his claim by telling the reader events/ stories that occured to him and talks about how people will assume that he is a danger to society when in reality he isnt. The authors purpose is to inform the reader that his experiences of being stereotyped is to show the reader his point of view when it comes to these types of situations. Staples writes in a formal tone for an intelligent or free minded person.

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In the reading Just Walk on By by Brent Staples, the topic of racial stereotypes surfaces from the man who gets racially profiled quite often as he explains his personal experiences. The author bluntly tries to pass the message that racially judging people is wrong and explaining how it makes the other party ,african americans, feel. When analyzing Staples’ message his rhetorical strategies play a huge role into how his message is perceived. He uses influential diction allowing each word to give an impact unmatched by any white man who tried to convey a black man’s thought process. Staples also appeals to his credibility with the obvious observation that he is a black man talking about his real life experiences.

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Staples uses imagery, so the reader can picture it when reading his work, and to help create a sort of dark and lonely tone. The character uses several personal experiences which use a large amount of imagery. This is better shown when staples writes “ As a softy who is scarcely able to take a knife to a raw chicken- let alone hold it to a person’s throat……”(542), The character feels as though he is being judged for being a certain color when really he is afraid himself of getting hurt; he is also very humble and shy because he is afraid to even harm something that isn’t alive. When being treated as guilty and wrong, shame will follow; the character feels shameful that the lady is afraid of him when he has done nothing wrong.

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This unfortunate stereotype is still highly prevalent today. We all read about African-American men committing crimes, we see it in the news and on social media. That goes to say, not all crimes are committed solely by black men, and black men should not be treated like criminals based off of others wrongdoings. Staples recounts the events of a night he went for a walk. On this walk, he encountered a well-dressed white woman (as he so described) who instinctively mistook him for a criminal.

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Brent Staples, in his literary essay “Just Walk On By”, uses a variety of rhetorical strategies. The devices he uses throughout his essay effectively engage the audience in a series of his own personal anecdotes and thoughts. He specifically shifts the reader 's perspective towards the unvoiced and the judged. Within the essay, Staples manipulates several rhetorical strategies, such as perspective and metaphor, in order to emphasize the damage stereotypes have caused against the mindsets and perceptions of society as a whole. Staples illustrates how the nature of stereotypes can affect how we perceive others around us in either an excessively admirable light or, in his and many other cases, as barbaric or antagonistic.

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Staples moves on to state that he never became comfortable with people who crossed to the other side of the street rather than pass him (183). By providing examples of people desperately trying to distance themselves from him when he didn’t exhibit any malicious intention in his actions, Staples shows that he was misinterpreted as dangerous solely because of his physical

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The women’s racism caused her reaction of “running in earnest,” “worried glances” and her eventual getaway, exemplifying the prejudice of a black male. He further demonstrates his “ability to alter public space” when just crossing “in front of a car stopped at a traffic light.” He hears the “thunk” of the driver locking their car regardless of them being “black, white, male, or female.” Staples understands the world is dangerous and people have the right to fear those around them, however, he continues to endure discrimination. But I am the person making those judgements.

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Author and editorial writer, Brent Staples acknowledges this issue as well as experience many situations in which people distinguish him from others. Brent Staples message in his essay titled “Just Walk On By” is conveyed to the audience through many rhetorical devices in which he suggests that stereotypes of race and gender can impact someone 's life in the easiest ways. Brent Staples use of pathos creates an emotional connection and pulls the reader into his essay, through his anecdotes and diction. His intro paragraph tells an interesting story, in a way that readers often forget what type of passage they are reading. Staples uses of phrases such as “my first victim”, “seemed menacingly close” “picked up her pace” and notably “running in earnest” (1-2).

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