Summary Of Just Walk On By Brent Staples

In “Just Walk On By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space,” author Brent Staples addresses the racial profiling issues that we have in our country and the things that cause them. He discusses how it feels to be a black man in society and how people, especially black males, should carry out their daily lives. Staples implies that racial profiling is caused by both black males that commit crimes and our society because the media portrays the majority of criminals as being black males. Black males participating in street crime is the basis of racial profiling. Brent Staples discusses how young black men are made into young thugs based on “the male romance with the power to intimidate” (Staples 240). He also mentioned that young black men use this power to intimidate in order to commit crimes and that “poor and powerless young men seem to take all of this nonsense literally” (Staples 240). Staples is simply stating that young, black men, that are raised on the streets, look for power through intimidation and that every male fights for dominance. They then grow up to use this intimidation and showing of dominance in order to commit crimes and rob other people. Staples explains that intimidation and dominance become daily life and

Brent Staples states, “young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of [street] violence” (Staples 240). Staples in stating that even though people of other race cause many crimes, the media sources choose to portray black males as the majority of criminals. Staples is implying that the problems lay with the criminals of our country, not a specific gender or race. The media sources are pushing the idea that the average black male is a criminal, when in fact a criminal can be of any gender or race and that criminals are not limited to a certain gender or