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Just walk on by brent staples essay
Just walk on by brent staples essay
Just walk on by brent staples essay
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Elijah Anderson spent much of his career doing ethnographic studies in the poor, inner-city communities of Philadelphia. From his field research, he came to believe that people, especially young black men who lived in the most economically depressed, drug-infested, and crime-ridden sections of the city, had to contend with weakened rules of civil law. In the place of the usual civil laws governing people’s behavior evolved a “code of the street” (Anderson, 1999, p. 9). Anderson argues that at the core of this code is a set of informal rules organized around a search for respect that governs public social
In the book The Walk On the main character, Alex Myers is taking his time to do things instead of rushing through them. First Page one says, “but the JV football team plays only four games a year and practice didn’t start till mid-September.” Alex wanted no part of that. He wants to have more games and he wants to play for Varsity. So Alex takes his time in tryouts.
Many of the boys pretended that negative interactions and stereotyping did not affect them, but their bravo personas only masked the fear inside. Fear made the boys feel weaker and less masculine, so they would deviate from social norms to regain respect and dignity among their peers and for themselves. Routine patterns of punishment eventually lead the boys to develop an altered view of thoughts, beliefs, and ways of behaving in order to survive the tough life set them. Chapter two concentrates on the history of Oakland, incarceration rates, youth systems of control, and the boy’s resistance to punishment and brutalization. The Oakland ghetto consists of a multiracial community, predominantly African-American and Latino, that are equally targeted and brutalized by police
How well Wes Moore describes the culture of the streets, and particularly disenfranchised adolescents that resort to violence, is extraordinary considering the unbiased perspective Moore gives. Amid Moore’s book one primary theme is street culture. Particularly Moore describes the street culture in two cities, which are Baltimore and the Bronx. In Baltimore city the climate and atmosphere, of high dropout rates, high unemployment and poor public infrastructure creates a perfect trifecta for gang violence to occur. Due to what was stated above, lower income adolescent residents in Baltimore are forced to resort to crime and drugs as a scapegoat of their missed opportunities.
In her book, On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City, Alice Goffman provides a detailed account of the six years she spent living in and observing a poor, predominantly African American neighborhood in Philadelphia. This community, which she refers to as “6th Street,” directly experienced the immediate effects of mass incarceration in the United States. Thus, that reality caused 6th Street residents to shape their actions, socialization, customs and norms to avoid the police while simultaneously maintaining behaviors––that would otherwise be considered criminal––to survive in a rough and unforgiving environment. To further explore and to try to understand the conditions 6th Street inhabitants faced, Goffman conducted ethnographical research
We can tell the story in two ways. The first way goes as follows. Thirteen-year-old black boy in Atlanta has been charged for murdering Darrell Woods, a middle-aged black family man. The second way goes as such. Michael Lewis, a thirteen year old boy, grew up in the slums of Atlanta with no father and a drug-addict mother.
How well does Moore describe the culture of the streets, where young boys grow up believing that violence transforms them into men? Talk about the street culture—its violence, drug dealing, disdain for education. What creates that ethos and why do so many young men find it attractive? Moore describes the culture of the street in a very detailed manner.
I strongly agree books can play a significant role in our lives. Using the book “Tyrell,” by Cole Booth displays how he overcame adversity he faced by standing up for himself and staying optimistic. Tyrell was an 18-year-old boy who lived in a tough neighborhood in Brooklyn and wound up joining a fierce gang called “Bone Thugs.” As part of the gang, Tyrell was on a bad path and was at risk of not graduating high school.
In the United States, every year there are around 2,000 gang-related homicides and in the realistic fiction novel, The Outsiders, by S.E Hinton, it explores the issues of gang violence, and teenagers in gangs. Around 40% of all members in gangs are teenagers, who are getting involved in some dangerous things very early in life. In the novel The Outsiders, the “Greasers” which is a gang of all teenagers, fight other gangs and commit serious crimes such as murder. We as a society need to pinpoint why teenagers join gangs and stop them beforehand. We also need to help people get out of gangs if they are already in one.
Racism isn't born, it is taught! This essay "Just walk on by Brent Staples" is written in the mid 70's when racism was at its peak. Racism is not only common today it's been a part of American history. Staples works as a journalist in a predominantly white society. This essay deals with racism, stereotypes, and prejudice.
In his essay, “Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space”, Brent Staples uses the rhetorical strategies of anecdote and diction in order to convey his message that due to racial discrimination black people (mainly men) have to change the way they naturally conduct themselves in public for they run the risk of something terrible happening to them. Staples uses anecdotes to bring in the personal side of the message to the audience. Staples creates a persona of innocence and almost alienation in his writing. Anecdotes such as his both instances in which he accidently scared women on walks and the time in which he and another reporter were mistaken for murder suspects or robbers are used to show real life proof of his message.
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.
The message that Brent Staples is trying to convey to the audience in his essay Just Walk On By, is that as a society we have positive and negative preconceived thoughts of other people who are of either the same or different race and gender. For Staples, this means that as a tall black man he has to deal with being seen as deadly and threatening to people who don’t know him. These people let their fear of biased opinions of black men think that all tall, black, and athletic men are going to attack them. Brent uses his stories of people’s fear and judgement of him, to allow the reader to both understand what the people were feeling and how he felt being judged. Brent Staples’ persona helps the message through the use of strong diction.
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.
The IAT Harvard survey consisted of multiple topics regarding race, genders, thoughts on sexuality and so on. One topic was if one prefers European Americans over African Americans. Surprisingly, the results were that most people strongly prefer European Americans over the other. Why is that? Maybe it’s because many people place stereotypes and other ideals towards another individual, whether they have a different skin tone, whether they are male or female, as well as other characteristics one may notice.