Black Men And Public Space By Brent Staples Summary

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In the article “Black Men and Public Spaces,” Brent Staples talks about black men being stereotyped as dangerous people in the society. When there is a crime a black man was always the ones that committed the crimes. Some people see all black men as the muggers, the rapist, or the murderer. When he was headed into work with a deadline story, someone mistaken him as a burglar. He didn’t have any I.D on him, so he didn’t have any way to prove who he was. He had to hope that someone in the office to recognize him. Another time was when a reporter was mistaken for the killer when investigating a crime and the police had him at gunpoint. He was a black man as well. Even when he walked down the streets, especially at night, people get scared and …show more content…

When people saw him, they came to a conclusion that he was dangerous rather than just getting to know him as a person and judge him on the way he acts and the way he looks. He mentioned in the article that when he walked by vehicles he could hear the doors locking from the people inside the vehicle being scared. People would run across the street when they saw him coming because they didn’t want to walk beside him. However, under those situations, he couldn’t blame the people for being scared, but still it is an uncomfortable feeling. So now whenever he went out in public places he changed up the way he appears; for example, he would whistle melodies from Beethoven and Vivaldi and the more popular classical composers, doing so, some people even joined in. Occasionally he would walk past them so they wouldn’t think that he was following them. This man shouldn’t have to be changing his actions and how he goes about in public just because people stereotype him as being a mugger, rapist, or a

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