Brent Staples Ten Ways We Get The Odds Wrong

In Brent Staples article “Just Walk on By”, Staples shares his thoughts on the way marginalized groups interact. He uses his own experiences as a young African American man to shed light on how people can have implied biases that affect the way they treat other people. Staples does this to demonstrate how society develops preconceived notions in the minds of individuals about marginalized groups, primarily African American men, which are often a flawed representation of the people within these groups. The rhetoric he uses is key to developing an understanding persona and an emotional appeal that exposes the implied biases of people without alienating or offending the audience, to whom-- among others-- he attributes these biases.

The piece of writing which I felt was unsuccessful for me was the Rhetorical Analysis of an article relating to a topic from our course book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. This piece of writing was difficult for me to organize my ideas around. The article that I decided to use for my rhetorical analysis highlighted mass incarceration among African American and the effect of civil liberties being are taken away from these individuals. I had a lot of repetition because many of the examples I used demonstrated more than one type of appeal. I found myself repeating what the purpose of the example was and how it demonstrated proper use of ethos, pathos, and logos. This also made it difficult

Staples speaks of his experiences being a six foot tall, young, African American male in a city filled with poverty and crime. He had never truly been exposed to the stereotypes and discrimination in his younger days, of course he knew of it, but he never truly experienced it. When he was twenty-two years old, he was out walking at night due to a bad case of insomnia. Apparently, he was following a little too uncomfortably close to a white woman and she felt endangered. She began to run from him in a defense mechanism, opening his eyes to the discrimination he was born into. As he grew up, he experienced many more experiences such as the one he had that night in Chicago. Staples defends himself to the reader, telling them of how harmless he truly is. Although, Staples can understand why these women could be intimidated, especially in such a high poverty neighborhood. Staples looks past the discrimination, until it comes to the point where he becomes frightful. Staples is terrified of the gun violence and worried that if he makes a wrong move his life could be over.

Anne Lamott 's essay, “Shitty First Drafts” explains to its readers that all writers, even the best, can have “shitty first drafts.” The essay presents the proper writing process from the first draft to the final piece of work. Her essay is intended to encourage writers who are in need of direction when it comes to writing and to teach inexperienced writers ways to become more successful in writing. Anne Lamott uses her personal experiences to build credibility, figurative language to engage the reader and provides the reader with logical steps for the writing process.

The revolutionary Civil Rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr, once described discrimination as “a hellbound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.” His point being that African Americans face racial discrimination on a daily basis. Brent Staples, being an African American living in America, expresses his view on the subject in his essay “Just Walk on By”, where he conveys the message of how fear is influenced by society's stereotypical and discriminating views of certain groups of people; his point is made clear through his sympathetic persona, descriptive diction, depressing tone, and many analogies.

The concept of exemplarity was used extensively throughout Roman literature as a tool to give guidance and enforce authority. By providing an ethical framework of societal precedents, exempla served to govern all facets of Roman public life. The system of exemplarity had an inherent power in Roman society, allowing it to be exploited for personal gain by rulers such as Augustus. Through his monumental literary biography, Res Gestae Divi Augusti, Augustus manipulated exemplarity in order to translate his coercive power into benevolent authority over the people of Rome.

Society in today’s world is very alike to society years ago, with different social classes and stereotypes. In “Just walk on by” by Brent staples, a variety of rhetorical devices are used in order to convey the message of how a black man is trying to show society that he is so much more than the color of his skin. The author explains how the character was characterized as violent and dangerous because he was black. Staples continues on a sort of journey with the character to show how he overcomes that stereotype, by whistling classical music to give the idea that he is mature and less threatening. Throughout the piece, Staples uses devices that will help the reader better understand the struggles that the character has to face on a daily basis.

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. 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. This little piece of hyperbole increases the ironic take on how people will actually run away from him as if they are going to become real victims to harm. It highlights that piece of which everyone 's’ fear is based solely on superstition; where nothing will

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

The story begins with Staples describing his first experience frightening a white women due to the colour of his skin. 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. Living in the East Vancouver, I have grown to be aware of people who seem dangerous. I live in a contrasting neighbourhood of wealth and poverty, just like in the essay where “Hyde

He is not living a life of a normal people. He is dealing with different people of different nature. Staples never knows who is going to injure him or makes a false accusation about him. he was facing racism, discrimination, and prejudice all at the same time. He is living in that era where all black people are treated as violent, disrespectful and harmful. Staples explains that the woman's quick getaway when she saw him on a street at night following him, made him feel like "an accomplice in tyranny" that was "indistinguishable from the muggers." Although he said a person who doesn't even know how to use a knife how can he harm anyone? How he is thrown out of his own office just because guard assumes him as a burglar. He later explains how he portraits himself less threatening by taking measure precautions like the whistles around the people just to show positive ethos and to make people comfortable around

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). By using such a unique story with eye-catching phrases as the introduction of his article, Staples evokes the emotion of fear and unsettledness that soon proceeds to a feeling of relief, yet in a way that 's melancholic.

In Sociology, stereotypes are described as "pictures in our heads" that we do not acquire through personal experience. I believe that stereotypes are a mental tool that enforces racial segregation and self-hate. As well justification for dehumanizing minorities. Such as Black women are "Mammy", "Welfare Mothers", "Uneducated", " Inferior", and "Poor". White women are "Pure", "Desirable", "Affluent" and "Superior". These stereotypes are labels that evoke images of oppression, segregation and exploitation of minorities in America. Meanwhile reinforcing the dominance in a social hierarchy.

In the article “Black men in Public Space,” the author Brent Staples narrates how he has been mistaken for a criminal several times bruise he was African American. In this story, he recalls his first victim a young white-woman he scare on a deserted street in Hyde Park. The author argues that in other occasion he would see people black, white, female, or even male hammering down the doors of their cars since they thought he was a mugger. In their defense, Staples asserts that he could not blame them since young black male had occasionally been involved in violence. Staples continues to give more examples of extreme situations in which he found himself in trouble for being mistaken

In Brent Staples essay "Just Walk On By: Black Men and Public Space" Staples uses a lot of diction to puts emphasis on the tensions between the black and white races. It was very clear to point out and say that his target audience are the scared white women and people that get frightened when they see a person of color. Staples knows that there are good and bad black people but regardless of what he thinks of himself others will always look at him different. So to change their ideals he uses strong diction to get them to feel different. Staples believes white people see him as a "mugger" or a "rapist". He uses these words to let the people see that they are verbally aggressive towards people like him and its bad. He would never do such a thing,