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Summary Of Just Walk On By Brent Staples

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Journalist, Brent Staples, in his essay, “Just Walk On By: Black Men and Public Spaces,” shares personal anecdotes dealing with discrimination in the U.S.. Staples’ purpose is to emphasize the inequitable lifestyle of people of color in a racist society. He generates a feeling of pathos in order to convey empathy in his readers who might have similar connections to his stories. Staples opens his narrative essay by demonstrating the customary stereotypical fate of black men. He displays a series of biting diction by acknowledging his first victim to be a “woman--white” (1), that in public places he is portrayed as a “mugger, a rapist, or worse” when he can’t even “take a knife to a raw chicken--let alone hold one to a person’s throat” (2), …show more content…

The writer establishes an erudite tone when he denotes his mature potential to extinguish his falsified criminal image to prove he is genuine by “moving with about care, particularly late in the evening”, if he enters a building where people seem anxious by his presence, he walks by and lets them “clear the lobby before he returns”, and on late evenings, to reduce tension, he whistles “melodies from Beethoven and Vilvaldi and the more popular classical composers” (6). By exposing his serene and percipient side, he subverts the cliche ideas of all black men being felons, granting a wider view as to how the black community is capable of attaining the same goals and expressing equivalent sentiments as everyone else. Staples’ tone grows admiration from his readers towards him as they acknowledge his will to remain pure and not allowing his vexation to take a toll on his accomplishments as a journalist. Additionally, the author inspires hope for his readers who may suffer from racial prejudice by proving that with the appropriate actions and a subtle mindset, they will not be an outcast to

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