Black Men and Public Space

507 Words3 Pages
In 2012 racism still exist, Black Men and Public Space is still very much relevant to African Americans today. Brent Staples experience racism first hand as an African American male in his story, Black Men and Public Space. From a first person point of view, Brent Staples explores his involvement with stereotypes through anecdotes and dark humor. “My first victim was a woman, white, well dressed probably in her late twenties,” is how Staples starts his story. With this anecdote Staples grab the reader attention and curiosity to see why he uses these terms to describe the woman and what has happen between the two of them. Now having the reader’s attention, the story continues on to reveal that the woman is not the “victim” but that Brent Staples is the victim of prejudice. Now that the reader finds out that Brent Staples is the victim they are dragged into the mystery of why Staples portrays himself as a victim. Staples say he was “surprised, embarrassed, and dismayed all at once,” after encountering his first victim, who suspected him to be mugger or a rapist because “to her he was a broad six feet two inches with a bread and billowing hair”. He captured the reader’s emotions after the realization that he was not “distinguishable from the mugger” because the readers know that Staples was not going to cause no harm to the women. He taps into the readers emotions with the use of imagery. Setting the location to “after dark, on the warren like Street of Brooklyn” takes the reader to a dark and scary place. Time after time Staples depicts himself as a victim in the story. Staples goes on to tell the readers about the feelings of uncomfortably after being away from his home town for a year now. “I could cross in front of a car stopped at traffic light and elicit the thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk of the driver – black, white, male or female –hammering down

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