Brent Staples Essay

777 Words4 Pages
In Brent Staple’s essay, Black Men in Public Spaces, he targets a wide variety of audiences in American society. Through his personal experiences Staples eloquently discusses the discrimination faced by black men in the elite, white social class. Not only does Staples prove his point that racism and fear of black people are ever present, but he shows the other side of the argument, specifically why white women are afraid of black men. His vivid scenarios and sense of alienation add to his very valid points. Brent Staples reached his audience on not only a personal, but public level as well. The way Staples opens his essay is genius. He uses the personal experience of a white woman fearing his attack, and ultimately running from him. Instantly, he has caught the reader’s attention and keeps it for the rest of his argument. Through this kind of intimate and close to home story, Staples makes it clear that he himself came to the awful realization of “ the ability to alter public space in ugly ways” ( Staples, 19). He gives the reader that same sense of alienation that he felt at that moment; because of his skin color people automatically treated him different. Through this personal way of speaking he reached not only the white women, but black men, and American society as a whole. Staples makes the entire situation feel as though it were happening to you at that very moment; and that, no matter how hard you try, there is no changing the American way of discrimination. Staples also touched on situations that pertain to every audience mentioned above. The elite white women reading this essay, originally in Ms. Magazine, were given the sense that Staples understood their fear, and sympathized with the fact that it is a dangerous world for women in general. Black men were also affected by this piece because it showed that they are not alone in this feeling of
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