Jean holds her purse and walks closer to her husband Rick when she sees two black men walking toward them. The two black men whose names are Anthony and Peter walk up to them and seeing Jean’s reaction and the hijack Jeans and Ricks SUV. When they get home, Jean wanted to get all of the locks changed because her purse was stolen and her keys were in it. So Rick hires a Mexican to replace all of the locks in their house. When Jean sees the Mexican replace all of the locks in the house, she gets angry.
He gives examples from walking down the street at night and women grabbing their bags tighter to walking across the cross walk and people locking their car doors. Staples tells a personal story where he had his first bad encounter with a woman as he was walking through the park behind a woman innocently and because he was a tall, black, and suspicious looking man she was scared and instantly ran away, “it was in the echo of that terrified woman’s footfalls that I first began to know the unwieldly inheritance I’d come into-the ability to alter public space in ugly ways.” (1). Staples didn’t realize what he was getting himself into when he lived in these new areas, and especially him being
As Perry walks thinking to himself about what just happened a lady jumps out of her car and yells Michael’s name. It was Perry’s girlfriend from high school; she jumps on him and gives him a big hug. In one moment Perry recalls a random night that he would never have thought about if it wasn’t for him remembering the smell of her “spearmint kisses.” No words were needed to be said, all it took was his nostrils inhaling the sweet smell of her fresh breath and the memories flashed through his head. Being a paramedic, nurse, and firefighter, Perry tells some stories that are very sad and seems to put him into a lower mood. Some of the
The other Wes as we read saw the flashiness of selling drugs, he just wanted the new clothes and shoes that Tony and the rest of the kids and teens had. While the author Wes did not exactly go that far, he went with lying to his friends about being hard and tuff and exaggerating on stories a little bit and ditching school. Both of them growing up in the same neighborhood had to deal with the same thing, Drugs, more specifically Crack . The area that they lived in had seen a sixty one percent jump in the crime rate. This was not your typical drug “Crack was different from the drugs that preceded it.
They are caged in the car wash because of their illegal status and not knowing English while there are many opportunities and wealth surrounding them. A friend offers English classes, but Antonia responds “we leave the house before six in the morning and get home after eight at night –some nights we work until 10. When do we take the classes”. Their illegal status limits their opportunities even though there are chances available to them. Their main purposes are to earn money, but they have to do the blue roller job and work overtime for less pay.
When we moved to New York, she worked multiple jobs…whatever she could do to help cover her growing expenses” (47). Moore’s mother, a college graduate herself, would not let her children fail to receive a proper education. She sent them to Riverdale, an expensive, private school, so that they wouldn’t fall victim to the public school system of the Bronx. Failure was never an option in Wes’s household, and even though he had tried to rebel against this fact many times as a young child, this is ultimately what helped him to succeed in the rest of his life. There had been multiple times in his life that Wes could have fallen victim to the streets, and become just another juvenile criminal like so many around him,
Not to do so would surely have led to madness. I now take precautions to make myself less threatening. I move about with care, particularly late in the evening. I give a wide berth to nervous people on subway platforms during the wee hours, particularly when I have exchanged business clothes for jeans. If I happen to be entering a building behind some people who appear skittish, I may walk by, letting them clear the lobby before I return, so as not to seem to be following them.
The Journey Once there was a fireman named Gregory, he was what we call nowadays just an ordinary guy. One day he was walking down the street to head on home for the night and he just about bumped into a girl 17 years of age named Brooke Lynn. They got deep into their conversation, and then just before Brooke Lynn had to leave she just randomly asked Stripe, “Are you happy”, and then happily went into her house. He was very confused because no one ever had asked him that question before. His wife Maggie was wondering why he came home with a weird look on his face, and he told her the story about how he met Brooke Lynn.
In the scene that follows, a character played by Sandra Bullock a well-known actress, displays the Hollywood views of a Caucasian woman. Bullock’s character and her husband are walking down the street of an upper class neighborhood and pass two African American youth; in her natural reaction she braces her husband’s arm for safety. Later in the film, Sandra and her husband get robbed at gun point. Bullock goes on to make this comment, “If a white woman sees two black men walking towards her and turns the other way, she’s a racist, Well I got scared and didn’t say anything, and the next thing I knew, I had a gun shoved in my head!” Perhaps negative stereotypes have maintained prevalence because so many individuals perpetuate them. Many believe that all young black men become thugs, criminals, and drug dealers.
Staples attributes this to growing up in a small town in the sixties where he was known as one of the “good boys” of the neighborhood, surrounded by a bunch of gang activity and violence. As a graduate student new to the Chicago area, Staples learned that to strangers he looked no different than the criminals that frequented the area. Describing himself as a softy who has a hard time taking a knife to raw chicken, Staples found it hard to accept being mistaken for a mugger. Staples was surprised when men and women alike would cross to the other side of the street rather than walk past him or lock their doors as he walked past their cars stopped at traffic lights. Staples has endured many embarrassing situations due to being perceived as a threat.