Blog 10

After reading Staples “Just Walk on By” it sort of angered me. Seeing as I fall into both the white and African-American categories, it made my heart sink. Yes, of course if anyone strange man of any race followed me down a dark alley-way then I would be shaking in my boots (partially because I am a very paranoid person and that it is just plain weird). One reason for my paranoia is probably because of all of the scary, creepy stories that I hear on the news; “Man kidnaps young girl and chops up her body in 4 equal pieces”, “Man shoots pregnant mother in broad daylight walking down the street”. These are all headings that are enough to make me nervous and very scared. I once read an article( I don’t remember where or when…very sorry!) that stated that a person’s blood pressure escalates to great heights after watching the 6 o’clock news. Yea no kidding, I rarely hear any good news and if there is there’s only one or 2 stories against the many scary ones. Aside from the negative, it is true that there are many many stereotypes especially against male African-Americans. This could be the reason for the woman’s worry-ness. What I find very funny is how in the opening sentence of his paper, he has to make it clear that the woman what white. So what? If African-American woman was in this case would he have mentioned that too or would he have completely omitted it? Just an observation. I especially enjoyed how Staples said “I began to take precautions to make myself less threatening” (p 187). I liked this because it shows how he understands the stereotype against African-American men and that he is putting forth an effort to dispel it.