Blog Post #10

After reading Brent Staples "Just Walk On By", I had mixed emotions about his essay. At first, I felt depressed that some people judge on looks. Staples has a bad run of luck and is mistaken a few times for something that he is not due to his image, either the way he cuts his hair or the clothes that he wears. But as I read further and further on, the essay was mainly about african americans and being wrongly accused for crimes. For instance, the first part of the essay about the woman running away from him at night. Of course the woman would run away, any suspicious man either black or white, she is going to take off because why take a chance? Why take a chance of getting mugged? Honestly, why would Brent Staples take it in a manner that he did. Society teaches its women to protect themselves because there are plenty of people out there that would hurt her if given the chance. New York is infamous for muggings so obviously that must have added to the situation. That being said, prejudice is apparent in our society today. We all have pre-misconceptions about certain groups of people because that is what society teaches us. An interesting concept was that Staples brought up was that he noticed his own effect on a situation and the end result of his presence. It's extremely interesting to see what happens when a certain person is added to a situation and the reaction from that addition. For example, if a cop enters a room, a certain wave of order and discipline overcomes the room. The only parallel I can draw between my paper and Brent Staples' essay is that I do not want my paper to turn into a passive essay. I want the audience of my paper to stop and think about the facts that I provide and question society. Staples focuses too much on the color of his skin. The world is not fair, everyone has hardships no matter their race and each hardship that is overcome makes he/she stronger.