Racial Discrimination

What Brent Staples and Vanessa Baffoe experience may not be entirely based on racism. This isn’t to say that racism and discrimination don’t’ exist. Racism and discrimination are in some instances, misunderstood, and exaggerated like a white person many disrespectfully speak and react towards a black person or any other minority group. “Black Men and Public Spaces”, Brent Staples provides a valuable which long-standing stereotyping about what it means being an African-American in 1960s and he expresses his shock and fear upon discovering that as a black man of large of stature. Staples’ view of himself its consistent with stereotypes and he convinces the readers that he’s anything but stereotypical. Brent acknowledges that stereotypes are often deserved, but he relates personal stories and shares his emotions, allowing readers to put themselves in his place. Moreover. Staples points out the fact that being feared by others is usually dangerous. His idea also related with Vanessa Baffoe’s idea about racial discrimination.

Brent Staples identified his first victim as “a woman-white, well-dressed, probably in her early twenties.” (255) He had “came upon her” late one evening on an empty street in an “affluent neighborhood.” The woman seemed to begin worry, picked up her pace and began running. Brent wasn’t a fault for anything, he wasn’t about to rape, murder, or even come in contact with the woman at all yet. She took it upon herself to believe any things were to happen. Many African Americans and other races tend to get stereotyped and people do it like nothings wrong. Brent Staples seemed to be stereotyped everywhere he went. He began to realize that “the ability of alter public space” (255) was something that he unfortunately inherited. He felt embarrassed and surprised that the woman and others react to him like that since he was far from the person they thought he was. He grew up as one of the good boys and although [he] saw countless tough guys locked...