Black Men and Public Space by Brent Staples - Essay Example

Brent Staples was a graduate student, just arrived at the University of Chicago from his hometown of Chester, Pennsylvania. As the author walked to get the better of his insomnia, he found himself behind a young, white, lady. While the author perceived he was at a ‘discreet’ distance from her, the white woman was uncomfortable, glancing back worriedly, hastening her steps, and eventually running into a cross street.

This ‘first encounter’ as he calls it and the many that followed brought on the realization that there was a palpable tension between the author and other nighttime pedestrians especially women just because he was black.
He became ‘thoroughly familiar’ with ‘the language of fear’ within a year of his coming to Chicago. He learned to expect car drivers stopped at traffic lights to hurriedly lock their car doors as he crossed in front of their cars on dark, lonely intersections.

He learned to deal with pedestrians preferring to cross to another side of the street rather than have to pass him. He suffered ‘unpleasantries’ with people like policemen, bouncers, etc whose job it is to keep troublemakers at bay.

Being attributed with a mistaken identity has had the author caught in unpleasant, even dangerous, situations more than once. Yet he feels he has got away comparatively lightly.
To keep his peace of mind the author has learned to control his anger at being mistaken for a criminal now and then. He makes it a point to make elaborate gestures of being peaceful and on the right side of the law likening his various ways of assuring his ‘victims’ to the cowbell worn by hikers in bear country.

Interpretation of Writer’s Central Message

Through his essay, the writer brings forth very clearly the dilemma and dangers that are faced in public spaces in urban America by black men who do not conform to the stereotype of being dangerous or outside the law.
ANALYSIS
Thesis:
Innocent, law-abiding, violence-shunning, black men are as many victims of circumstances as those who fall prey to the actual violence.

Black Men and Public Space, by Brent Staples, is an essay that illustrates the above thesis very poignantly. His hurt more than indignation at being perceived as dangerous simply because he was big, burly, and black is palpable throughout the essay.
The essay begins with the words, “My first victim was a woman- white…”. (Staples, para1) It is the author himself who was victimized. Soon after he arrived in Chicago as a young graduate who by his admission was timid, a ‘softy’, a ‘good boy’, and one who ‘doubted the virtues of intimidation’ got wrongly suspected of being a mugger or a stalker.

This occurred in spite of there being in his perception a ‘discreet, non-inflammatory distance’ between them.
This incident and the many more similar ones that followed brought about an uncomfortable realization that ‘surprised, embarrassed and dismayed’ the author.
“It was in the echo of that terrified woman's footfalls that I first began to know the unwieldy inheritance I'd come into--the ability to alter public space in ugly ways.” (Staples, para 2)

He would always be the suspect, as potential ‘victims’ failed to distinguish between him and the mugger from the ghettos. While he understood that the fear on the women’s faces as they prepare to pass him on the streets of Brooklyn, is entirely justified with blacks being the largest offenders in cases of street violence, he says,
“…these truths are no solace against the kind of alienation that comes of being ever the suspect, a fearsome entity with whom pedestrians avoid making eye contact.” (Staples para 5)

If other people in public spaces felt threatened or fearful by his presence, instances showed that Staples, himself was in constant danger, too! He was in constant danger of being suspected of being dangerous and as he puts it ‘where fear and weapons meet … there is always the possibility of death’. (Staples, para 2)
Smothering the rage he has felt so often on being mistaken for a criminal, Staples finds ways to adjust his body language and actions to assure people in public spaces that he is far from a criminal. In his endeavor to add positively to public space, Staples and others like him must find fitting reciprocity that alone can prevent public spaces from turning ugly on sheer misplaced suspicion. Read More