Brent Staples

Prejudices in Our World
Both Brent Staples in “Black Men and Public Places” and Judith Cofer in “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” seem to be illustrating the prejudices some people have. They both explain how the way they look gets them treated by others. Brent Staples, because he is black in perceived as a criminal; Judith Cofer is a Latina and is mistaken for a waitress. Both stories give numerous examples of prejudice.
In addition, each writer has a larger purpose, a deeper reason for writing their story: Brent Staples’ reason for writing his story is to express to the reader how these prejudices affected him as well as other black men all over the country and how society, not just white people fear young black
She tells us of other situations where people have looked at her as being “easy” and as a teenager, her friends and their mothers felt that the cloths she wore were, “too mature and flashy”. Judith Cofer’s main theme is to show the misconceptions as well as the stereotypes people have of Latin women. She uses examples like how the media uses certain words to describe Latin women, words like: hot tamale, sizzling, and smoldering; how, many Latin women that work in factories are victims of sexual harassment and that people think they are maids or waitresses. She expresses feelings of anger and discontent because of how Latin women as well as she are treated by people. One of the incidents that affected her the most was when she went to a luncheon to read one of her poems an older woman mistook her for a waitress and tries to order a cup of coffee from her. She says she understands that the woman was not intentionally trying to be cruel yet; she became very angry at the
Staples has written for the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago magazine, Down Beat magazine, Ms., New York Times Magazine, and Harper’s; he continues to try and shed light on racism and violence in our world. Cofer has written many books, she is an award winning poet, and is currently the Franklin professor of English and Creative Writing at The University of Georgia; she continues to try to do away with the stereotypes of Latin women through her writing. These two writers are trying to show us that stereotypes and prejudice are not just jokes that we tell each and laugh about, but rather they can and will hurt those being stereotyped. The racist jokes, thoughts, and stereotypes we hear have a bigger impact than to makes us laugh or be fearful, they help to spread racism. We need to try and look deeper and the color of someone skin; we are all human, we all have our strengths, we all have our weaknesses, but we cannot let one of our weaknesses be our susceptibility to take part in racism not matter how good natured we may think it