Brent Staples essay “Black Men and Public Spaces"

How Do I Look?

It’s funny when you look at yourself. We try our best to look presentable to society. We strive to obtain attention, in most cases, from people to gain benefactors whom would help us in our lives. Due to this one must understand how we look affects others. We may appear in a variety of ways, both good and bad, based on how we look whether it because of our clothes and shoes all the way to the race we are as a human being. Brent Staples essay “Black Men and Public Spaces” represents this idea yet it shows the highly negative aspect of how someone responds to who we are. In his case though, Staples explains the prejudice side of human nature when they see someone due to our look. He explains of the first time he had an experience with racial segregation he faces as a black person when he is out for a midnight stroll and a white female runs from him due to how he appears. Apparently, being a black man in Staples’s society leads to the immediate idea of being identified as a criminal of society, like a thief, a killer, or some other absurd idea. He tells how he entered a jewelry store, and a female owner brought in a dog to “discourage” him to not be in for long. Staples recounts tales of other black men who faced his same conflict like a black man who was working as a reporter on a murder and the cops almost arrested him for the killer since he was around and they believed he stuck to the saying, “the killer ALWAYS returns to the scene of the crime.” These ridiculous assumptions made upon Staples as a young, black man as well as his peers’ displays the prejudice at the time, where black males were always placed in a category without question. For this I agree with Staples’s possible argument where people cannot judge a person based on the race of oneself or the image they display to the public without understanding- character, individual, or reasoning- the person for being who they are first.
Staples recognized when he made a woman fear him, he was introduced to a moment of racial segregation. His surprise holds a deep tone of shame of how he feels due to his character through the quote:
As a softy who is scarcely able to take a knife to a raw chicken- let alone hold one to a person’s throat- I was surprised, embarrassed, and dismayed all at once. Her flight made me feel like an accomplice in tyranny. (347)
Staples honestly asks, “Did I scare you?” in this quote because his character is of a gentle person. Even if he is “broad six feet two inches with a beard and billowing hair” (346), Staples truly wishes to express denial of being judged with how he looks. By appearing menacing, and still being kind, the reader would read Staples as a “gentle giant” in order to be understood by the people of who he is even if he has a dark skin tone. Staples always try his best to separate himself from violence. His morals prevent him from taking part in such due to the harsh nature and his background of growing up in “Chester, Pennsylvania, the small, angry industrial town” (348), thus he encountered it numerous moments of fighting and killing at a young age. He simply states the following to further identify who he is and his views on violence:
[…] I was scarcely noticeable against a backdrop of gang warfare, street knifings, and murders. I grew up one of the good boys, had perhaps a half-dozen fistfights. In retrospect, my shyness of combat has clear sources. (348)
Many times when a person grows up in such an environment, they would embrace such violence instead of running from it. Of course such thought is due to the logical idea where a sense of adaptation to survive occurs, displaying Staples use of logos in the essay, in the human mind. Yet, due to his “good boy teachings,” Staples is able to present himself as a black man whom was raised into a morally justified individual. Since he was raised in such a way, the concept of other black men being raised in a similar sense should be possible as well.
Staples explains how he sees the reactions of people to how he looks. To him, seeming intimidating to others is discomforting. Therefore he mentions how he “now take[s] precautions to make myself less threatening” (348) so the people will not feel his presence to be troubling. […] I whistle melodies from Beethoven and Vivaldi and the more popular classical composers. Even steely New Yorkers hunching toward nighttime destinations seem to relax, and occasionally they even join in the tune. Virtually everybody seems to sense that a mugger wouldn’t be warbling bright, sunny selections from Vivaldi’s Four
Seasons. (349)
For Staples, providing entertainment is a good way to make people feel at ease around him. Making his presence known also establishes the simple fact Staples is not trying anything. By giving people the sense that he made his presence known, society recognizes him as a simple person, not a robber, mugger, or thief. Staples’ reasoning for his actions is simply for the sake of protecting himself from harm and to allow others to know even if he seems harmful, he means no harm.
The idea of you can appear threatening to some if a surprising fact. However, being fearful because of some racial segregation is not acceptable. Though Staples agrees that there are black males who are violent, he disagrees that he is one of them throughout the essay. He puts forth the idea of the misconception of blacks and how it should be removed from society. People meeting strangers just to judge them because of petty facts about their race should be discouraged. A person should be judged based on who they are so moments where Staples was mistook for something he is not does not happen to others as well.