While every fear is different, everyone experiences it at some point in their lives. With every fear, every person reacts in a different way. In “The Fender Bender,” Perez feared being captured and deported. On the other hand, Staples in “Black Men in Public Spaces” faced two sides of fear: one side where he scared others due to his overbearing size and another side where he feared the reactions of other people’s fear of him. Each man copes with their situation and fears in a different manner.
Both men experience fear in their stories but in different ways. Perez has a fear of interacting with people, because he is afraid that he will be deported if he has any interaction with law enforcement or any other officials. His fears confront him face
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Perez has a fear of saying or doing the wrong thing to attract unwanted attention that would make his identity questionable. He is also afraid of doing or saying something wrong when the seemingly rude police officer arrives to fill out the report on the accident. While filling out the report, the officer asks for Perez’s identification which Perez is unable to provide with necessary documentation. Amongst the chaos, Perez “finds himself searching my memory for my uncle’s telephone number, and to my relief I remember it. I am waiting for the Anglo to say yes, confirming my expectations of the trip” (Perez 25). Meanwhile, Staples deals with everyone’s fear of him due to his massive size. His height and overbearing appearance make people fear him as a dangerous criminal even though he is “a softy who is scarcely able to take a knife to a raw chicken—let alone hold one to a …show more content…
After the police officer leaves the scene of the accident, he goes back to the car, in which he was instructed to leave, proceeding to break in and leave. Perez only experiences his fear when police officers or other officials are present. Because Perez does not respect himself, laws, other people or officials, he goes out of his way to avoid people who may suspect his illegal citizenship. Staples is harmless and worries endlessly about the fear he causes to others by simply walking down the street. The fear he causes others has followed him most of his life and will continue to follow him. Staples is a law-abiding citizen that not only goes out of his way to avoid attention, but also intends to help others by not causing distress. He goes out of the way to make people comfortable with him by employing methods such as walking on the other side of the road, avoiding people on the platforms, and whistling Beethoven or Vivaldi to help combat the fear others have of
In this essay, Dr. Brent Staples recounts his first time unintentionally scaring a young white women located in Hyde Park, Chicago. He recounts her worried posture, her hurried steps, and her repeated glances before she took off down the road. Dr. Staples, being a person of color, took slight offense to this. Before he had never really thought much about his skin color being a factor of intimidation, but rather just a piece of “normal” discrimination. It was the mid 1970’s after all, and it was no secret to anybody
New worldly conflicts arise everyday and many of these conflicts make us question our morals as individuals and as a nation. In both “Flight Patterns” and “The Help: A Feel-Good Movie That Feels Kind of Icky” we are introduced into the conflicts that race bring about in everyday life. It is indisputable that race is hard to talk about and everyone seems to have a different stance on what is racism and what is not. In both stories, race is brought up and talked about in a way that is solely bringing truth to the issue. In Sherman Alexie’s story we see the thought process about race from someone who is not white, and in Dana Stevens’ story we see how a white woman sees controversy in a film that is supposed to be about black women. Both stories
Many writers focus their works of written art on life situations. They focus on drugs, poverty, stereotypes, young adults living in a difficult world, and of course a topic that has been present for many years, male domination. Abraham Rodriguez Jr. in “The Boy Without a Flag” captures all these themes and more in his Tales of the South Bronx, that relate to the lives of many Hispanics and minority residents of the United States.
In the short story “Antojos”, by Julia Alvarez, the protagonist, Yolanda pretends to only know English because she is fearful of the two men that try to speak to her in Spanish. It is evident that she is in fear of the men when “she can feel her pounding heart-- and nods” (Alvarez). It is ironic how she hides her Dominican Republic identity because she wants to connect with her family roots while she was visiting. Yolanda pretends to not know English so that she would be able to understand what the men were saying without them knowing. She uses this strategy as a “fight” method. Sometimes when one is in an uncomfortable situation that can put one’s life in danger, one does whatever one can to survive. This is shown in the poem “Runagate Runagate”, by Robert Hayden, when he says, “Some go weeping and some rejoicing/ Some in coffins and some in carriages/ Some in silks and some in shackles/ Rise and go or fare you well” (Hayden). Actions that one takes in response to fear can affect one’s life. Sometimes one has to choose to face one’s fear in order to be successful in the long
This insulated environment of race-based protection helps to build white expectations for some sort of racial comfort, leading to what the author calls White Fragility. The concept of White Fragility refers to a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, inducing defensive moves, that might include violence as happened in the context of Marlow’s photograph (DiAngelo 56). The protester in the photo was manifesting his desire for an equal society, where blacks and white could have equal treatment and opportunities, but he was oppressed with violence. By using DiAngelo’s lens, it is possible to affirm that the white cops felt threatened by the possibility of having to face a society where their race was no longer the dominant, and therefore they reacted with violence. The “racial stress” in which the white people are usually protected by the environment of the American society came up and the consequence was the intolerance with which the cops reacted. Besides violence, the reactions might include the display of emotions like fear, guilt, and anger, and behaviors such as silence, argumentation and leaving the situation that induces stress (DiAngelo58). This explains the lack of action of the cops that surrounded the police officer that assaulted the black man, since they acted with silence, another consequence of the racial stress. Therefore, it is now clear that the photograph, which was taken in London and at first glance seems to address a British issue, expands its representation to an American problem, and perfectly reflects the racism that is still present in American popular culture. Clearly, this racism is a consequence of the threat which racial equality would bring for white
There are two main issues in the movie the “The Color of Fear” that I will discuss. These two issues include grouping people of color on the basis of the way one looks, and the attitudes of different races towards one another. Including also the idea that the white “do-gooder” feels that subconsciously racism is being taken care of, when in all reality it isn’t. The eight men in The Color of Fear candidly discussed racism not only as "whites oppressing blacks," but also the less addressed sides of racial trouble in America. A white man earnestly stating that he had never oppressed anyone in his entire life, and a Hispanic man talking about being afraid of driving in front of pickup trucks with gun racks, shows how there needs to be more progress towards ending these feelings in America. Stereotypes were openly declared, from Asians as "the model minority" to blacks as "lazy, violent, and dangerous."
Brent Staples focuses on his own experiences, which center around his perspective of racism and inequality. This perspective uniquely encapsulates the life of a black man with an outer image that directly affects how others perceive him as a person. Many readers, including myself, have never experienced the fear that Staples encounters so frequently. The severity of his experiences was highlighted for me when he wrote, “It also made it clear that I was indistinguishable from the muggers who occasionally seeped into the area from the surrounding ghetto.” (135) Having to accept that fact as a reality is something that many people will never understand. It is monumentally important that Staples was able to share this perspective of the world so others could begin to comprehend society from a viewpoint different from their
In Brent Staples’ "Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space," Staples describes the issues, stereotypes, and criticisms he faces being a black man in public surroundings. Staples initiates his perspective by introducing the audience in to thinking he is committing a crime, but eventually reveals how the actions taken towards him are because of the fear linked to his labelled stereotypes of being rapists, gangsters and muggers. Staples continues to unfold the audience from a 20 year old experience and sheds light onto how regardless of proving his survival compared to the other stereotypical blacks with his education levels and work ethics being in the modern era, he is still in the same plight. Although Staples relates such burdens through his personal experiences rather than directly revealing the psychological impacts such actions have upon African Americans with research, he effectively uses emotion to explain the social effects and challenges they have faced to avoid causing a ruckus with the “white American” world while keeping his reference up to date and accordingly to his history.
In “Black Men in Public Spaces” the author talks about multiply situation where he was treated different for being an African American. Staples said,” I entered a jewelry store on the city’s affluent near North side. The proprietor excused herself and returned with an enormous red Doberman pinscher straining at the end of a leash” (161.) Then there is “Right Place, Wrong Face, which is focused on and African American man that is wrongly accused of a crime because of his race. White said, “I was searched, stripped of my backpack, put on my knees, handcuffed, and told to be quieted when I tried to ask questions” (229.) The two articles have many similarities. Both articles have two educated African America men who get treated different because of their race. Staples and White both have situations where they are being stereotyped by society because there black
In the short essay, “Black Men in Public Space” written by Brent Staples, discusses his own experiences on how he is stereotyped because he is an African American and looks intimidated in “public places” (Staples 225). Staples, an intelligent man that is a graduate student at University of Chicago. Due to his skin complexity, he is not treated fairly and always being discriminated against. On one of his usual nightly walks he encountered a white woman. She took a couple glances at him and soon began to walk faster and avoided him that night. He decided to change his appearance so others would not be frightened by his skin color. He changed the way he looked and walked. Staples dressed sophisticated to look more professional so no one would expect him to be a mugger. Whistling classical music was referred to the “cowbell that hikers wear when they know they are in bear country”(Staples 226). The cowbell is used to protect hikers from bears. But in Staples case, it was to not be stereotyped and show that he is harmless. The general purpose of Staples essay was to inform the readers that stereotypes could affect African Americans and any other races.
“Flight Patterns” is written in a first person narrative point of view, the narrator being William. This lets the reader see the story from William’s perspective, giving them a different lens to see the story and the narrators troubles through. This is an effective tool in this short story because many of the readers do not know the feeling of being racially profiled constantly. Through many examples of minor problems throughout the story, Alexie provides the reader with a basic sense of what issues racial profiling can cause. One of these recurring problems for William is constantly being mistaken for a someone of Middle Eastern descent, rather than an American Indian. This causes different problems, one of them being Muslim taxi drivers constantly asking him if he is Jewish. Another effect of this being William is constantly being pulled aside for ‘random’ pat down searches. While these issues may appear to insignificant the reader at
The old man, Claude Robichaux, was brought before the police sergeant as well as the officer who brought him in. A black man named Jones made comments during the man’s “interrogation” and was repeatedly told to shut up by name, giving the idea that this wasn’t the first time Jones had been there.
Staples concentrates on how black men were being taken a gander at by the way they convey themselves or by the way they were wearing open spots. Staples was taken a gander at as a black man who needed to take or hurt somebody each time he was within the sight of a white people. Staples likewise clarified how as a young man he saw extreme folks going to prison and how he 's lost his sibling, high school cousin, and dear companion. He was practically expelled from an occupational building because the director had confused him for a thief. Following quite a while of being mixed up for a criminal Staples discovered that on the off chance that he would avoid potential risk to make himself less undermining. He does that by changing his physical conduct.
The main character is completely alienated from the world around him. He is a black man living in a white world, a man who was born in the South but is now living in the North, and his only form of companionship is his dying wife, Laura, whom he is desperate to save. He is unable to work since he has no birth certificate—no official identity. Without a job he is unable to make his mark in the world, and if his wife dies, not only would he lose his lover but also any evidence that he ever existed. As the story progresses he loses his own awareness of his identity—“somehow he had forgotten his own name.” The author emphasizes the main character’s mistreatment in life by white society during a vivid recollection of an event in his childhood when he was chased by a train filled with “white people laughing as he ran screaming,” a hallucination which was triggered by his exploration of the “old scars” on his body. This connection between alienation and oppression highlight Ellison’s central idea.
Fear is a ruinous force, driving the execution of illogical actions. These actions cause ruin, as seen in the case of apartheid, where the land is ruined and the people divided due to the unfounded fear of white Africans. As the damage that fear causes is significant, one should be able to look past one’s fear to prevent inflicting pain to others.