Just Walk On By Brent Staples Summary

Valeria Blanco Dr. Lynn Fauth English 101 20 January 2011 Just Walk on By In the essay Just walk on by, author Brent Staples shares his experiences of living with the prejudged notion that he is someone to be feared because he is different from his peers. Brent Staples grew up in the small town of Chester, Pennsylvania where he was an outsider. He caught on to something that most of his friends probably had never thought about before or even felt that they had the right to think about. Somewhere along the line of his child hood Staples chose to rise above the normality of his peers. He chose to become what was unexpected of him and set new standards for his life. He decided to be a dreamer, however; when his dreams came true Staples quickly learned that changing the way he felt about himself internally did not mean that people would overlook judgment on what they saw externally. Brent Staples grew up in an urban hardcore society that demanded him to lust for intimidation over others but he matured and managed to slide by the test of his manhood, Staples writes,” I came to
At a first glance from a distance, people only see a black man, which instills great fear in people because being a person of color meant you were potentially dangerous to society. Why were people of color marked as dangerous? Perhaps because at the time Americans were mechanical and routine and there was only one right way, one right color. I’m sure that as soon as the people that judged Staples from a distance saw him up close began to question their perceptions on black men. People were probably surprised to see him holding a briefcase on his way to the office and wonder if black me can really do what everybody else can and perhaps even