Prejudice in Public Space

Brent Staples in "Just Walk on By" showed us how he was able to alter public space with his presence. One time while he was walking on a deserted street in Chicago he saw a woman who was farther ahead than him. After a while, the woman believed that he was "menacingly close" (Staples 542) and started to run away from him. While Staples wasn't trying to commit any sort of harm, he was falsely accused of being "a mugger, a rapist, or worse" (Staples 542). Another example was a time when he entered a jewelry store. When the proprietor of the establishment saw him she immediately left the room that they were in and brought in an "enormous red Doberman" (Staples 544). 

These examples depict how much prejudice there is towards African Americans. While we can see many reasons why people act this way such as how "Women are particularly vulnerable to street violence, and young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of that violence" (Staples 543), there is still not good enough reason for why we must alienate them from society. Because of how many have treated Staples like this he had to start to whistle classical tunes from Beethoven and Vivaldi to "relax" (Staples 544) the pedestrians that walk by him. We should not be forcing people to change who they are based on how we physically perceive them. We need to stop treating African Americans as outcasts but instead, try to be more open towards them.