Walking by

Black Men in Public Space Racism is one of the social injustices the society has been fighting since time immemorial. It causes pain, adversity, mistrust and even intimidation. It is of such that Staples is faced by a situation he never thought was a reality, people dreading him by judgment on the color of his skin and not the content of his character. Apart from being black, women especially in the streets could not stand a tall black man of 6 feet 2 inches tall, with beard and billowing hair in the dark (Samuel, Cohen). The circumstances faced led Staples to focus on three major alienations facing the society and these are: gender, race and the social class whether you look like you are from the ghetto or from the affluent hoods. The title of the essay initially being ‘Just Walk on By’ was majorly referring to a white lady who seeing Staples had thought he was one of the bad guys who mugged, raped or just did something absurd to people. Later on Staples changed the title to ‘Black Men in Public Space’ on the argument that he had realized that the issue was universal and that he actually was amazed at the power he had to alter the feeling, reactions and expectations of people in public according to this statement, “It was in the echo of that terrified woman's footfalls that I first began to know the unwieldy inheritance I'd come into--the ability to alter public space in ugly ways.”