Brent Staples: Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Spaces

Luke Thompson
Mrs. D. Tantalo
English 101
Wednesday 3:45-6:50
Due 12/10/03
Research Project:
-Author Brent Staples-
Author Brent Staples is an editorial writer for the New York Times newspaper, and an influential commentator on American politics and African-American culture. Staples grew up in Chester, Pennsylvania, and earned his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Chicago in 1977. The essays that I have researched are psychological observances that Staples has made on many people who are guilty of stereotyping African American males by appearance alone. Many of Staples observances take place at night in the impoverished streets of New York (due to his insomnia problem), where he tends to put himself in situations that may make others uncomfortable with his presence, just to see if their reactions to the color of his skin were any different than the would be reactions to a white man. Staples’ psychological approach in analyzing random people’s reactions has...