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7 views3 pages

Draft Notes

BbbbbBbbbHhhh

Uploaded by

alluzon247
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Notes / key points

The author ; brent staples


Article ; night walker
* The particular occasion for Staples's reflections is an incident that
occurred for the first time in the mid -1970s, when he discovered that his mere presence
on the street late at night was enough to frighten a young white woman.My first victim
was a woman-white, well dressed, probably in her early twenties.

*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. It was
clear that she thought herself the quarry of a mugger, a rapist, or worse.

*Her flight made me feel like an accomplice in tyranny. It also made it clear that I was
indistinguishable from the muggers who occasionally seeped into the area from the surrounding
ghetto

* And I soon gathered that being perceived as dangerous is a hazard in itself. I only needed to
turn a corner into a dicey situation, or crowd some frightened, armed person in a foyer
somewhere, or make an errant move after being pulled over by a policeman.

*In that first year, my first away from my hometown, I was to become thoroughly familiar with
the language of fear. At dark, shadowy intersections, I could cross in front of a car stopped at a
traffic light and elicit the thunk, thunk, thunk of the driver--black, white, male, or female--
hammering down the door locks.

*They seem to have set their faces on neutral, and with their purse straps strung across their
chests bandolier-style, they forge ahead as though bracing themselves against being tackled.
*Women are particularly vulnerable to street violence, and young black males are drastically
overrepresented among the perpetrators of that violence.

The most frightening of these confusions occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when I
worked as a journalist in Chicago. One day, rushing into the office of a magazine I was writing
for with a deadline story in hand, I was mistaken for a burglar( I had no way of proving who I
was.).I give a wide berth to nervous people on subway platforms during the wee hours,
particularly when I have exchanged business clothes for jeans. If I happen to be entering a
building behind some people who appear skittish,
He went to nearby Waukegan, Illinois, a couple of summers ago to work on a story about a
murderer who was born there. Mistaking the reporter for the killer, police officers hauled him
from his car at gunpoint and but for his press credentials would probably have tried to book him.
Such episodes are not uncommon. Black men trade tales like this all the time.

What, if anything, does the author leave us, tell us, inspire us concerning any of the above issues?
Staples tells us that being perceived as a danger to others is very bad in itself. Because it makes you
unclear from being a part of the danger or being a victim of said danger. Kinda like if you're biking
and a group of bikers come by you. Eventually you will start to blend-in with a group of bikers. Which
is why he states that he has gotten stopped multiple times by police throughout the article.

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