Just Walk on by

In the Brent Staples essay titled “Just walk on by”, the author discussed how racism affects self-confidence and results in stereotypes. In the first line of the essay says, “My first victim was a women—white, well dressed, probably in her early twenties”. The author Brent is a black male who is addressing the stereotypes of men of color. He labels the women as the “victim” because that is exactly what she thinks she is.  Black males are stereotyped as killers, muggers, criminals, violent, and he states that other races have taken precautions when around men of color. In the essay a man named Norman Podhoretz wrote an essay called, “ My Negro Problem—and Ours”, he says that he grew up in terror of black males because “ they were tougher than we were, more ruthless”(2^nd sentence  in 5^th paragraph). Other races have grown in fear of men of color because of the stereotype that was made many years ago, although racism has ended, it still lingers in society today.  Brent states that “Women are particular vulnerable to street violence, and young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of the violence” (paragraph 6 sentence 4).   His statement is basically stating that even young black males are even discriminated against because of their color, they are labeled as dangerous even though they are just like everyone else. There are actually plenty other races that are stereotyped in today’s society, and even genders. I believe that stereotyping and racism is an ongoing issue that we will always face in society.