Black Men and Public Space, by Brent Staples

Brent Staples (b. 1951) earned his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Chicago and went on to

become a journalist. The following essay originally appeared in Ms. Magazine in 1986, under the title,
“Just Walk on By.” Staples revised it slightly for publication in Harper’s a year later under the present
title.

My first victim was a white woman, well dressed, probably in her early twenties. I came
upon her late one evening on a deserted street in Hyde Park, a relatively affluent

neighborhood in an otherwise mean, impoverished section of Chicago. As I swung onto the
avenue behind her, there seemed to be a discreet, uninflammatory distance between us. Not
so. She cast back a worried glance. To her, the youngish black man – a broad six feet two

inches with a beard and billowing hair, both hands shoved into the pockets of a bulky
military jacket – seemed menacingly close. After a few more quick glimpses, she picked up

her pace and was soon running in earnest. Within seconds she disappeared into a cross
street.

That was more than a decade ago. I was twenty-two years old, a graduate student newly
arrived at the University of Chicago. 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. Suffering a bout of insomnia, however, I was stalking sleep, not defenseless
wayfarers. As a softy who is scarcely able to take a knife to a raw chicken – let alone hold

one to a person’s throat – I was surprised, embarrassed, and dismayed all at once. 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. That first encounter, and those that followed, signified that a vast,
unnerving gulf lay between nighttime pedestrians – particularly women – and me. And soon

I 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. Where fear and
weapons meet – and they often do in urban America – there is always the possibility of
death.

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. On less traveled streets after dark, I grew
accustomed to but never comfortable with people crossing to the other side of the street
rather than pass me. Then there were the standard unpleasantries with policemen, doormen,

bouncers, cabdrivers, and others whose business it is to screen out troublesome individuals
before there is any nastiness.

I moved to New York nearly two years ago, and I have remained an avid night walker. In

central Manhattan, the near-constant crowd cover minimizes tense one-one-one street
encounters.

Elsewhere, in Soho, for example, where sidewalks are narrow and tightly spaced buildings

shut out the sky – things can get very taut indeed.

After dark, on the warrenlike streets of Brooklyn where I live, I often see women who fear
the worst from me. 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. I understand, of course, that the danger they perceive is not a
hallucination. Women are particularly vulnerable to street violence, and young black men

are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of that violence. Yet these truths are
no solace against the kind of alienation that comes of being ever the suspect, a fearsome

entity with whom pedestrians avoid making eye contact.

It is not altogether clear to me how I reached the ripe old age of twenty-two without being
conscious of the lethality nighttime pedestrians attributed to me. Perhaps it was because in
Chester, Pennsylvania, the small, angry industrial town where I came of age in the 1960’s, I

was scarcely noticeable against the backdrop of gang warfare, street knifings, and murders. I
grew up one of the good boys, had perhaps a half-dozen fist fights. In retrospect, my shyness

of combat has clear sources.

As a boy, I saw countless tough guys locked away; I have since buried several too. There
were babies, really – a teenage cousin, a brother of twenty-two, a childhood friend in his
mid-twenties – all gone down in episodes of bravado played out on the streets. I came to

doubt the virtues of intimidation early on. I chose, perhaps unconsciously, to remain a
shadow – timid, but a survivor.

The fearsomeness mistakenly attributed to me in public places often has a perilous flavor.

The most frightening of these confusions occurred in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, 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 as a burglar. The office manager

called security and, with an ad hoc posse, pursued me through the labyrinthine halls, nearly
to my editor’s door. I had no way of proving who I was. I could only move briskly toward

the company of someone who knew me.

Another time I was on assignment for a local paper and killing time before an interview. I
entered a jewelry store on a city’s affluent Near North Side. The proprietor excused herself
and returned with an enormous red Doberman Pinscher straining at the end of a leash. She

stood, the dog extended toward me, silent to my questions, her eyes bulging nearly out of

her head. I took a cursory look around, nodded, and bade her goodnight.

Relatively speaking, however, I never fared as badly as another black male journalist. 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 gunpointe 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.

Over the years, I learned to smother the rage I felt at so often being taken for a criminal. Not
to do so would surely have led to madness. I now take precautions to make myself less

threatening. I move about with care, particularly late in the evening. 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, I may walk by, letting them clear the lobby before I return, so as

not to seem to be following them. I have been calm and extremely congenial on those rare
occasions when I’ve been pulled over by the police.

And, on late-evening constitutionals I employ what has proved to be an excellent tension-
reducing measure: I whistle melodies from Beethoven and Vivaldi and the more popular

classical composers. Even steely New Yorkers hunching toward nighttime destinations seem
to relax, and occasionally they even join in the tune. Virtually everybody seems to sense that

a mugger wouldn’t be warbling bright, sunny selections from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. It is
my equivalent of the cowbell that hikers wear when they know they are in bear country.

.{:F
$i.–#

I was saved from sin when I was going on

rirteen. But not really saved. It happened

-ie this. There was a big revival at
my Auntie

:-,eed’s church. Every night for weeks there
:ad been much preaching, singinE, PraY1ng,

-nd shouting, and some very hardened
sin-

:ers had been brought to Christ, and the

LANGSTON HUGHES
Langston Hughes was one of the maior figures of the Harlem Renaissance’

a cultural

moiement th.at spanned ttti tSZOs and 1930s. His writings describe the common

experiences of African Americans and the fficts of racism by exploring music,
humor,

and.faith. Liitenfor his unique uoice as you read this memoir’

membership of the church had grown by
leaps and bounds. Then just before the re-

vival ended, they held a special meeting for

children, “to bring the young lambs to the
foldJ’ My aunt spoke of it for days ahead’ That

night I was escorted to the front row and
placed on the mourners’ bench with ali the

CHAPTER 33 Memoirs

other young sinners, who had not yet been
brought to Jesus.

My aunt told me that when you were
saved you saw a light, and something hap-
pened to you insidel And Iesus came into
your life! And God was with you from then
onl She said you could see and hear and feel
Jesus in your soul. I believed her. I had heard
a great many old people say the same thing
and it seemed to me they ought to know. So I
sat there calmly in the hot, crowded church,
waiting for Jesus to come to me.

The preacher preached awonderful rhlth-
mical sermon, all moans and shouts and
lonely cries and dire pictures of hell, and then
he sang a song about the ninety and nine safe
in the fold, but one little lamb was left out
in the cold. Then he said: “Won’t you come?
Won’tyou come to lesus? Young lambs, won’t
you come?” And he held out his arms to all us
young sinners there on the mourners’ bench.
And the little girls cried. And some of them
jumped up and went to fesus right away. But
most of us just sat there.

A great many old people came and knelt
around us and prayed, old women with jet-
black faces and braided hair, old men with
work-gnarled hands. And the church sang
a song about the lower lights are burning,
some poor sinners to be saved. And the whole
building rocked with prayer and song.

Still I kept waiting to see Jesus.
Finally all the young people had gone to

the altar and were saved, but one boy and
me. He was a rounder’s son named Westley.
Westley and I were surrounded by sisters and
deacons prayng. It was very hot in the church,
and getting late now. Finally Westley said to
me in a whisper: “God damn! I’m tired o’ sit-
ting here. Let’s get up and be savedl’ So he got
up and was saved.

Then I was left all alone on the mourners’
bench. My aunt came and knelt at my knees
and cried, while prayers and songs swirled all
around me in the little church. The whole
congregation prayed for me alone, in a
mighty wail of moans and voices. And I kept

waiting serenely for lesus, waiting, waiting-
but he didn’t come. I wanted to see him, b-:
nothing happened to me. Nothingl I wanre:
something to happen to me, but nothirl
happened.

I heard the songs and the minister sa1 –
ing: “\.\ihy don’t you come? My dear chilc
why don’t you come to Jesus? ]esus is waitir-r
for you. He wants you, \A/hy don’t you come’
Sister Reed, what is this child’s name?”

“Langstoni’ my aunt sobbed.
“Langston, why don’t you come? \\11

don’t you come and be saved? Oh, Lamb :,r’
God! \Mhy don’tyou come?”

Now it was really getting late. I began i:
be ashamed of myself, holding everything u:
so long. I began to wonder what God thougt:
about Westley, who certainly hadn’t seen Jes’;*
either, but who was now sitting proudly on ti:.
platform, swinging his knickerbockered lees
and grinning dor.rm at me, surrounded by dea-
cons and old women on their knees pravin!
God had not struck Westley dead for takir:
his name in vain or for $ing in the temple. !:
I decided that maybe to save further trouble
I’d better lie, too, and say that fesus had come
and get up and be saved.

So I got up.
Suddenly the whole room broke into .

sea of shouting, as they saw me rise. Waves ,::
rejoicing swept the place. Women leaped i:
the air. My aunt threw her arms around me
The minister took me by the hand and led me
to the platform.

\.\4ren things quieted dor,nm, in a hushe,:
silence, punctuated by a few ecstatic ‘Amens.’
all the new young lambs were blessed in the
name of God. Then joyous singing filled the
room.

That night, for the last time in my life bu:
one-for I was a big boy twelve years old-,
cried. I cried, in bed alone, and couldn’t stop. I
buried my head under the quilts, but my aun,
heard me. She woke up and told my uncle i
was crying because the Holy Ghost had come
into my life, and because I had seen Jesus. Bur I
was really crying because I couldn’t bear to tel

her that I had lied, that I
body in the church, that

had deceived every-
I hadn’t seen Jesus,

Nguyen: The Good tmmigrant Student ffiffi#ffiffi
and that now I didn’t believe there was a Jesus
any more, since he didn’t come to help me.

A CL€SER LOOK AT

Sa,lvatior] : ,

This memoir uses sound to add intensity to the
scene. Read through this selection again, underlin_
ing the moments in which sound plays an important
part in the story itself. How is sound used to add en_
ergy? How is it used to reflect the emotions of the
characters? \rVhat kinds of words does Hughes use to
describe the sounds around him?

Hughes describes one of the primary differences be_
tween the ways children and adults view the world:
children generally think in concrete terms, while

adults are also able to think in abstract terms. Do
you think this difference is the root cause of the con-
flict in this memoir, or do you think something else
is causing it?

3. \\4rat is the theme that holds this memoir togerher?
In other words, what is this story really about? Obvi-
ously, Hughes’s experience as a 12-year-old had a
profound impact on him. \A/trat did he learn from
this experience? How do you think this changed him
for life?

2.

(1) By midnight tonight, post which piece of writing you’re going to cover

(2)

Print out that essay and re-read it (and bring it to class). As you re-read, mark it up with (a) whatever you find notable and worth potentially emulating (i.e., rhetorical devices, turns of phrase, structures, etc.), (b) questions you have about parts of the writing that you’re confused by, (c) questions or anxieties you have about how you might emulate certain portions of the writing, (d) notes on what you DON’T think you should emulate, or how you will CHANGE specific things from the original. Take a picture of any 3 pages of your annotations, and then post those pictures to the appropriate forum by class time Wednesday.