Just Walk on By: Black Men in American Society

The American dream has been portrayed as something that can be accomplished by anyone in order to gain success in America regardless of race, skin tone, and cultural background as long as they have the ambition to acquire that success. What is not made public to the people is the reality of the inequalities that occur to those with a different gender, race, religion, ethnicity or social class. Black men in specific have been a big target to inequality throughout American history making it harder for them to achieve personal success and live out the American dream. The reason they have a harder time accomplishing their goals is because they lack opportunities.

Due to the bad image black men have been given by society those who hold power are least likely to give a black man the same opportunities they would offer a Caucasian man. On “Just walk on by: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space” by Brent Staples he states that when he used to work as a journalist in Chicago he rushed to the office of a magazine he was writing an article for with a deadline story in hand and was mistaken for a burglar. The office manager called security and harassed him all the way to his editor’s door. Staples quotes “I had no way of proving who I was. I could only move briskly toward the company of someone who knew me”. This is an example of what many black men have to go through in America and how the behavior of those who hold prejudice against them can affect their opportunities. Not only is Brent staples a journalist but he was there to deliver an article he wrote for the magazine. The behavior this office manager showed is proof of how the way others view black men can not only affect their opportunities but minimize their worth making it harder for them to achieve success. 

The sense of feeling powerless limits the ability of black men to seek out positions of power or speaking out on topics they feel strongly about without feeling fear of being punished. This issue can be labeled as part of the consequences racial profiling has had in society. Racial profiling has created mistrust in law enforcement, hostile environments for black men, and social tension in communities. Black men have to experience being put on uncomfortable and unfair situations due to the color of their skin on a regular basis a good example of this is on “Just walk on by: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space” by Brent Staples. He mentions a negative experience he went through due to racial profiling in which he was walking at night and a woman thought he was following her most likely thinking of him as a criminal. Mr. Staples quotes “It was in the echo of that terrified woman’s footfalls that I first began to know the unwieldy inheritance I’d come in to - the ability to alter public space in ugly ways”. All black men have to do is simply exist in order to be associated with the negative stereotype that society has created for them. Not given an opportunity to proof themselves other wise they live in a world in which they will automatically be perceived as criminals. 

Racial profiling of black men from an early age causes groups of people to turn against each other and lose trust. Our communities are an important part of succeeding in life. Tension in communities build up faster with every unjust act against black men. The feeling of injustice that develops between people in communities creates an issue. Black men being targeted often end up accepting the negative stereotypes by seeing themselves as inferior. Furthermore the media often portrays black men as perpetrators of violence. The portrayal only focuses on violence in between individuals to divert the fact that while some black men commit acts of violence far more are victims of violence itself.