Marked and dangerous?

Well it’s good to be back making my usual depressing content on a dismal Sunday such as this one, but let's get back to business as usual. The essay Just Walk on By tells us the story from Brent Staples life as a black man in America, he starts it off with explaining how he managed to scare a woman in to a sprint to get away from him on a dark night in Chicago. Now to the average reader, we could just shrug this off as racial profiling and call it a day but we can’t simply just call the woman or the others who treated him as a potential threat racist. In this day and age it’s far too easy to just point and accuse without taking both sides point of view into consideration, yes believe it or not, not every black man is itching at the bone to hurt someone but that doesn't mean their fear is totally misplaced. We can be disappointed in the woman all we want but can we really blame her for the way she acted? Let’s take it from Brent's point of view, I'm walking down the street fighting a losing battle to insomnia and the woman who's been walking in front of me and stealing glances for the past ten minutes just ran around the corner after realizing I'm a tall black man.

As the reader, we saw a woman look back at a black man and run away but as a person, that woman saw a tall man walking behind her in the middle of the night on the sidewalk of Chicago. Now for those of you who don't travel, it’s not good to be out anywhere on the street that late but it’s especially not a place you want to be in Chicago. We could get angry at the fact she did it or we could get angry as to why she felt the need to. For all we know she could have been raised by her parents telling her that when you're alone in the city, any man can be a possible threat and in a generation like ours where rape is talked about on the news more than the weather, her actions seem justified.

As for the other men and women who treated him differently his whole life and in the story, it's not so much the same concept. With them it's just fear and although racism, hatred, and even ideals can vanish and be outgrown over time, fear has been a basic survival response since the dawn of time. We're humans, it wouldn't be normal if we weren't afraid of something. Although fear of spiders and clowns are normal and understood, in time will fear of black men or men in general be normal and understood too? Are the minority children of the future supposed to accept "sorry tommy, that policeman pulled you aside from the line to give you a pat down search at the airport because of your nationality" as a reasonable response? A topic as sticky as this makes people uncomfortable as it should, on one hand we know that not every African, Mexican, Indian, or middle eastern man is trying to scout out their next victim across the food court but that doesn't stop some dads from holding their children closer or moms from clenching their purses tighter.

At the end of the day you could look at this and scoff at people's refusal of accepting everything when you want it, or accept that people are afraid. The world as we know it is afraid and its no ones individual fault, it's just how things are. I know that's a lazy response but think back a couple of years, you're 6 and too terrified to go to sleep because your furry sweater hanging on the wall shifted into a headless demon and your closet has transformed into a breeding den of horrors. You express your discomfort and your parent tell you "Don't be scared its nothing" now if you responded with "oh really? I didn't think of it like that" and went back to sleep, say it in the comments below. But for those of you who were normal children, the "reassuring" pep talk brought to you by mom and dad didn't do much when they left you alone. You know it's nothing but you just can’t help but wonder am I in danger? Can we get mad at 6 year old you for being scared of something and not knowing exactly why or can we accept that everyone around the world has a right to fear what they're afraid of. Granted, it does unsettle me when people or policemen eyeball me in crowded spaces but to live with disappointment is a side effect of being human.

Yours truly

-Connor