Brent Staples And Jdowsett's Bike Analysis

Having eyes frequently glaring at you in fear while walking in the city at night and being constantly chewed out for riding a bicycle by both automobile drivers and pedestrians can cause quite the toll on a human being. These things are the daily occurrences for Brent Staples, an African-American journalist, and an internet blogger, JDOWSETT, who chooses to ride his bike in a predominantly automobile environment. In a world where it seems that society continues to favor those who are privileged, this perpetual belief continues to distort many people from understanding what it’s like to live a not so privileged life, especially how people of color are often negatively viewed at compared with those who are white. Staples and JDOWSETT share their …show more content…
While Staples seems to have gotten used to implementing these daily habits for his safety, he has to constantly go out of his way to make others not only feel comfortable, but for his own safety. Just like on the roads, JDOWSETT states how drivers can also put bicyclists in harm’s way without their knowledge. JDOWSETT is always in constant danger on the road because cars don’t give the same privileges they would to bikes as cars such as giving them ample space for example. From Brent Staples’ perspective, he isn’t allowed the same privileges as white people as a result of the negative connotations that stem from being an African-American man of a large build. Staples has to continually change the way he normally acts in order not to raise any suspicion of the possibility of being a criminal. This system of belief originated hundreds of years ago when automobiles were seen as the main use of transportation and that being white allowed you to have more opportunities. Due to the overrepresentation in the statistics, people are too often inclined to think all black people are hoodlums, that they forget that there are other races who are quite delinquent as well. This completely blocks out any hope of seeing life from the perspective of the underprivileged. Therefore, as the privileged grew up in a particular manner, they aren’t as aware of the “potholes” that surround the underprivileged everyday and the things many people, like JDOWSETT and Brent Staples, have to do to overcome them. The things that the privileged do can in fact cause more harm to those who are underprivileged. “where fear and weapons meet -and they often do in urban America there is always the possibility of