Single stories bring many different people, religions, cultures, and many other things in unfamiliar perspectives. Some of those are bad and some are even worse. The single story is like judging a book by a cover and not even reading it just by the look of the cover. In this case, Brent Staples, an African-American male, in his essay “Just Walk on By” has been repeatedly labeled as intimidating, dangerous, a criminal, and many more things with in his surroundings. The strategies he uses to point out his perspective on how society look at him differently are flashback, tone, and narration.
Brent Staples shows in how he’s been labeled intimidating when he states in one of his flashbacks of how a woman reacted to him late at night. The quote says, “There seemed to be a discreet, uninflammatory distance between us…After a few more quick glimpses, she picked up her pace and was soon running in earnest.” This shows how at the woman’s point of view she saw an intimidating black man behind her so she feared for the worst …show more content…
In the article “Just Walk on By”, it states, “I was becoming thoroughly familiar with the language of fear. At dark, shadowy intersections in Chicago, I could cross the 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 doorlocks” (pg.9). He tries to explain in a distressing tone about how he’s just human and that he will not do wrong only right. It even states how he just walked across the street and while crossing a car immediately closed its door signalizing him being dangerous. This put a lot of thought into Brent Staples as he also tries to inform us that what you see it’s not always what you think. A person is different, everyone is different, but with the media we can only be labeled as one to many things others more than usual like