Staples, you poor guy, I just want to hug you! I'm sorry people kind of suck...

     
Lucky me, my two questions are related!

     In Staples' two versions of his essay "Black Men and Public Space" his description of "the language of fear" is altered considerably. When he first wrote it he made it apparent that people were afraid of him when he "could cross in front of a car stopped at a trafic light and elicit  the thunk, thunk, thunk of the driver... hammering down the door locks". It was clever, but average. He made it seem like it was juts a general inconvenience that everyone was scared of him because of something that he had no control over. However, in the revised version he begins the paragraph with "I became an expert in the language of fear". The revised essay was much more powerful and allowed the audience to picture couples desperately trying to hold on to each other in his wake. No longer was it a general inconvenience, we could tell that it genuinely upset him so much that he compared himself to a rabid dog.

Developing the Reflections

     Staples uses examples to "paint a picture" for his audience. He uses the "thunk, thunk, thunk of the driver hammering down the door lock" to show the driver's haste and scared-ness(what is word-recall?) to do whatever they can to prevent this scary black man(sarcasm) from entering their car. It is a great image because we can see how that would be relevant. In the case of his "precautions" he explains that he makes an effort to not be scary. He whistles popular classical tunes or takes extra time to walk past his destination to ensure the comfort of people he doesn't know.


He's not scary, he's like a teddy bear!

 http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/04/brent-staples.jpg