Deepening the essay “Just walk on by” by Brent Staples

11 September 2013

Deepening the essay “Just walk on by” by Brent Staples

　　In the front part of the essay “ Just walk on by”, Brent tells a few little stories which are talking about how bad racism is hurting him. He is hurting for racism as a child, as an adult, as a student and as a journalist. People are giving a mark of bad people on him. However, in the last paragraph, he “whistles melodies from Beethoven and Vivaldi….” (qtd. in Brent) and “Even steely New Yorkers hunching toward nighttimes destinations seem to relax, and occasionally they even join in the tune” (qtd. in Brent). He chooses the right way to make people think that he is a good person in side. He is not a threat. When most people are facing challenges or prejudices, they resist and refuse to treat the difficulties normally since they are not the ones who have faults. But Brent, he chooses to calm down and find a way to get through the problems. He is the one who can be grateful to enemies, to who has hurt him. At the beginning of the essay, it feels like Brent is accusing the sociality for the unfair treat that people has put on him. But after the stories, he has shown his bright and positive personality by trying to avoid those problems. In the end, he uses his own experience tells us his life, his great sprit. He tells us no matter what comes to you, no matter how much are the difficulties, there is always a way out as long as you stay positive and never give up.

　　If Susan Sontag’s essay, “woman’s beauty: put-down or power source” has a chance of having a conversion with Brent’s, that would be amazing. Brent’s essay is about how to slove a problem, the idea of the essay is to stay in a good manner and be positive which is the most interesting and attractive, Susan’s essay takes a very special perspective to demonstrate how women’s beauty are under a pressure of the sociality “How easy it is to start off by defining women as caretakers of their surfaces, and women as caretakers of their surfaces, and then to disparage them fro being superficial.”(qtd in Susan). Susan is more radical in her essay while Brent is much smoother and
positive.