How then can the knowledge we have gained from contemplating this material help us both as individuals and as a society to grow in our understanding of ourselves and one another?
Essay #1 (Synthesis): Brent Staples’ “Black Men and Public Space”
TASK: What are the implications of the experiences Brent Staples relates in his article for us as
individuals and for us as a society? As we have already talked about in class, Staples’ article is
about much more than his own individual experiences as a black man in our society. In addition,
the implications are not simply confined to just one group of people in this country, something
that “The Culture Inside” and Jennifer Eberhardt both ask us to think about. The research that
has been done on implicit bias suggests that we all have biases not only about those of different
races than our own, but also about some who are members of our own race as well. The work
we have done thus far in this class asks us to “dive deeper” beyond what we think we already
know about the issues Staples raises in his article. How then can the knowledge we have gained
from contemplating this material help us both as individuals and as a society to grow in our
understanding of ourselves and one another? How will this make us better people (after all, the
work we do in higher education is for the collective good of us all). Therefore, in making your
case, it is not enough to merely “point out the obvious” that one group is more negatively
impacted than another. If we really want people to change their way of thinking on specific
issues, then we have to provide them with answers to the “Why should I care about this?” and
“What’s in it for me?” questions.
BACKGROUND AND SOURCES FOR THIS ESSAY: The following items are included in the text set for our
first unit and are required sources for this first paper: Brent Staples’ article “Black Men and
Public Space,” the first three chapters of Jennifer L. Eberhardt’s Biased, excerpts from Melba
Pattillo Beals’ March Forward, Girl, M. Carl Holman’s poem “Mr. Z,” Jason Johnson’s opinion
piece “From Starbucks to Hashtags,” and the Invisibilia podcast episode “The Culture Inside.”
