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Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space

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Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space opens the world of an african American men who, as he walks in public area, is feared by the people around him as they associate him with a lot of modern day stereotypes. This is shown in both the first version (The Myth of the Latin Woman) and the second version (from the textbook Language of Composition); however, the second version, in my opinion, does a better job of giving the reader context to his experiences and even a better job of making a counter argument. In the first vision and the second version of Staples essay we are given his experience in New York where he is walking down the streets of manhattan and is feared by a white lady, who thinks he is up to no good and has his sights on mugging her or worst. And although this two essay use the same anecdote, the difference between the two is that unlike the first version, the second version from the Language of Composition textbook gives context to the situation. In the first version (MLW) the story of his experience walking on the street at night was never really described but stated;however, in the LOC version he does giving the reader every detail they need to understand his point of view. “Where some see mere panhandlers, Hoagland sees ‘a mugger who is clearly screwing up his nerve to do more than just ask for money.” and then follows up with “I often witness that ‘hunch posture,’ from women after dark on the warrenlike streets of Brooklyn where I live.” (LOC). He does this to clarify his argument. He does this to show how that same racial fear in New York is what is driving this woman to clench her purse and behave the way she is behaving, and indicates this by giving the meaning of that “hunch posture” as a sign of racial stereotypes. When reading the MLW version that situation could just as easily be misinterpreted, by his audience, as a woman scared of a man on the streets at night as she feel vulnerable to

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