Walk on By

Brent Staples's article, "Just Walk on By," really disturbed me when thinking about if it was true that African Americans were viewed like that in our society today. It showed me that a lot of people, including myself, view African American's as somewhat dangerous people in general. Even though a minority might just be walking through the park, watching a movie in the movie theatre, or merely taking out money at the ATM, people look at them weirdly. I know one instance I did this; a black male was driving next to me, and I accidentally cut him off because my lane ended and I needed to merge. As I cut him off, my first initial thought of what he was going to do. I was afraid he was going to either speed up and hit me out of anger or go around me just to cut me off, but he merely backed up and gave me driving room. This is a perfect description of this minority trouble they STILL to this day.
It's a shame they still go through scrutiny for merely being alive. Staples showed us that he feels afraid to be black because people discriminate just on what he wears in public and his skin tone. African American males often avoid Caucasians like Staples said he did to avoid the harsh looks and angry words. This needs to change in America, myself included. It isn’t fair for someone to be afraid to go outside and be discriminated against like Staples merely for something they can’t help (their skin tone) and the fact that people are so harsh in doing so cannot be tolerated anymore. Everyone should feel just as safe as the other person walking down the street. With the discrimination that is happening against back people merely because they're black can't continue to happen anymore.