Prejudice What Is It Like to Experience Essay

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Prejudice

What is it like to experience prejudice on a daily basis? Many, if not most, whites do not know what it is like to be a member of an underclass. It is important to understand the structural elements of prejudice in a society. It is also important to understand how to deal with prejudice on a personal level. There are many ways to deal with prejudice. One is to fight back, and direct anger and frustration outward. The problem with this method is that fighting back sometimes entails physical aggression, and can be harmful to self and others. Another method of dealing with prejudice is to internalize the sense of inferiority and come to believe in the stereotypes and biased beliefs. The problem with this method is that it only promotes prejudice and allows for its perpetuation. Furthermore, internalizing inferiority can lead to problems like mental illness and disharmony in the social environment. Finally, it is possible to deal with prejudice by allowing the prejudice to make one stronger.

Brent Staples embodies the latter method of dealing with prejudice. As an African-American male, Staples has been labeled as being someone scary and potentially dangerous. Even black people lock their doors when they see him coming down the street. The reason for people's fear of him is that he is a young black male, and young black males are stereotyped in America as being violent people. Staples is a graduate student and journalist as he reflects on his experiences walking down the streets of New York and Chicago. Especially when he walks down the streets at night, people are terrified and often cross the street. He states that the people who appear most afraid are women, because there is a stereotype that black men pray on white women and intend to rape them. The ironic first line of the story is designed to fool the reader. "My first victim was a woman -- white, well dressed, probably in her early twenties." By this, Staples means to suggest that even the reader will start to believe that Staples is a perpetrator and the white woman is a "victim." In reality, she is the perpetrator of stereotyping and Staples is the victim.

Staples responds in the best way possible: with journalism and self-respect. He notices that his blackness is an "unwieldly presence," and that presence connotes "the ability to alter public space in ugly ways," (Staples 1). The realization stuns the kindhearted journalist, who calls himself a "softy who is scarcely able to take a knife to a raw chicken," (Staples 1). When he sees how women believe him to be a "mugger, rapist, or wore," Staples feels "surprised, embarrassed, and dismayed all at once," (1). Because he is black, Staples has been associated with "the muggers who occasionally seeped into the area from the surrounding ghetto," (1). Being "perceived as dangerous is a hazard in itself," as Staples does not need to actually do anything to be apprehended by a policeman (1).

This poignant experience of prejudice is something that Staples suggests is shared by most African-American men. As a graduate student, Staples cannot understand at first why people would be afraid of him. Then he realizes that it is his skin color alone. Being prejudged is an unfortunate fact of life. Usually, it is the dominant white culture that prejudges non-whites. After all, Staples was "surprised" at the reactions the whites had when they saw him, as if he expected more of them. He did not expect that the white people would be so thoroughly brainwashed and unable to think critically. Staples did not prejudge anyone in society; society was prejudiced against him. Unfortunately, Staples's experience reveals a theme common in African-American literature. The experience of prejudice is practically universal in African-American literature because the experience is commonplace and even normative.

In "Graduation," poet Maya Angelou describes her experience with prejudice. Like Staples, Angelou started off with an innocent, perhaps naive view of society. She believed that as one of the top students in her graduating class and second only to the valedictorian, she would have the opportunity to fulfill any dream she wished. Her family and entire community joined in the celebrations, and her mom made Sunday breakfast "even though it was Friday" (Angelou 26). The young Angelou "hoped the memory of that morning would never leave," (Angelou 26). The student body joined together in rites of hope and promise, including a collective singing of the Negro National Anthem.

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Angelou's experience prior to graduation was like Staples's experience before he moved to the big city and realized people looked at him like he was a criminal. They both thought that everyone was created equal, as that was what they had been taught in school. Having not yet experienced prejudice until that moment, Staples and Angelou had their innocence shattered through the experience of prejudice.

A similar experience happened to Zora Neale Hurston. In "How it Feels to be Colored Me," Hurston claims that when she grew up in Eatonville, Florida, it was an "exclusively colored town." She notes that Northerners were funny to watch because they "peered at cautiously from behind curtains by the timid." However, Hurston was on her turf. From her perspective, the Northern whites were not prejudiced; they were just curious and funny onlookers. "During this period, white people differed from colored to me only in that they rode through town and never lived there," Hurston states. She also points out that she would willingly entertain the whites, who viewed her as a novelty. Instead of treating her like a human being, the whites treated her like a zoo animal and gave her "small silver" for doing what they asked. Young Zora did not think these were signs of racism or prejudice until she moved to Jacksonville. She was thirteen years old at the time. "I was now a little colored girl. I found it out in certain ways. In my heart as well as in the mirror, I became a fast brown warranted not to rub nor run." The white world rudely projected its prejudices upon young Zora. Like Angelou and Staples, Hurston reflects upon the first time it dawned upon her that prejudiced is all-pervasive in the United States. Prejudice is part of the human experience, and became a formative part of these three authors' identity.

What matters most for Staples is what to do about prejudice. Similarly, Angelou and Hurston focus on the responses to prejudice rather than on lamenting that prejudice exists. Staples "grew accustomed to but never comfortable with people who crossed to the other side of the street rather than pass me," (1). His attitudes and behaviors are interesting in that ironically, Staples does nothing at all to change his behavior. He does not allow the prejudice to stop him from walking, to prevent him from enjoying his night walks, or to impede his sense of well being. His confidence is not shattered. The society comes across as being the victim and culprit at the same time. Staples maintains a core of resiliency.

Resiliency is also what gets Angelou and Hurston through their experiences with race-based prejudice. Angelou claims that the man's words "fell like bricks," and the people hung their heads and fidgeted with handkerchiefs. At first, Angelou is angry. She states, "Then I wished that Gabriel Prosser and Nat Turner had killed all whitefolks in their beds and that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated…and Christopher Columbus had drowned in the Santa Maria," (Angelou 29). She briefly attacks all the symbols of America because of the fact that America was a nation built on slavery, and that it seemed impossible to expunge racism from the American consciousness. Angelou continues, "It was awful to be a Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense," (30). Angelou's anger extends to the entire human race, as she states, "As a species, we were an abomination. All of us,| (30). Her sentiments are understandable reactions of a teenager who for the first time realizes how terrible racism has taken over the human soul. The negativity allowed a dark cloud to settle on Angelou and her entire graduating class. When she accepted her diploma, she was prepared to be proud, but instead she ended up feeling humiliated. Prejudice had temporarily scarred her, but then Henry Reed the valedictorian delivered his speech. He followed the speech with a prayer, song, and invocation that reminded Angelou and everyone else in the crowd to not let prejudice ruin their spirits. Angelou's original reaction was akin to Staples: of shock and surprise at how low the human race can sink morally. Like Staples, Angelou finds that anger and negativity only feed the mechanisms that breed prejudice. It is better to ignore the prejudice and walk away from it,.....

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