Black Men and Public Space

In a society as culturally diverse as the one we live in, you would think that people would learn to be more accepting of others. Nevertheless, there are still those who simply cannot. In his essay Black Men and Public Space, Brent Staples describes something that most young black men experience on more than one occasion in their lives. Being perceived as a criminal simply based on his "unwieldy inheritance", the color of their skin.
Staples recalls his experience as a 22-year-old graduate student away from home for the first time. …