Professor Northington

English 0090-RD04

02/06/2022

Night Walker

       The Short story “ Night Walker ” by Brent Staples is basically about a black man who lives in the United States and is embarrassed by how people fear him just because of his skin color . People when walking outside rather cross the street instead of walking next to him because he's a black man and they think they're all aggressive . Rasicsm is real they see a black man and see a murder , gang member or the starter of a street fight . He believes we should try to eliminate racism instead of rebelling against the one who is racist.  There's a lot of stereotypes against black people , like the fact they are always categorized as the lowest class . Also, that we always have something to fight for in a violent way which isn't true. He believes we should try not to believe in those stereotypes and change our ways of thinking .

The short story "Don't Call Me a Hot Tamale" written by Judith Ortiz Cofer is basically about a Latina woman that had to deal with Hispanic stereotypes growing up in America.  Growing up in New Jersey, she was taught that women should wear bright colors and jewelry and always formal clothes to anything. Her Puerto Rican culture represents it. In her family, they all talked Spanish and ate Spanish food. But, going out of her home, she was surrounded by a mainstream culture that didn’t understand her culture. She also feels like she lives in two different worlds between her Hispanic family and other people who don’t fit her culture. They were stereotyping her, basically saying or thinking all Hispanic women dress slutty, which means they are sluts. They were also called "hopeless' and "vulgar" because people didn’t seem to want to try to understand their culture.  Cofer’s prom date sexually assaulted her by forcibly kissing, and when she didn’t respond with a kiss, he stereotyped her and said, " I thought you Latin girls were supposed to mature early,” which means that he thought of Latin girls as sex toys. Men were singing and calling her Maria from West Side Story when she was at college. She didn’t like men were doing that to her because it was embarrassing and inappropriate towards her. Secondly, they wouldn't have done this to a white female. She doesn’t want to fight the stereotypes given to the Latin people; she wants to replace them with a more set of realities for the Latin community. Cofer loves to write poetry to help readers try to get past her skin color and culture. She puts her fears and dreams into her work to express how she feels about things. 

Professor Northington 

English 0090-RD04

2/6/22

 

Night Walker.

By Brent Staples,

The main idea for this short story was to explain what black men go through in America. Another main point of this short story is how America is racist towards black men and black people. 

He talks about how it is hard to be a black man in America. He also talked about how their racism in the world led to black men. He also talks about how everyone thinks that black people are the reason for all the wrong in the world for example murders, street fights, gangs, etc . he also talks about how the world is very rude to black men and also black people. “ We tend to always put black people in the lowest class. Some people think that black people always have something to do with fight or anything including violence but this way of thinking is wrong.”. He also talks about what America does to people of color or someone who is not white.