Blog response Nov. 12th

Through personal experience I have to say that everyone has some sort of public image that is either kind of scary or completely innocent. With Staple's public image he noticed that people are really scared of his image as a person. I must say that I never had a case where somebody was so scared of me that they just flat out ran away out of fear. That's why I try to be as polite as possible around strangers, to make myself look somewhat dignified and responsible. Mr. Staple's on the other hand has a much more different situation. He admits that it doesn't help being an African-American who dresses in very hip clothing. I personally noticed that people dress a way to perceive themselves in public as a personal statement.

Mr. Staples, who says he is an avid nightwalker, suffers the prejudice against middle aged African-American males for being street thugs or bullies. Staples recalls that growing up in terror of black males; "they were tougher than we were, more ruthless"(288). Once Staples decided he had enough of, he decided to go on a personal quest to change his public image. Staples was sick and tired of people running away from him, or crossing the street early so they wouldn't have to walk past Staples. He decided to give his nervous onlookers a break. In the last two paragraphs of the article, he explained that he would stand a few yard away from any person that seemed threatened by his presence. When there was a group of people in an alley way, we would wait for them to leave, so they wouldn't think he was following them. Staples even started to whistle classical tunes such as Beethoven and Vavaldi.

Getting back to my personal opinion on the topic of public image, i have learned to avoid certain characters on the street, but also embrace the friendly and outgoing ones. Sometimes there were kids in my public school that would dress in really gothic clothes, and I would be hesitant to approach one of them. It wasn't until one day my sophomore year that changed my life and my perception of people. I had a group project and a "goth" kid was in the same group as me. I thought to myself, "this is going to be awkward". As it turns out, the "goth" kid turned out to be one of my best friends in High School. His name is Seth, he was one of the shyest kids on school but he was very smart and funny. He said if it wasn't for me he probably would not have had a girlfriend in High School because he was too shy and not very social. So from this day on, I make sure not to judge somebody before I meet them.