Black Men and Public Space

Brett Staple’s discusses the racial fears attributed to the general black male population through personal anecdotes of himself being a victim of racial prejudice in his article, “Black Men and Public Space” (1986), which are a common incident when “young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of violence.” In his first of many anecdotes, he tells of an experience of a woman frightened by his menacing appearance in a deserted street in Hyde, after giving many worried backward glances assumed she would get mugged, quickly walked away leaving him surprised and embarrassed for having been mistaken for a criminal. Yet incidents such as there are common and “black men trade tales like this all the time” being misrepresented by a small majority of black males that commit crimes, this fear has been integrated into our society where even “softies” like Staples himself is confused for a criminal. Having grown up as one of the good boys, he shies away from conflict and has seen “countless of tough guys locked away” as well as buried several. Being repeatedly mistaken for a criminal can drive a person into madness, yet Staples has had to accommodate to make himself look less threatening as well as ease their anxiety by whistling melodies from Beethoven and Vivaldi, and sometimes they even join along. Ending his article with the statement that people don’t expect muggers to be particularly bright, singing classical tunes Staples calls it his “equivalent of a cowbell that higher wear when they know they are in bear country.”
Vocabulary
Impoverished - Reduced to poverty, poverty-stricken.
Retrospect- to contemplate the past.
Tone
Neutral
Rhetorical Terms:
Anecdote – “My first victim was a woman_ white, well dressed, probably in her late twenties. I came upon her late one evening on a deserted street in Hyde Park…That was more than a decade ago.”
Imagery – “…the youngish black man - a broad six feet two inches with a beard and billowing hair, both hands shoved into the pockets of a bulky military jacket.”
Simile – “They seem to have their faces on neutral, and with their purse straps string across their chests bandolier-style, they forge ahead as tough bracing themselves against being tackled.”
Generalization –“Women are particularly vulnerable to street violence, and young black males are drastically overrepresented of that violence.”
Allusion –“I whistle melodies from Beethoven and Vivaldi and the more popular classical composers.”
Discussion Questions:
Clarification: How did this stereotype develop?
Application: In the case that a black male is often thought to be a criminal beforehand, in what other situations can this type of social behavior be applied to?
Style: Does the use of anecdotes Staples provide make the reader feel sympathy for him?

"A New Approache to Designing the AIDS Vaccine"

In Laura Blue's article,"A New Approach to Designing the AIDS Vaccine, she discusses a new possible approach to finally discovering a cure to the long dreaded AIDS virus by which the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services boldly announced a cure 25 years ago in 1984. Scientists at Rockefeller University in New York City have undertaken the endeavor of how the body's immune system combats this deadly disease rather than find a flaw in the disease itself. They have discovered a numerous amount of antibodies that individually do little to combat the HIV virus yet together prevent the infection of HIV into other cells. Much of this new perspective and approach to combating the AIDS virus would have been impossible in 1984 if it werent for the recent breakthroughs by being able to identify the blood cells that create the HIV-specific antibodies. The difficulty of creating an effective vaccine is attributed to the virus' constant mutation that has led to the many ineffective failed drugs produced in the past to combat this virus. No guarantee is certain about being able to produce an effective vaccine yet with newfound hope and inspiration has enabled us to better understand it and someday eliminate this threat.
Questions...
Application: Besides finding a vaccine for AIDS, how has this progress brought us closer together without racial borders?
Clarification: How does the HIV virus progress in the human immune system to become AIDS?

Chunk 4

In the fourth and final chunk of "The Culture of Fear", Glassner discusses the use of metaphoric illnesses, which people use to attribute the causes of the disease according to their personal beliefs or gain. Such metaphornic illnesses that are found in soceity are Gulf War Syndrome, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and breast implants. As to produce fear among the pulblics, reporters dismiss, if not, pay little attention to the reasearch, statistics, and analysis conducted by scientists that prove otherwise such as breat implants which studies found no evidence that implants had caused diseases in women who used them, and chose to go in favor of anecdotes of the victims.Glassner also discusses the fear produced by the media on plane crashes which statistics say are 1 in 4 million and reporters choose to connect scattered, random events to give false and misleading information which leads to the decrease in business. So what makes an airplane crash so interesting? According to Gareth Cook,"When a plane falls from the sky, the story is compelling, albeit morbidly so: the pictures of twisted metal, luggage hanging from trees, the screaming mother at the airport where the flight never arrives."

Questions
1. What are some types of metaphoric illnesses we see nowadays portrayed in the media?
2.How much of the media can we trust and believe to be truthful when after reading Barry Glassner's "The Culture of Fear", all it seems to do is promote fear?