Public Spaces

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Culture influences a variety of different things in today’s society. One big effect it can have is how people view others and the world around them. This is shown in the passages “By Any Other Name” and “Black Men and Public Space.” Culture can affect all kinds of different things. In “Black Men and Public Space” Brent Staples discusses his own experiences on how he is stereotyped because he is an African American and looks intimidating in “public spaces.” Staples, is an intelligent man that is a graduate student at the University Of Chicago but due to his skin complexion he is constantly being discriminated against. On one of nightly walks, he encountered a white woman. She believed that Staples was following her and worried he was getting …show more content…
Santha and Premila's mother places the girls into an Anglo-Indian day school. The teacher there assigns them their new Anglo names, Cynthia and Pamela. Santha feels as if she is two different girls entirely. When Santha was asked “What’s your name, dear” she responded with “I don’t know” Santha is confused and doesn’t really know what to say. Her two different names causes her to feel detached to Cynthia, as if she has no responsibility or concern for the person she becomes when she goes to school. Santha disagrees with this idea, showing that she is a completely different person when she is Cynthia at her school. The girls face great adversity. Despite their Anglo names, the other white children segregate themselves from the Indian girls. Near the end of the story, while Santha sits in class, Premila shows up and tells her to grab her things. The two girls walk home together, with Santha wondering what had gone wrong. At home, their mother is concerned about why they are home so early. Premila tells her that during their test, the teacher required that all of the Indian children sit in the back of the classroom with a desk separating each of them. The reason that the teacher had given was that “Indian children cheat.” This affects the way the family looks on the school and agrees not to go there
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