Steps at night

In Shannon Reed’s “Destabilizing Learning” (Mar. 3), Brent Staples’s “Black Men and Public Space” describes a night while walking behind a white woman in the subway “at a discreet uninflammatory distance,” doing “absolutely nothing that could be considered threatening,” but recognizing that the woman feared him and picked up her pace to get away from him. He took this personally. He shouldn’t have.

In the 80’ s as a young woman walking back to my car after a late-night class, parked in an alley 5 blocks from the main streets, I heard footsteps behind me. I knew it was a man, but I didn’t know if he was black or white and I didn’t care. I started to walk faster and faster until I got to my car and locked the door.

The woman who felt threatened by Mr. Staples didn’t care either if he was Black or white, she just felt in danger.

It is sadly a product of our society that Black men have been made to feel that it is them and only them that society fears.

It’s also sad that Ms. Reed believed this woman’s fear stemmed only from racism and that a “grandmotherly type toddling along behind would not have provoked the same fear.”

There is no such thing as a discreet uninflammatory distance when a woman hears footsteps behind her at night. She doesn’t consciously or subconsciously consider the race or gender of the person behind her. Her only goal is safety. She certainly has every right to remain vigilant and act smart, no matter who is following her or how “unthreatening” the person behind her thinks he may be.

SUSAN GALVIN Washington