Brent Staples
Encyclopedia
Brent Staples is an author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 and editorial writer for the New York Times. His books include An American Love Story and Parallel Time: Growing up In Black and White, which won the Anisfield Wolf Book Award. Specializing in politics and cultural issues, Staples often writes on controversies and issues, including race and the state of the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 school system. In 2008 he was appointed to the newspaper's editorial board.

He is a graduate of Widener University
Widener University
Widener University is a private, coeducational university located in Chester, Pennsylvania.Its main campus sits on 108 acres , just southwest of Philadelphia...

 (B.A.) and the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 (Ph.D). His essay "How Hip Hop Lost Its Way and Betrayed Its Fans" was included in Read, Reason, and Write book, edited by Dorothy U. Seyler. His memoir Parallel Time was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

Book Prize and winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.

Early years and education

Before Staples was born, his parents moved from rural Virginia to Chester, Pennsylvania
Chester, Pennsylvania
Chester is a city in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States, with a population of 33,972 at the 2010 census. Chester is situated on the Delaware River, between the cities of Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware.- History :...

 as part of the Great Migration
Great Migration
Great Migration, Great Migrations, or The Great Migration may refer:In history:* Great Migration of Puritans from England to New England * Great Serb Migrations from the Ottoman Empire to the Habsburg Monarchy...

 of blacks to industrial cities in the North and Midwest. Chester was then a prosperous small city with a huge shipbuilding industry. The oldest son of nine children, Staples was born in 1951. He can easily remember his family's comfortable existence in Chester during the city's last period of prosperity. His family had no money for tuition, his grades were average, and he had taken only a few high-level academic courses in high school, so expected to go straight to work. He was admitted to Widener University, where he graduated in 1973. Deeply engaged in scholarship, Staples moved to Chicago, where he earned a Master's degree in Psychology in 1976, and in 1982 received a PhD in the same field, both from the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

.

Years later, his younger brother, a cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...

dealer, was murdered by one of his clients, and Staples reconsidered his childhood. As an adult he lived in a world that was literally and symbolically miles away from the one he had known as a child.

Career

Staples writes, “Being black enriches my experience; it doesn't define me.... I'm writing about universal themes--family and leaving home and developing your own identity--which all Americans can enjoy and understand." As a writer, Staples has worked to correct the myth that the American "black experience" is defined only by poverty, violence, and crime. "I despise the expression [...] There is no such thing. Black people's lives' in this country are too varied to be reduced to a single term."
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