In "Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space", Staples utilizes numerous paradoxes to both support his argument and invoke thought in the reader. One such paradox is "accustomed to but never comfortable". Staples, by writing this, illustrates the difficulties that African Americans, like Staples, are forced to live with. Most people are able to interchange the phrases "accustomed to" and "comfortable [with]", however Staples draws a strict line between the two. By separating the two above phrases with "never", Staples emphasizes how his life is completely different from the life that most people live. Furthermore, Staples  could've wrote the phrase "but never comfortable" as a non-essential phrase - a phrase that can be taken out of the sentence entirely. However, he decides to include it as an essential phrase, reflecting how the situation that Staples is trapped within is universal for all like him. It is impossible to escape such racism, rather, it is a fact of life as is food and water.

The last sentence of the piece also acts as a paradox. The reference Staples makes refers to how hikers who hike in dangerous areas commonly wear bells to safely warn bears of their presence. By comparing his whistling to the hikers' bells, he implies that he is required to act careful around "bear country", or white society, and that he does this to ensure his own safety. However, unlike the hikers, Staples constantly lives in his own "bear country" and is thus required to always wear his figurative "cowbell" to stay safe from his "predators", or white society.