Analysis Of Black Like Me

“I Am Not Your Negro” displays the adversities that Black Americans face in American society.

John Howard Griffin, the author and main character of “Black Like Me”, is a middle-aged white man who is living in Mansfield, Texas in 1959. Deeply devoted to the finding justice for racism and frustrated by his inability as a white man to understand the black experience, Griffin decides to take stand: he decides to change the color of his skin and temporarily become a black man. After securing the support of his wife and of George Levitan, the editor of a black-oriented magazine called Sepia which will fund Griffin 's experience in return for an article about it, Griffin sets out for New Orleans to begin his life as a black man. He finds a contact in the black community, a soft-spoken, articulate shoe-shiner named Sterling Williams, Eventually, Griffin looks in the mirror and sees a black man looking back. He briefly panics, feeling that he has lost his identity, and then he sets out to explore the black community.

The Negro of today is a failure, not because he meets insuperable difficulties in life, but because he is a Negro. His brain is not fitted for the higher forms of mental effort; his ideals, no matter how laboriously he is train and sheltered, remain hose of a clown. He is, in brief, a low-caste man, to the manner [sic] born, and he will remain inert and inefficient until fifty generations of him have lived in civilization. And even then, the superior white race will be fifty generations a head of him.

The third quote, made by Lindner, was about how “Negros” would live happier when they were in their own communities. He stated, “…I want you to believe me when I tell

When John Howard Griffin wrote the book “Black Like Me” he made it so that it was set in the southern states of the 1950’s. Griffin was a middle age man during the era of segregation ,he decided to change the color of his skin to see how his kind will react to the new depiction. The setting was critical to the story for being in the post-slavery era people where blacks and whites were separate but not equal. The tone of the story is gentle yet produces a powerful meaning. The main message from this story is racism is a very evil subject.

In “The History Place,” great speeches collection, “The Hypocrisy of American Slavery,” Frederick Douglass questions, why is that the black negro population is still under the life as slaves. He argues to his fellow citizens that, it is redundant to have wrote the, “Declaration of Independence,” and not let everyone in America become of freedom. His reasoning for this speech is to tell people that, slavery should be demolished, and wiped away from the world's surface. Mr. Douglass argues, that discrimination and segregation should not go forth in our society. He uses a variety of emotional, ethical, and logical appeals to attain his motive that, everyone is human and should all be treated equally and fairly.

People have been beaten down, spat upon, imprisoned, enslaved, and even killed for their beliefs, race, ethnicity, gender, and other characteristics throughout history. Throughout much of American history, African Americans have been the victims of countless injustices and have been thought of as less than human by society. Many people opposed society’s view of African Americans and stood up for their rights. Those who stood up for the rights of slaves and African Americans tried their best to persuade the public that their treatment of these people was cruel and an injustice to humanity. This is evident in the speech “The Hypocrisy of American Slavery” by Fredrick Douglass in the years leading up to the civil war, and the speech “We Shall

Griffin was treated unfairly and unjust everywhere he went in the south. To get around the towns was a very difficult task. He had a very hard time with public transportation. Going to Claiborne John rang the bell to get off at his bus stop but had the door slammed in his face when trying to exit. The bus driver then kept going 8 more blocks to finally let him off, but he still had to walk 8 blocks the other direction

Black Like Me In the Fall of 1959, John Howard Griffin set out on a journey of discovery. A discovery of his own nature, as well as a discovery of human nature. With the help of a friend, Griffin transformed his white male body into that of an African-American male body. Through a series of medical treatments, the transformation was complete.

This quote displays the unjust attitude toward African American children with white fathers/mothers. Despite being a child of the master/mistress of the household the African American child would be subjugated to being a slave while his white brother would continue to live lavishly on the plantation. Therefore, to save both the white families and the African American child pain he would have to be sold to another owner so the parent would not have to watch his/her child being beaten. This separation between child and parent would also occur because in the eyes of society a white family should be picked over an African American child because white’s where seen as superior in the public eyes back then and the slave and the parent (as well as his white family) would be shunned and treated badly in public.

What if we could walk in each other’s shoes? What if we could truly understand what our brothers and sisters are going through? These questions and more are what John Howard Griffin strived to answer when he surgically changed his complexion to resemble that of a black man in his book, Black Like Me. He set out to write a biting commentary about the state of race in the United States, but what he experienced changed his life forever. Griffin learned two very valuable lessons that dominated his experience; good can exist in the midst of suffocating evil and to bridge the gap between races there must be mutual understanding. To analyze such a powerful book, I will start with a summary and then explain my thoughts on the text.

“Do you suppose they'll treat me as John Howard Griffin, regardless of my color—or will they treat me as some nameless Negro, even though I am still the same man?” (Griffin 10). In Black Like Me a white man named John Howard Griffin got to experience what it was like to be a black man during the Civil Rights Movement first-hand. Although Griffin got to see what it was like living as a black man, I do not believe that he can ever fully empathize with the black race. Yes, Griffin got to experience it for a few weeks, but he will never know what it is like to have to be treated poorly because of something you cannot change.

I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about….No, I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife (“How it Feels to Be Colored Me”153).

John Howard Griffin was a writer who wanted to write about the truth. In dealing with the racial discrimination problems in the United States, Griffin wanted to write about the realities of the situation. However, he was a white man. He empathized with the black people and wanted equality for them as well however he lacked the experience and exposure to the truth. He decided that the best way to write about this was to be a part of the black community. He consulted with a doctor about making his skin darker so that he can be physically identified as a black man. His doctor was successful in providing him medicine that would make him dark-skinned.

From my own point of view this quote means that even if they say everyone is free in America, the second citizens (blacks) would still be inferior to the white race. In America, there is much tension amongst races especially amongst the white and black race. The movie “Do the Right thing” showed what is actually going on the world today. The