Black Like Me

During a time where African American literature was fueled with racial segregation and pride in ones race during the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston offers a different and controversial approach with her literary work “How it feels to be colored me”.(13) In the works Hurston uses several colloquialisms, anecdotes, imagery and figurative expression to invite the reader on an adventure filled with pleasure. The poem takes the reader from the beginning of the Hurston’s childhood back in Eatonville, Florida into adulthood in Orlando, Florida. Hurston proves that overcoming racism can be accomplished by uniting the public and ignoring the visual difference in a person’s outer appearance. Hurston’s strength, individuality and resilience scream

The Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man depicts the narrator as a liminal character. Beginning with an oblivious knowledge of race as a child, and which racial group he belonged, to his well knowing of “white” and “black” and the ability to pass as both. On the account of liminality, the narrator is presenting himself as an outsider. Because he is both a “white” and “black” male, he does not fit in with either racial group. In the autobiography of an Ex-colored man, James Weldon Johnson uses double consciousness to show the narrators stance as a person that gives up his birthright for the “privilege of whiteness”.

Zora Neale Hurston is unequivocally open about her race and identity in “How It Feels to Be Colored Me.” As Hurston shares her life story, the reader is exposed to Hurston’s self-realization journey about how she “became colored.” Hurston utilizes her autobiographical short story as a vehicle to describe the “very day she became colored.” Race is particularly vital in Zora Neale Hurston’s essay, “How it Feels to Be Colored Me” as she deals with the social construct of race, racism, and sustaining one’s cultural identity.

On his journey Griffin anticipates that he would experience prejudice, oppression, and hardship, but he what he wasn’t equipped to handle the magnitude of it: with every step he took, he experiences some form of racism. The word "nigger" seems to sprout out the mouth of the common man as water flows from a faucet left an echo on every street corner. In his travels to New Orleans he founded how hard it was to find a job, a nice place to eat, or even find a decent restroom for blacks. After numerous traumatic days in New Orleans, Griffin decides to continue his

Black Like Me is a non-fiction book written by John Howard Griffin about what a black, middle-aged man has to go through every day in the Deep South. To find out what it is like to be a Negro, Griffin changes his skin color to that of a black. During his experiences, Griffin keeps a journal and that is what this book is. Black Like Me is a journal of Griffin's feelings, experiences, pains, and friends.

The memoir “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston, was first published in 1928, and recounts the situation of racial discrimination and prejudice at the time in the United States. The author was born into an all-black community, but was later sent to a boarding school in Jacksonville, where she experienced “race” for the first time. Hurston not only informs the reader how she managed to stay true to herself and her race, but also inspires the reader to abandon any form of racism in their life. Especially by including Humor, Imagery, and Metaphors, the author makes her message very clear: Everyone is equal.

As Wright continued working, his “Jim Crow education” resumed (253), he learned that not listening to or obeying what a white person told you would lead to serious consequences. A lady was beat up by two white men simply because she didn’t pay her bills, “I heard shrill screams coming from the rear of the store. Later the woman stumbled out, bleeding, crying, and holding her stomach” (253). And if the beating wasn’t enough, a white cop was there waiting for her when she came out and she was thrown into his car after being accused of being drunk. After telling his friends about the horrendous incident, they weren’t shocked. In fact, they were surprised that that’s all they did to her and actually

The novel The Garies and their Friends is a realistic examination of the complex psychology of blacks who try to assimilate through miscegenation and crossing the color barrier by “passing as white.” Frank J. Webb critiques why blacks cannot pass as being white through the characters Mr. Winston and Clarence Jr.

The discriminating social stratification in 1950’s developed a set of servile behavior on the blacks. They were thought to be inferior to whites, and were treated accordingly. Moreover, different parts of the country had various ranges of sensitivities while dealing with the blacks. For example, in Mississippi things were particularly tense after the Parker lynch case. No black man would dare look into any white man’s eyes in fear of the repercussions. On the bus, a man warned Griffin to watch himself closely until he caught onto Mississippi’s ways. In an extreme case like this, it was vital to learn about their roles and behave accordingly.

During the book, Black like Me, John Howard Griffin turned himself into a black man to experience the true discrimination of the south. His experiment is six weeks long. During these six weeks he experienced many different kinds of people in the south and how the treated black people. After he had finished his six week experiment he stopped taking the medication that turned his skin darker, which then turned him back into a white man. After all, some people dispute the fact that he actually experienced true treatment of a black man. I disagree with that that statement, because although he was only a black man for six weeks he still experienced the hardship that the black man faces every day of his life.

He spent the next several months as an African-American traveling through the deep South of the United States. What he discovered changed his perspective of himself, as well as his perspective of others. On his journey, John Howard Griffin encountered what could be termed the dark side of human nature. He experienced racism in its purest form.

The book’s narrator and main character is Griffin himself. At the beginning of the book, Griffin is living in small town rural Texas. Being an adamant supporter of the civil rights movement and plagued by an inability to understand what the black community is going through, Griffin decides to take a radical step. He hatches a plan to go undercover and surgically change his appearance to that of a black man. Griffin then plans to write an article chronicling his experience. He travels to the deep south to experience racism first hand.

So, Mr. Griffin had a multistage process done on his body so that the pigment of his skin would appear darker. After many treatments of ultraviolet light and tablet pills, Mr. Griffin had become a black man. After Mr. Griffin’s transformation was complete, he immersed himself into the black community. Mr. Griffin was not prepared for what would happen to him once in the black life. While Mr. Griffin traveled to different places in the south he met numerous people, both black and white. Some people were friendly while others were quite hostile.

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.

In this journey our main character also see’s the many faces of the black man, and how all of these faces where created in response to the actions of the white man never in response to one’s own actions. Towards the end of the novel the main character finds himself in a difficult predicament as he is being hounded by men who want him dead. Despite this, he manages to find a pair of glasses and a huge hat which he believes would disguise him just enough so that he can escape his potential murderers. As he walks around Harlem in his new guise, many begin to confuse him for someone called Rinehart who seems to be bookie, a pimp, and a preacher all at once. The ability to be so many things is at first attractive to the main character as he slowly begins to sink into the role of Rinehart, however he soon realizes that Rinehart’s multiple identities are merely a reflection of his inauthenthicity. Rinehart has no true self-consciousness and has allowed for others to create his image for him; Rinehart is only identified in the novel by others, never by himself. Rinehart’s character is representative of the notion of Double Consciousness as it shows the black men without the ability or better yet the privilege of self identity.