Racism In Black Like Me

The main theme of Black Like Me is Racism and the social problems that come with Racism. Initially, John Griffin the author of this book, shows how painful it is to be discriminated against due to someone 's skin color. He Also, he shows the ugliness of racists, and their personalities that have been distorted by hatred. While experiencing the events of this book, Griffin endures hate stares, threats, harassment, and humiliation. In retrospect, he is unable to find a job and, in accordance with segregation, he is also unable to use restrooms or enter many establishments due to the color of his skin. Through John 's experience, the only employment he was able to find was as a shoe shiner and he only found this due to the kindness of one man, a black man. Likewise, John also had to walk far out of his way just to be able to find a restroom or even a establishment to eat in, which are basic human needs. In like manner, John also learned that, racism even exists among blacks themselves, who value lighter skin over dark skin. Thus, making someone in your own race feel lesser, because they are darker, which is know better than the white racists in this book. Moreover, darker skin blacks were not only treated different by whites, but also by their own race. One would think that black society would know how it feels to be judged by the color of their skin, so why would they segregate between

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.

Black Like Me is the incredibly interesting story of John Griffin, a Caucasian man who decided to try being African American in the south during the 60s. In this analysis paper I will be addressing the ethics of this project, his potential self-deception, his ability to pass unnoticed as an imposter, along with his courage for attempting such a dangerous project in the Deep South. His project was a success and a remarkable accomplishment for such an individual.

and the only way to truly experience this was to become a black man himself. Griffin did this to

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.

John Howard Griffin, a journalist from Dallas, Texas, spent six weeks in the Deep South of the United States masquerading as a black man in an attempt to learn about the racism that black people face in the 1950s. After his journey came to an end, critics of his story said that it is not a black man’s experience of racism, rather that it is “the white man’s experience as a Negro in the South, not the Negro’s.” They are entirely right. A white person can have for black people and their struggles, however, they can’t understand the racial discrimination a black person faces their entire life until they experience it for themselves; not pretending to be someone else. Some people argued that this experiment was ridiculous. To one, the intentions of the experiment were commendable, rather that it was the way that they were executed was the ridiculousness behind his experiment.

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.

“Black like Me” written by John Howard Griffin, who is also the narrator of this novel documenting his experience of being a “Negro” in the Deep South during the 1950s. Griffin tells the story about his journey of darkening his skin pigmentation consequently allowing him to truly encounter the racism of the South. He frequently comes into contact with the racism of the privileged white southerners, revealing the harsh extremities that the African Americans are forced to live through everyday. During “Black like Me”, Griffin sees learns the actual villainous enemy is racism caused by ignorance, fear, and false propaganda.

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.

I experienced in the last five years how affect racism my life. I have a permanent resident card. I have a right to apply job anywhere. But there was 7-eleven in front of my apartment and I went to there to apply the cashier position because it was nearest distance from my apartment. They hired new people every time except colored people. There was an open position at the time. I reminded the manager of the store was Mexican and he always did not like to talk to me, but I kept telling him how I was a hard working person. I walked to the store every day; I nagged him several times to get the job. But he did not want to cooperate me. I asked the reason why he did not like to hire me because I saw new Mexican cashier every time some of them had

“I’d thought about the idea of living as a black person ever since I read John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me.” This is an excerpt from Skin Deep: “Black Like Me” My Own Journey into the heart of Race-Conscious America. It was an intriguing story of how a young white male felt such an urge to encompass the life of a black man that he purposely changed his skin color. My first reaction was, “How strange for someone to do that” yet; as I read on I changed my initial reaction of puzzlement to, “What a reality check that must have been.”

African Americans have been the main focus of evoked traumatic experiences due to the necessity of superiority from their counterparts. After slavery, ended African Americans saw a way of freedom to live a better life from their ancestors. This thought did not come without the malicious beliefs created to purposefully attempt to prevent African Americans from being superior to Caucasian people. The idea of blacks being superior to whites terrified Caucasian people and caused them to go into a frenzy to create and enact different ways to keep blacks enslaved, but this time without the whips and chains. Without slaves, many whites were struggling to determine where their next source of income would come from. In the excerpt from the Declining Significance of Race, Wilson states “For the ruling elite, ‘black freedom’ signified not only a threat to white supremacy but also meant the loss of a guaranteed cheap and controlled labor supply for the plantations” (52). This fear stirred many reactions from many classes of Caucasian people.

Who are African Americans in America? Africans were enslaved and brought to America by way of the Atlantic slave trade. African Americans have gone through a lot throughout the years since slavery. African Americans still go through harsh treatment in different shapes and forms but it is important for people to know that, because some African Americans carry a fake façade of their identity that they are not wounded by word and the actions of others. They will never truly experience all the great things life has to offer. Throughout this paper I will share with you the research I have uncovered on the many ways the social status of African Americans has evolved over time.

Racism is a never-ending problem that humans have not yet solved. Raffaella Zanuttini, a linguistics professor at Georgetown University, and the author of, “Our Language Prejudices Don’t Make No Sense,” Zanuttini writes, “We think of negative concord as something used by certain black speakers, certain speakers of Appalachian English and working-class people generally” (138). In this statement, Zanuttini explains that when people judge the use of improper English, they are not just judging their way of speaking but they are judging the speaker as well. Different forms of racism include judging a person's as unintelligent based on their way of speaking, taking advantage of non native English speakers, and the rude remarks towards people with strong accents. When racism is talked about, instantly a thought of lynching and police brutality comes to mind but there is a type of racism that is overlooked and that is the linguistic aspect of racism where a person’s way of speaking is being put down or taken advantage of. No type of racism should be ignored especially not a type that is preventing people from expressing themselves with their own voice.

To be honest, I’ve only experienced blatant racism once in my life. I was in 7th grade, and I was getting up to put my food away because my class was leaving. Suddenly, a foot came out of nowhere and two seconds later, I found myself on the floor with my uneaten school food all over the ground and me while being called a terrorist by a Caucasian. It wasn’t a big ruckus, only both of our classes saw what happened but it was still terrifying. My friends were about 8 feet away in shock, and not a single soul helped me - not that I expected it. I was a pretty emotionally strong and carefree kid. Humans didn’t scare me. If you poked me once I would just forgive you and move on with my little life. To this day, I don’t consider that a mortifying experience, I am completely fine. The boy that called me a terrorist was held back the next year so karma came and did my job for me. What did bother me, however, were the little, almost unnoticed glimpses of racism that would happen to me which was completely shrouded away because teenagers were just expected to be rude people so it was acceptable. It was the small things that hurt me the most, and even though the greater portion of America believes that racism has been conquered, I don’t believe so. But as bad as these instances of racism hurt me, it’s what made my mind strong and taught me to be happy.