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Black Like Me by, john howard Griffin

This paper is a review of the book Black like Me by John Howard Griffin. The book tells the story of a white boy (John Howard Griffin) and his journey through the Deep South as a Black man. He journeys from New Orleans to Alabama in search of a true understanding of the problem propaganda and realities of being Black in the Deep South. Through medications, flash photo abilities to adapt to environmental changes, and funds through friends, he manages (in the mind) to become truly a Black man. Griffin becomes moved by the experience and is amazed about which beliefs turned true and which proved false. He encounters problems within his own race during the aftermath of his experiment. John Griffin finds within certain people their true color.

Griffin's so-called racial experiment takes place in the Deep South. Though he is from Texas, Griffin journeys through the south in search of an understanding of the racial injustice and the effects it imposes on Blacks and whites.

Griffin finds that in the more rural areas that the racism to some degree is worse than in the urban areas. Though he still had encountered harsh racism in New Orleans, it still was not as negative as the other area G

After shinning shoes all day with a Negro named Joe alt a shoe stand, Griffin traveled to Dryads Street. Soon the whites thinned out and he began to see more and more Negroes in the street. Griffin walked into a church and started to pray. Afterward he looked down at his hand and saw each dark pore, each dark wrinkle. He began to feel homesick and started thinking about the whiteness of his wife and children. They seemed almost in a whole other world. The loneliness and fear fell over him like the shadow of the black skin.

Griffin soon found Mississippi and Mississippi found him. He was asked questions like "Why do you talk so well?aE? Griffin was almost traumatized by his experiences in Mississippi.

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Griffin went into a drugstore that he had gone in everyday since his arrival in New Orleans. For the first time he felt the cold hate-filled stares. The same people that had treated him with the utmost respect now frowned upon him as if he were not worth the dirt they stood on. For they no longer saw John Howard Griffin; they now saw the nameless, faceless, and thoughtless Negro he had become.

Griffin started to believe that the Negro's only salvation from complete despair was in their belief threat those oppressive things was directed toward their race and not the person. The Negro was prepared at a young age for the hate that faced him. He was taught to live as an individual instead of a member of the Black race. He was taught that as an individual he could have self-esteem and dignity, but as a Negro he was forbidden these feelings of self worth.

hildren are now free to wander into the streetlife and they look for fun. The girls who have no father figures and little parental involvement from the mother may find intimate attention in Black males who may be more interested in opportunities for sex than in attentive relationships. Money and gifts to a girl who has never known anything is a great honor and not of true love. The Black girl gets pregnant and the cycle starts all over again. But Griffin proceeds to explain that this is not Negro-ness. Rather, any group of people put in the same situations could be forced into this or a similar lifestyle. Griffin revealed that the Negro is born blank, but this environment he is forced to endure forces the Negro to endure his life. He is unable to enjoy his life.

n. He was merely a newly born Negro. He would have to enter the white man's world as a second-class citizen!

Griffin lunched with Mrs. Jackson, Mr. Levitan, and three FBI men from the Dallas office. Griffin knew his project was outside their jurisdiction and that they could not support it in any was; yet he wanted them to be aware of the project in advance. They discussed it in considerable detail. Griffin decided not to change his name or identity. He would merely change his skin pigmentation and allow people to draw their own conclusions. If asked who he was or what he was doing, he could simply answer truthfully.

He soon learned that white people viewed the Negro as perverts. They felt the Negro regarded sex as a total experience. The whites thought the Negro was of the opinion that anything that felt good was good. Also, whites thought that Negroes had larger sex organs, had sex more often and with more sex partners. Simply put, the whites saw the Negroes as part of another species. They saw the Black man as something related to an animal - in that the Black man felt no need to maintain his sense of human dignity. Yet Griffin knew that is he would put any of the questions directly to the white people, they would deny have any such beliefs.

Later that day, Grifin caught the bus into town. He chose a seat halfway to the rear. Soon the bus began to fill with whites. Unless they could find a place to themselves or beside another white, they stood in the aisle. They felt that the Negro was not even wo

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Approximate Word count = 2761
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)

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