Black Like Me Confronting Southern Racism

The novel Black Like Me is a fantastic book that tells how racism was in the South; and how a young man, named John Howard Griffin, had the bravery to change who he was to become a negro and experience how Negros live the South. John Howard Griffin, the author and main character of Black Like Me; is a middle-aged white man living in Mansfield, Texas in 1959. He was journalist and wanted to write about the racism between whites and Negros.

He left everything behind and took little with him. He was really committed to the cause of racial justice and disappointed by his lack of ability as a white man to understand the black experience. He wants to know how is like to be a different person and what’s different about his life compare to Negros. Racism was a result of social position in the United States, not any inherent quality within blacks and whites, it was always separated in classes according to their color and heritage.

The books relevance is that a white wanted to experience how is like to be a Negro. How they live at the bottom of social classes and what rights they don’t have that whites do. Back when whites and Negros were socially separated it was difficult for Negros to make a living, but in today’s world all people have the same rights that they didn’t have back then. ” Griffin expects to find prejudice, oppression, and hardship, but he is shocked at the extent of it: everywhere he goes, he experiences difficulties and insults.

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” It was impossible to find jobs, a water fountain, restaurants, hotels, or even a restroom that blacks are allowed to use. The book is a classic because in the South of the 1950s, Mr. Griffin decided to cross the color line. Using medication that darkened his skin to deep brown, he exchanged his privileged life as a Southern white man for the poor world of an unemployed black man.

His courageous, still cold feeling that fit the eyewitness history of a work about race and humanity that in this new period of years still has something important to say to every American. ” For years the idea had haunted me, and that night it returned more insistently than ever. If a white man became a Negro in the Deep South, what adjustments would he have to make? What is it like to experience discrimination based on skin color, something over which one has no control?” Mr. Griffin knew that if he back a Negro he would have to live everything behind and have the courage to be a Negro. What is truly interesting about the novel is that a man had courage to cross the racism line and become a Negro of the Deep South. Mr. Griffin as a white man had traveled to the places he is going to be living as a Negro, before he became one of them. ” Clerks refuse to cash his checks, and a white bully nearly attacks him before he chases the man away. After several traumatic days in New Orleans, Griffin decides to travel into the Deep South of Mississippi and Alabama, which are reputed to be even worse for blacks.”

Even do the racism is bad in Mississippi and Alabama, he still went and stayed there to do some research on Negros and whites living conditions. He was in the Deep South for seven weeks as a negro and he learn so much from both sides of the white and negro. After he was done with the project he got a bunch of phones for him to get interviewed in public about the project he had done for the seven weeks, that he was gone from home and family. The power that book has is that Negros were always fitting to get the rights that they want to have for themselves and for the future of their children. Many whites wanted equality with the Negros, but never show it to one another. Some of the whites that wanted equality, feared that the white communist might called them ” Nigger lovers“ because they would talk, smile, or respect them. Also, Mr. Griffin had the patience to go and become a Negro; stay in their homes and ask for help. Mr, Griffin was trying to tell other whites that Negros have the same life style as they do, but different levels of classes.

John Howard Griffin took a stand against racism despite the fact that their own people were violent against it. He tried to bring both colors together and get equal rights for Negros. The power was to tell whites that Negros are people too. He was amused by becoming a negro and finding how they live. Was to bring people together and get to know how each other’s lives are. The elements of beauty that the possesses are white and negro. Two colors that are different and used in this novel to compare people. White people always had it easy and was giving to them; black had it the worst, they had little and nothing was easily giving to them. Mr. Griffin got to learn how both sides are and how they have it.

Whites got away with more than Negros; Negros were always hated by whites and they had no rights in the town they lived in. Whites always thought that if they just kept in mind that maybe if they ignore the Negros they would have to look, talk, or make a gesture to them. Think like they were invisible or out of the world. ” Suddenly, almost with no preparation, no advance hint, it became clear and it permeated my whole being. My inclination was to fight against it. i had gone too far. I knew now that there is no such thing as a disguised white man, when the black won’t rub off. The black man is wholly a Negro, regardless of what he once may have been.” Mr. Griffins became a disliked person by many whites, but others agreed with about a lot of stuff that has to do with Negros and their lives.