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Analysis Of Black Like Me By John Howard Griffin

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I bet you have never walked in someone’s shows as much as John Howard Griffin did. In the book Black Like Me, John Howard Griffin writes his story day by day on how he stepped in the African Americans skin. In my opinion, I agree with what Griffin did because it showed a sense of true feelings. To emphasize why I agree you have to try and put yourself in Griffins shoes. John Howard Griffin didn’t just want to observe racism to make people mad, but to make a statement, so therefore he got really into it. He thought there was a lot of misunderstanding to be done and he wanted to make that clear. By agreeing that John truly developed feelings throughout this process I can exhibit proof. For example, this is what happened, “I was ready to step off when the door banged shut in my face” (Griffin 44). This exact example shows that experiencing this makes you change and realize real life. …show more content…

He was trying to explain how African Americans were being treated and how it is not right. Here is a firsthand example of whites being mean to African Americans. “They don’t want to sit with you people, don’t you know that? They don’t want to—is that plain enough” (Griffin 131)? This hands-on example shows how bad the African Americans were treated and it doesn’t get any simpler than that. Not only did John want to show the whites what was so wrong about what they were doing, but he wanted to reveal to the whole world what it was doing to man-kind, and so I believe it changed him dramatically. Something he experienced to put forth is the way the whites talked to the African Americans. One women said, “What’re you looking at me like that for” (Griffin 20)? If people in general think saying that to someone is right your wrong. Another rude comment the same lady made was, “They’re getting sassier every day” (Griffin 21). These rude comments after a while would take a toll on

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He continued to explain that white and black people, in America, come from different backgrounds, they both share the same origins. Therefore, America denying black people rights granted to all humans is immoral. His second claim is that white people separate black people from humanity in

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Racism showed in many different forms during Griffin social experiment. There was the hate stare, which Griffin described as, “You feel lost, sick at heart before such unmasked hatred, not so much because it threatens you as because it shows humans in such an inhuman light (52).” Another form was that blacks were denied the same basic privileges as whites, which Griffin encountered multiple times on his journey. Blacks were denied: jobs (38, 99 – 101), goods and services (49), and bathrooms (60 – 62, 85 – 86). And another form of racism is ignorance.

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On page 53 the text states,”It was the ‘n’ in him asserting its humility, and he blushed and was abashed. He dreaded his meals; the ‘n’ in him was ashamed to sit at the white folks table.” Because of the way he was raised, he was taught that black people were polite and humble(because they had to be).

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By writing Black Like Me, John Griffin was trying to write down everything he felt was important on his journey as a black man. One of the major things wrote down was the idea of white racism. Which is the belief that white people are superior to other races and because of that should run society. So, the main topic of the novel was social divide of whites and African Americans. As a black man John saw the contempt white people had towards African Americans, and just the overall condescending attitude emanated from these people.

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The John Griffin Experience In the 1950’s, racism was at its peak in the US. In the book Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin, he puts himself into a black man’s shoes to experience an everyday life of what it is like being of darker color. He takes it upon himself to seek medical treatment to change the pigmentation of his skin from white to black. After undergoing this treatment, he sets out to New Orleans to begin his life in darker skin.

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This showed that he was trying to keep his name clean by telling the truth. When John was in prison, they give him another chance to be freed of charges. They tried to persuade him

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