Analysis Of Black Like Me By John Howard Griffin

The writer of Black Like Me, John Howard Griffin wrote one of the most eye opening book on racism, prejudice and ignorance all African-Americans faced in the south. Griffin writes about his first hand experience of being a black man in the 1960’s. He accomplished this was by taking pills and staining his skin to temporarily turn him into a black man. Stated in the preface “This began as a scientific research study of the Negro in the south.. it traces the changes that occur to heart and body and intelligence when a so called first-class citizen is cast on the junk heap of second-class citizenship.” The main focus on this book is to make the reader understand that just being a minority you can be discriminated and ridiculed for anything, “I

Whites may read this and view this a disgrace for Griffin to want to live the life as a minority. African-Americans could view this as being offensive because a white person went through a major transformation to become black just so that he could see what it was like to live as a black man in the south, when he could have just interviewed a natural born African-American. Griffin did not take these into consideration, he only wanted to experience the true way that blacks live and understand what it is like to live in a “black body”. In six weeks Griffin writes in great detail how he faced challenges in his everyday life, being meticulous with his work it made it clear to any reader how oppressed African-Americans were. In one experience were he was getting a ride from a man in Mobile Alabama the driver says “we just don't want you people around. The only way we can keep you out of our schools and cafès is to make life so hard for you that you'll get the hell out before equality comes.” (p.101), shows how white southerners want blacks to be eliminated form the south. Turning his journal entries into a book and shared around the county, Black like Me puts a different perspective how life was an African-American. Every where he went in Texas and Alabama he describes how hard it was to find a job. Other blacks tell him how difficult it is to get out of debt, because of the low paying jobs and because of high