Black Like Me Essay

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. The civil rights movement was a way for black people to combat that attitude. John included it in his story to support his newfound respect and empathy for the black race, as the newly demanded respect for them was

The book challenges Americans and how they treat American Values. The book exposed the truth of the white race and how they treated the black race. Throughout the novel white Americans did not value equality or progress and change. In Black Like Me whites did not believe in having a society the ideally treats everyone equally. When John Howard Griffin gets a ride from a white hunter, he tells him “I’ll tell you how it is here. We’ll do business with you people. We’ll sure as hell screw your women. Other than that, you’re just completely off the record as far as we’re concerned’” this quote is not showing equally because they only want to profit off African Americans, other than that they do not exist. Progress and change is not something white people value in the novel Black Like Me. Belief in changing self and country. After Griffin finishes his experiment he goes back to Mansfield. For publishing his book people claim his acts were unchristian, and they hung an effigy in the center of town. This shows that white Americans do not want progress and change because on the effigy that people hung the face was colored in half black and half white. The effigy represents what can happen to anyone who tries intervene with trying to make blacks and whites equal. In the novel, white Americans did not portray American values, publishing the book questioned America and its