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Examples Of Racism In Black Like Me

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In the novel Black Like Me, by John Howard Griffin, Griffin decides to conduct an experiment for a magazine article. In his experiment, he turns himself black and integrates himself into negro culture for about 6 weeks. A certain critic stated that even though he experienced racism, that he couldn’t truly empathize with them. I believe that this critic is wrong, and that Griffin spent enough time as a Negro to truly understand their struggle.

While on his journey through the Deep South, he encounters many instances of racism either directed at him, or at the Negro population in general. For example, Griffin has some very bad experiences with bus drivers, in one instance, he was not allowed off the bus to use the restroom like the rest of the whites were (Griffin 60). This is not only him, but it is also every Negro on the bus. In another instance, he was let off the bus 8 blocks past his stop, just because he was black (Griffin 44). Griffin also talks about the “hate stare” A look of hatred at the Negro population. …show more content…

For example, the cities of Atlanta and New Orleans were some of the most advanced in racial relations, and probably had some of the most determined Negro populations in the Deep South (Griffin 139,140). While Griffin were in these cities as a Negro, he was treated much differently than he was in worse cities, such as Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In Hattiesburg, it is total chaos. There are riots, people are homeless, and it isn’t safe. Griffin eventually calls someone to come pick him up and get him out of

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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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John Griffin dyed his skin black to pass as a Negro. He learned that because of his skin color he was judged differently by everyone that he met. This sets the plot of the book by laying out the three themes: race, religion, and identity. With race comes racism and segregation; at least that is how it was back in the 1950’s. All of these were experienced by John Griffin.

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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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