Prejudice And Discrimination In Black Like Me By John Griffin

Black Like Me is a novel based on a white man named John Griffin who makes a life changing decision to discover the truth about the treatment black men and women receive. He pursues his research by medically changing the color of his skin to black and temporarily living as a black man. He decides to keep his name and personality the same to discover if he is treated differently solely based on skin color. After reading the novel it was very clear to me that the theme is in fact that blacks are truly discriminated simply due to their pigmentation. This treatment and other situations he undergoes are very similar to the ones experienced currently in Ferguson. The death of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson as well as the death of a black man …show more content…
In the novel once Griffin became black he was tormented and victimized in various ways. As for the bullying everywhere he travels the word “nigger” is used to insult him, he comes across a white bully who attempts to attack him, and he is given the hate stare by a handful of whites. He is victimized by being told that blacks are lazy, associated with higher crime,low virginity loss age, love watermelon and fried chicken, less intellectual and different sexual morals. After undergoing this harsh treatment as a black citizen he realizes the special treatment whites receive in comparison to blacks. “The negro is treated not even as a second-class citizen but as a tenth-class one.” (John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me). In Ferguson black citizens undergo bullying and victimization as well. Black citizens are referred to as “thugs” and considered lazy and dependent. They are victimized through educational inequality and …show more content…
The life of a black person becomes tough simply due to the pigmentation of their skin. “No one was judging me by my qualities as a human individual and everyone was judging me by my pigment.” (John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me). Griffin argues in the book that a negro man is the exact same as a white man. Though majority of the people that surrounded him opposed this claim due to the fact that when he was black man they treated him as less than compared to a white man. As a black man Griffin experienced first hand injustice, bullying, and the need to fight for blacks rights on behalf of their unfair treatment. Though it is very apparent to many in the novel and in Ferguson that blacks seem to have an “inferior status” we are all the same, black or