The author and main character of Black Like Me, John Howard Griffin, is a white middle aged newspaper columnist. He and his family live in Mansfield, Texas in 1959. Griffin is deeply concerned about the racial conflict and the treatment of black people in the south. He wants to know what it is like to experience discrimination based on skin color. In order to truly understand the black experience he decides to become a black man himself. He will have to undergo medical treatment to change the color of his skin. After treatment Griffin intends to keep his same identity. He will not pretend to be anyone other than himself. After completion of the treatment Griffin looks into the mirror for the first time. He is shocked when he sees a black
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Many people in the United States assign relatively great importance to skin color. They tend to separate color into black and white, claiming that having any African ancestry, even over several generations, may make a person identify with being black. In the United States and whites have historically been associated with superiority and privilege; black people have historically been associated with inferiority. Skin color is not only divided into black and white, but also the degree of blackness. Most Americans prefer lighter skin to darker skin. Dark-skinned blacks must deal with even more barriers than others in their …show more content…
When he tries to buy a bus ticket the white woman selling tickets gives him what he calls “the hate stare”. Once again he receives “the hate stare” from a white man while waiting in the lobby of the bus station. Griffin says “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” (Griffin 51). He begins to understand behavior patterns are so engrained that they produce involuntary reactions. He calls this is a prison. Griffin begins to feel like he is hell. He says “Hell could be no more lonely or hopeless, no more agonizingly estranged from the world or order and harmony” (Griffin 66). Griffin tells P.D. East’s wife, Billie, that he is scared to death.
There are some positive things Griffin encounters as well. While waiting to board the bus a white army officer goes to the end of the line allows the black people to board first before he takes his seat. When Griffin visits a nearby church he finds a pamphlet written by a white priest that condemns racism and urges people to believe that all human beings are worthy of
Many people in the United States assign relatively great importance to skin color. They tend to separate color into black and white, claiming that having any African ancestry, even over several generations, may make a person identify with being black. In the United States and whites have historically been associated with superiority and privilege; black people have historically been associated with inferiority. Skin color is not only divided into black and white, but also the degree of blackness. Most Americans prefer lighter skin to darker skin. Dark-skinned blacks must deal with even more barriers than others in their …show more content…
When he tries to buy a bus ticket the white woman selling tickets gives him what he calls “the hate stare”. Once again he receives “the hate stare” from a white man while waiting in the lobby of the bus station. Griffin says “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” (Griffin 51). He begins to understand behavior patterns are so engrained that they produce involuntary reactions. He calls this is a prison. Griffin begins to feel like he is hell. He says “Hell could be no more lonely or hopeless, no more agonizingly estranged from the world or order and harmony” (Griffin 66). Griffin tells P.D. East’s wife, Billie, that he is scared to death.
There are some positive things Griffin encounters as well. While waiting to board the bus a white army officer goes to the end of the line allows the black people to board first before he takes his seat. When Griffin visits a nearby church he finds a pamphlet written by a white priest that condemns racism and urges people to believe that all human beings are worthy of