Black Like Me, an autobiographical diary by John Howard Griffin walks readers through the day to day trials of a black man in the late 1950’s. Griffin is a white journalist who goes undercover in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia as a black man to further understand a Negro’s struggle. Through his journey, he realizes that people immediately judge you by the tone of your skin regardless of your mannerism, wealth, or education. Black Like Me is as relevant now as it was then; because, although people would like to believe that everyone is treated the same way despite their race, they are not. Over time, incidents of racial inequality have profoundly lessened. This could be for a plethora of reasons but the most effective cause of
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People have still not learned to treat everyone equal, despite their race or sexuality. In the late 1950’s Negroes were blatantly treated unfairly. Although in 2015, people are more careful about what leaves their mouth and are less obvious about specific racial dislikes, there are still instances of racial prejudice. Only three years ago, in 2012, America got the chance to witness the Trayvon-Martin Case, a perfect example of racial profiling. In Miami, Trayvon, a 17 year old boy was walking home in a hoodie on his phone, minding his own business, when he was shot dead by a man who described the teen as suspicious and claimed that he shot him out of self-defense. Even after it was obvious that the shooter, George Zimmerman, murdered a minor simply for the color of his skin, he was not charged. The case continued for a little over a year but at the end, Zimmerman was still never convicted of the crime. John Griffin refers to a very similar case in Black Like Me when he mentions the Parker Lynch Case. A case that focused on a black man who was accused, “deprived of a fair trial, kidnapped and murdered by a lynch mob from a Mississippi jail” (78) although “the FBI had supplied a
People have still not learned to treat everyone equal, despite their race or sexuality. In the late 1950’s Negroes were blatantly treated unfairly. Although in 2015, people are more careful about what leaves their mouth and are less obvious about specific racial dislikes, there are still instances of racial prejudice. Only three years ago, in 2012, America got the chance to witness the Trayvon-Martin Case, a perfect example of racial profiling. In Miami, Trayvon, a 17 year old boy was walking home in a hoodie on his phone, minding his own business, when he was shot dead by a man who described the teen as suspicious and claimed that he shot him out of self-defense. Even after it was obvious that the shooter, George Zimmerman, murdered a minor simply for the color of his skin, he was not charged. The case continued for a little over a year but at the end, Zimmerman was still never convicted of the crime. John Griffin refers to a very similar case in Black Like Me when he mentions the Parker Lynch Case. A case that focused on a black man who was accused, “deprived of a fair trial, kidnapped and murdered by a lynch mob from a Mississippi jail” (78) although “the FBI had supplied a