Black Like Me...read it!

Black Like Me was an easy read, but harder to read…emotionally. I myself believe deep down people want to be good to one another. People want to adopt the “do unto others” motto and for social conformities and/or prejudices push their kind spirits for mankind aside and adopt a “save yourself” motto instead. This book made me glad to be born in the 80s in order to bypass the stream of hatred that seemed to flood the country at this time.

So about the book…John Griffin is your average white man writer who went “undercover” in the Southern black community by dying his skin, taking pigment alteration pills, tanning with high UV lights and shaving his dirty blond hair in order to successfully submerge himself into an race and identity opposite his own. His results were astounding. He passed as a black man 100% in appearance and maybe 25% in attitude. The man didn’t know what to do! He didn’t know where to sit, stand, or even what direction to look if a white person should walk by. He had no idea of the culture and the extreme hatred he would experience by the whites. Some days he walked across town just to use a “black bathroom” or get a drink of water. The undeserved and groundless “hate stares” he called them, were one of the worst things he experienced as a black man. One of the best was the kindness he found in the words and actions of complete black strangers.

Griffin exposed the immediate comradery in the black community amongst strangers who could empathize with one another. They had secret glances and gestures to unify them instantly should situations get out of hand in interracial areas such as busses or trains. My first feelings of disgust and devastation as to how whites treated blacks were strong, but were matched by feelings of hope and acceptance with how blacks treated each other. After Griffin came out with his publication and made his project known to everyone I was happy get some follow-up information about how he helped in the Civil Rights efforts to stimulate a culture that had been suppressed for so long. A great quote said to a white man by a black Griffin was, “…This happens when you force humans into a subhuman mode of existence. Social studies do not deal with any basic difference in human nature between black and white. They only study the effects of environment on human nature. You place the white man in the ghetto, deprive him of educational advantages, arrange it so he has to struggle hard to fulfill his instinct for self-respect, give him little physical privacy and less leisure, and he would after a time assume the same characteristics you attach to the Negro.” (The white man was in shock by Griffin’s vocabulary and sentence structure, by the way).

I would suggest everyone read this book, if you haven’t already, to remind us how much progress we have made as a country of mixed races, religions and cultures. By the end of the novel I had a renewed sense of myself and faith in the person I am and always want to be. In my opinion this book should still be read in high schools and definitely deserves its place in the 501 Must-Read Books book.