black like me
"Black Like Me" is a novel about the true experiences of a white novelist, John Howard Griffin, a Southern white man who changed his skin color to become a black man. John took treatments to darken his skin and even left his family in Texas to travel throughout the South. During his journey, he experienced discrimination and segregation on buses, restrooms, eating places, hotels, and even walking on the street. He trudges south streets searching for a place where he could eat or rest, looking desperately for a job other than a laborer, he felt the "hate stares" everyday. Luckily, he became friend with a black shoeshine man, Sterling William, who shows John how to act so that he can fit into the black community in New Orleans. As hitchhiker, John met several white men who looked down on black men and women in ways that angered him. He got harassed and persecuted without reason. In his many stops throughout the South, he had heard many experienced that happened to some black men. Being a black, John had problem to finding good position job. The only job he could get was man working in a sawmill although he had college degree. He could not find a store to cash his traveler's check. Furthermore, as he passed back into white
His unique thoughts and desire to understand the hatred and the racism of whites against the black man brings him face to face with this problem. Our worst nightmare is to be silent and not teach our children to learn to become more tolerant toward other people. Although he feels sad to see this, he believes that this was the way life had to be. In the novel, John Griffin states clearly that whites go so far as to teach their children to call names. As a foreign Asian student in this country, I have experienced negative feelings from other students. He states that "An important part of my daily life was spent searching for the basic things that all whites take for granted" (Griffin 99). Since he is white him, he feels that all whites are kind and wise and that the way they treat the black man is acceptable. He asked the reporter, Wallace, not to post the name of his African American friends, so it would not imperil them. Griffin takes it to the extreme when he darkens his skin to experience what life is like as African American in the Deep South. I enjoyed reading this book because I could relate to it in a personal way. He states that "Whites teach their children to call them "niggers" (Griffin 169).
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