Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin, Book Review Example

Racism or the “belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial difference produce an inherent superiority of a particular race” (Merriam-Webster, 2010) had been a recurring theme in America’s not too distant past. John Howard Griffin’s book, Black Like Me covers the events of segregation as practiced in America’s southern states during the 1950s and sixties and this book review examines the remarkable story of white man turned black for the sake of unearthing the truths of segregation.

Griffin opens his journal with a rhetorical question “What is it to experience discrimination based on skin color, something over which one has no control? (Griffin, 1996, p. 1)” To answer that question, in 1959, Griffin deliberately darkened his skin using medication used by vitilago victims to be perceived as a Negro. Griffin, a Texan underwent this transformation and shifted to America’s Deep South so that the real truth of racial discrimination could be unearthed. Griffin took up residence in New Orleans as a Negro and began his experiments with truth.

Griffin’s initial interludes in the black ghettoes of New Orleans portray the despair the black man felt in his interaction with the white ‘masters’. When Griffin asks a black restaurant owner on the availability of rest rooms, the owner wryly explains that in the city’s most white-owned shops, owners make it clear that Negros are not welcome to use their rest rooms (Griffin, p. 19). Segregation was a reality in New Orleans and as long as the black man accepted the written and unwritten rules, the white people usually left them alone. A shoeshine man taken into confidence by Griffin aptly sums up the negro’s condition, “You can’t do like you used to when you were a white man. You can’t just walk in anyplace and ask for a drink or use the rest room” (Griffin, p. 25). Griffin teams up with the shoeshine man to learn about the dark underside of the white man’s ways. He learnt that many white tourists came by asking for black girls and these men tended to be warm and friendly leading the shoeshine man to quip “Yeah, when they want to sin, they’re very democratic” (Griffin, p. 26). Griffin’s initial perception that segregation was not as bad as it had been perceived soon changed to a growing disquiet that racial discrimination was indeed a serious social evil. His observation “that the Negro is treated not even as a second class citizen, but as a tenth-class one” (Griffin, p. 46) becomes based on his daily observation of segregation policies practiced in the Deep South. The deliberate exclusion of better employment of the blacks, calling the black man a nigger, not allowing Negros to use same rest rooms or eating facilities as the white man all pointed to the evils of the society in a nation founded on the principles of equality and the right for individual pursuit of happiness. Segregation in the 1950s according to Griffin continued to treat the black man  as a mass while the white man were treated as individuals. This sociological differentiation resulted in very real psychological scarring of the black community as it destroyed the “Negro’s sense of personal value and destroy[ed] his human dignity”  (Griffin, p. 46).

Events such as the Parker Lynch case in Mississippi are explained from the black man’s perspective. The fact that a black man had been lynched by a white mob and that the FBI had forwarded a dossier giving the identity of the white perpetrators, which was studiously refused to be opened by the Mississippi jury pointed to the injustices that prevailed in the American judicial processes in the 1950s (Griffin, p. 47). To further examine the ‘Black and White Divide’, Griffins moves to Mississippi and then on to Alabama, Louisiana and Georgia.

Griffin’s main theme of the book, of white racism is adequately captured in his portrayal of every day life of Negros in the southern American states. Incidents where a white man asks Griffin to move off a bench just because he did not want to sit besides a black man, a white bus driver slamming the door shut before Griffin could disembark and experience in the Deep South where no white employer showed willingness to employ Griffin even though he possessed requisite qualification vividly bring out the racial discrimination prevalent in America in the 1950s. Through his wanderings in the Deep South, Griffin discovers how beaches are kept ‘out of bounds’ for blacks in Alabama event though they are forced to pay gasoline taxes to maintain them (Griffin, p. 83). In Alabama a white foreman tells Griffin that he would never hire a black worker. Particularly disturbing is the white people’s perceptions of the black community’s sexuality. The stereotype held by whites is that black people are a sexually depraved lot with no moral values. Thus any black man or woman was fair game for sexual experimentation as they were unfeeling mindless sexual brutes (Griffin, 1996, pp. 86, 115,166). This vignette brings forth the depravity of the white and their insensitive approach to the black race.   Through the narrative Griffin explains the methodology of racial discrimination as one in which social attitudes and practices of the white become reinforced by laws favoring the Whites enforcing ‘Jim Crow Laws on the black institutionalizing racism in the South.

The minor themes that Griffin portrays are that black people despite their downtrodden condition had a remarkable spirit for life and did preserve hope for a better future. Incidences such as when Griffin asks a black student directions to a movie hall results in the student offering to personally guide Griffin right to the hall which was at least two miles away show the camaraderie that black people had for each other.  The book also observes that not all people in the white community were racist. Griffin gives the example of a white army man who waits in line behind black people to get into a bus. He also narrates the example of a white Southern priest in Mississippi whose pamphlets (Griffin, p. 137) preached against racism and the need for loving all human beings irrespective of their colour. These minor themes are not given adequate space by Griffin and are one main weakness of the book. The excessive focus on racial discrimination and describing the incidences in an emotive, dramatic style robs the book some of its seriousness. The book is neither a novel, nor a scholarly work but more of a travel journal. The strength of this book lies in its honest graphical depiction of incidences as experienced by the author. The author tries hard to maintain objectivity despite the highly subjective circumstances in which he finds himself while masquerading as a black man and succeeds most of the times.

John Howard Griffin’s book is a powerful but disturbing narrative of the events that took place in America in the 1950s. The emotive and evocative style that Griffin adopts keeps the reader engaged. Griffin’s work was aimed building awareness amongst the white ruling majority of the real conditions under which the Negros lived urging the white community to give up segregationist policies.   The book provides a meaningful, insightful commentary on the social conditions of Black America in the 1950s and is strongly recommended for students of sociology, anthropology and any field of humanities.

Works Cited

Griffin, J. H. (1996). Black Like Me. NY: Signet Classic.

Merriam-Webster. (2010). Racism. Retrieved February 15, 2010, from Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racism