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3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
This was very thought-provoking and interesting. It's always difficult for me to try to read something and view it within the perspective and context of the time it was written, but that's very necessary when reading this text. Namely, I am the product of 60 more years of Civil Rights/Social Justice Activism since the time of the publishing and I think it's imperative that White people step back to allow Black people (and all POC) to speak for themselves and to trust and believe them when they tell us about the extent of racism. I do understand that at the time of the study this information would have a stronger impact coming from a White man, I just hope we continue to do better and stop taking seats at the table when they should be given to those who actually experience racism. Mr. Griffin wrote an Epilogue in the mid-70s that was added to later versions and he touches on this very issue. There were also a few victim blame-y comments and some remarks that seemed too apologetic/excusatory for the behavior of White people that I didn't agree with. Overall, I thought it was a worthwhile read, but please don't use this as your main piece of literature for trying to understand racism or the Civil Rights Movement.
16/ #30booksummer
Published in 1961 this book was clearly revolutionary as John Howard Griffin disguised himself as a black man to experience Jim Crow South and share what he learned through writing this book and speaking engagements. It made me wonder what it be like if a similar "experience" were to be created in 2018. The Afterward was published in 1976 but I would love to hear additional and more recent reflections - in our post President Obama country.
Published in 1961 this book was clearly revolutionary as John Howard Griffin disguised himself as a black man to experience Jim Crow South and share what he learned through writing this book and speaking engagements. It made me wonder what it be like if a similar "experience" were to be created in 2018. The Afterward was published in 1976 but I would love to hear additional and more recent reflections - in our post President Obama country.
Last time I read this book, I was a student teacher. I found it just as painful, sad, and awful as I did back then :(
If this book is the only book you read about racism in the South or what it was like to be black in the South in the 1950's, then you are doing yourself a tremendous disservice. To understand black perspectives and experiences, you need to hear black voices and there are numerous excellent contemporaries and predecessors of Griffin to choose from. Having said that, through his unique experience Griffin brings something special to the table here. Having recently read Passing and the Vanishing Half, Black Like Me provides a nice addition to the understanding that can be gained from those that have experienced the world as both white and black. While suffering from a kind of white saviorism and bound to a particular time, this book raised interesting questions and I appreciate what it adds to the discussion. The response to Griffin's writing and experience was also incredibly telling about racial antimosity at the time. I wish I could say we had made more progress than we have. The book was also a thorough engrossing and easy read, I raced through it.
The memoirs of a white man who penetrates the color barrier in 1959. This book was assigned reading for my son's Jr AP class. Reminds us all that you must truly walk in another man's shoes before you understand what he is going through.
I guess it was interesting? It's interesting to see how he was motivated to do this, the go through with it, and experience it but that is what he did. He experienced it. He got a taste of it. He got to live a couple of days in another life, in another man's shoe...but it was never permanent, it was never "forever" and because of that those conditions he discovered could never hurt him as it was only for a small set amount of time and not constantly or consistently thrust upon him day after day, week after week, year after year, generation after generation. He knew that his wife and kids were safe at home, that he would soon be safe at home, that needing to find work, a place of his own, was never really a necessity but a desire to discover and learn.
I must admit that I started this book not expecing to be terribly impressed. I honestly have a hard time understanding what makes a classic a "classic", or what determines a book to be "an important read" for the masses or public education. But this book changed all that. It's brutal honesty tore me up inside at times, and that isn't common for me. Additionally, this book isn't "stuffy", and it doesn't beat around the bush. This book is such an easy book to become enthralled in, I do not see any reason that all public schools should not require this book for an English class. I, honestly, cannot think of a single thing about this book I did not like. And I am extremely hopeful that I can convince some of my friends to read it as well.
With all that said, let me just say that I think it is sad that we have not come further in the war against racism. I mean, sure, we don't have unwarranted riots or segregation between blacks and whites, but there is still an unseen line that separates us. The final paragraph of the Epilogue is:
“Eventually, some black thinkers believe, this "separation" may be the shortest route to an authentic communication at some future date when blacks and whites can enter into encounters in which they truly speak as equals and in which the white man will no longer load every phrase with unconscious suggestions that he has something to "concede" to black men or that he wants to help black men "overcome" their blackness.”
And, maybe this is just me, I sadly feel that we have not yet made it to this point in society as a whole.
With all that said, let me just say that I think it is sad that we have not come further in the war against racism. I mean, sure, we don't have unwarranted riots or segregation between blacks and whites, but there is still an unseen line that separates us. The final paragraph of the Epilogue is:
“Eventually, some black thinkers believe, this "separation" may be the shortest route to an authentic communication at some future date when blacks and whites can enter into encounters in which they truly speak as equals and in which the white man will no longer load every phrase with unconscious suggestions that he has something to "concede" to black men or that he wants to help black men "overcome" their blackness.”
And, maybe this is just me, I sadly feel that we have not yet made it to this point in society as a whole.
Very difficult to read this book in 2022. The idea that the only way to understand what a Black man’s life is like is to go undercover and live it first hand sounds preposterous today. But perhaps in 1959 the understanding of white academics could not see any other way. I particularly liked the 50 year afterwards.