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mood_reader_will_dnf 's review for:
Black Like Me
by John Howard Griffin
DNF
Only. Got about 2 minutes into the audiobook. I went into this book without knowing anything about it...I had just heard it raved about and it’s on basically all the anti-racist reading lists (I’m a bit confused why, maybe someone who’s read it can explain). I had no idea of the concept of this book until I started it. I am trying to learn a) how to be a better ally, b) how I unwittingly support and reinforce America’s foundation of white supremacy, and c) what the black American experience has been and is, and while this book may be a primer for those people whose views still line up with those of that time, I do not feel that listening to some guy whitesplain the hardships of living as a black man in the South, when he only did it for A COUPLE MONTHS, will help me toward my goals. There are so many messed up things about what he did (Including that, for it’s time, it was pretty radical) that other reviewers have mentioned. I will talk about what I feel is a more rare insight (at least I have not seen it):
HE ALWAYS KNEW THERE WAS AN ENDPOINT.
It reminds me of those well-intentioned, but completely insulting and pretty worthless, excercises of “be disabled for a day/hour/period.” As someone who is in a wheelchair I can say that, in my experience, the toughest part is knowing this is not a grit your teeth and get through it situation. Until you have to deal with the. Mental mindfuck of knowing the situation isn’t going to change you can’t truly understand what it’s like. Which is why I pretty much dismissed his experiment out of hand.
Only. Got about 2 minutes into the audiobook. I went into this book without knowing anything about it...I had just heard it raved about and it’s on basically all the anti-racist reading lists (I’m a bit confused why, maybe someone who’s read it can explain). I had no idea of the concept of this book until I started it. I am trying to learn a) how to be a better ally, b) how I unwittingly support and reinforce America’s foundation of white supremacy, and c) what the black American experience has been and is, and while this book may be a primer for those people whose views still line up with those of that time, I do not feel that listening to some guy whitesplain the hardships of living as a black man in the South, when he only did it for A COUPLE MONTHS, will help me toward my goals. There are so many messed up things about what he did (Including that, for it’s time, it was pretty radical) that other reviewers have mentioned. I will talk about what I feel is a more rare insight (at least I have not seen it):
HE ALWAYS KNEW THERE WAS AN ENDPOINT.
It reminds me of those well-intentioned, but completely insulting and pretty worthless, excercises of “be disabled for a day/hour/period.” As someone who is in a wheelchair I can say that, in my experience, the toughest part is knowing this is not a grit your teeth and get through it situation. Until you have to deal with the. Mental mindfuck of knowing the situation isn’t going to change you can’t truly understand what it’s like. Which is why I pretty much dismissed his experiment out of hand.