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shaynreadthat 's review for:
Black Like Me
by John Howard Griffin
Wow! I don’t even know where to start with this one. I must admit I found a lot of this pretty comical, although there is obviously no humorous content.
It’s just that during this period there were Blacks openly sharing these experiences of their lives in Southern America. Nothing Griffin experienced seemed out of the ordinary or unheard of; it was all laid out previously by Black authors. However, his utter shock upon receiving discrimination from whites—and white folks’ surprise to the results of his investigation—made me chuckle a bit. Like yeah, we been told y’all this shit happens.
Furthermore, while it seemed as though Griffin was actually “getting it” —witnessing the inequalities between living conditions of blacks and whites, in the end he is clearly another white person who is looking at the Black race from the outside. Someone who was black for 6 weeks and thought he had it all figured out. It was utterly frustrating how when he grew tired of the discrimination, he would simply go wash off the “black” in the bathroom and proceed throughout the day as a White man again; this is not an option in the life of an actual Black man.
Despite the constant harassment and violence received from whites, blacks never reacted with the same hostility. Instead, Griffin noticed that Blacks gave Whites hate stares which he said is a fault of black people and is just as damaging to race relations....
Seriously??? With all of the harassment, discrimination, hatred, and feelings of inferiority pushed onto the black race, Griffin’s advice to them is to “smile more”.
It’s just that during this period there were Blacks openly sharing these experiences of their lives in Southern America. Nothing Griffin experienced seemed out of the ordinary or unheard of; it was all laid out previously by Black authors. However, his utter shock upon receiving discrimination from whites—and white folks’ surprise to the results of his investigation—made me chuckle a bit. Like yeah, we been told y’all this shit happens.
Furthermore, while it seemed as though Griffin was actually “getting it” —witnessing the inequalities between living conditions of blacks and whites, in the end he is clearly another white person who is looking at the Black race from the outside. Someone who was black for 6 weeks and thought he had it all figured out. It was utterly frustrating how when he grew tired of the discrimination, he would simply go wash off the “black” in the bathroom and proceed throughout the day as a White man again; this is not an option in the life of an actual Black man.
Despite the constant harassment and violence received from whites, blacks never reacted with the same hostility. Instead, Griffin noticed that Blacks gave Whites hate stares which he said is a fault of black people and is just as damaging to race relations....
Seriously??? With all of the harassment, discrimination, hatred, and feelings of inferiority pushed onto the black race, Griffin’s advice to them is to “smile more”.