Black Like Me: Perspective
To change one thing; skin color, hair style, clothing, or even attitude can influence what others think instantly because of prejudice. That prejudice usually originates from surroundings and social participation with a certain group of people. John Griffin as a white man would not have been able to have a conversation with a black man without there being any consequences for either of them. In this book, the author mentions that no one is born racist, but was raised that way (150). John Griffin’s experience as a black man at the peak of racism demonstrated that the evils of racism cannot always be perceived from one perspective.
The privileges the author had prior to his journalism breakthrough. As a white man, he was able to walk around more freely, get any job he needed or wanted, talk to any other white man, and so much more. Doing this experiment took a lot of emotional, physical, and mental readiness in order to participate in it. The preparation to compare and contrast his life as a white man and a black man was time consuming and a big decision for this time period in his life. At this point in history, the violence due to racism rate was extremely high, especially in the south. In the beginning of the study, Griffin had a hard time looking at himself with dark skin because he did not like what he saw (12). It took two days before Griffin had a breaking point when he had dark skin. As the narrative progresses, he becomes more comfortable with his skin, and begins to see the injustice that occurs between the white skinned and dark skinned (42).
Once Griffin was more emotionally stable with the change of skin color, he started from “square one.” While doing his regular everyday activities, such as riding a bus and working, he noticed how rude fair skinned people were to dark skinned people. He was not used to a bus driver treating him the way he was being treated and people yelling at him for the reason that he was dark...