Black Like Me Book Report - 979 Words

Grace Haskin Communication Research: Book Report November 21, 2014 Black Like Me Black Like Me is a research diary kept by John Griffin in 1959. Griffin, a white male, is bothered by racism and wants to experience what it is like to be black. He begins taking medication and rubs shoe polish on himself to darken the color of his skin to temporarily pass as a black man. Sepia, a black oriented magazine, sponsors Griffin’s study in exchange for written articles about the experience. With his new identity, Griffin travels to New Orleans, Alabama and Mississippi, where a black man was just murdered by a mob. He immerses himself within the black community and finds a sense of hopelessness. The black community is feeling hopeless because no one will hire them and they can only use the bathroom, eat and shop in designated â€Å"black† areas because of their race. Even though his skin color is the only thing about him that has changed, he is mistreated everywhere he goes. Becoming hopeless himself, Griffin stops taking his medication and allows his skin to fade back to white. Using shoe polish to switch between the two races, he experiments going places as a black man and then again as a white man. While he is white, white people treat him with dignity and black people are afraid of him. While he is black, he is welcomed by the black community and white people are hostile towards him. Griffin returns home to write his story, which goes viral. Though he receives a lot of positiveShow MoreRelatedBlack Like Me: a Cultural Book Report910 Words   |  4 Pagessaid. Because of this he felt that they had encouraged him to cross the color line and write Black Like Me. Plot: Black Like Me is the story of a man named John Howard Griffin, who underwent a series of medical treatments to change his skin color temporarily to black; a transformation that was complete when John Howard Griffin shaved off his hair, and looking in the mirror, saw a bald, middle-aged black man. The reason he does this is for an experiment to see how racism was in the Deep South fromRead MoreAnalysis Of The Book A New Generation 1604 Words   |  7 PagesA New Generation The book being used for this report is called Countering the Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boy by Jawanaza Kunjufu. The type of book can be categorized as black studies, psychology. The book can be used for parents seeking advice, community activists, church members and educators. The book could also be used as a helping tool to assure the correct development of how African American boys can grow into strong, responsible and educated men in America’s society. Kunjufu answers severalRead MoreJohn Howard Griffin s Black Like Me1647 Words   |  7 PagesGriffin embarked on a revolutionary journey—to darken the color of his skin and experience racism in the Deep South firsthand. While considered extremely controversial at the time, the experiences recorded by Griffin in his book, Black like Me, are still discussed today. The book has continued to inform readers about oppressive prejudice in America, and aided them in realizing that bias, while hidden, is still prevalent tod ay. It has inspired a new generation to work towards equality, while warningRead MoreGang Leader for a Day: Book Review1413 Words   |  6 Pagesï » ¿ Gang Leader for a Day Book Review It takes a lot of guts and no small amount of courage and cunning to infiltrate a street gang in the tough neighborhoods of Chicago, but that is what Sudhir Venkatesh did as a 23-year-old graduate student at the University of Chicago. In order to find out first-hand how a gang that earns its money selling crack cocaine functions from the inside, Venkatesh dared to get involved on a superficial basis with the gang. But Venkatesh wasnt seen as person who wasRead MoreDr Nehisi Coates, An American Educator, Journalist, And Writer1086 Words   |  5 PagesCoates write the book Between the World and Me but he also wrote The Beautiful Struggle.Before reading this book I had no clue who Ta-Nehisi Coates was. When I first read that we had to do a book report I immediately froze up because I hate reading books. I prejudged Between The World And Me before I even opened the book. I inferred that it would be a very boring just by looking at the cover over the book, looks can be deceiving. Ta-Ne hisi had three goals when he decided to write this book. He explainedRead MoreI Am A Firm Believer870 Words   |  4 Pagesdemonstrated in the book, there are many viewpoints and sides of our historical past that are ignored and not told to the mass for everyone to be able to understand and learn from such mistakes that are made then. Does that mean that there is no hope? I would not jump to such drastic conclusions, but I am a firm believer after taking this class that as long as certain individuals have the power to control what the media reports and what not to report, what are written in our history books for schools, andRead MoreA Rose For A Slave Girl By Harriett Jacobs Essay1260 Words   |  6 PagesThis book by Harriett Jacobs tells her story through her eyes from the suffering of enslavement by a territorial master, failed attempts to escape, and preservation of her family. These events took place between 1813-1897 in North Carolina, where slaves were property and slave o wners did what they wanted; when they wanted with their property. She explains her cruel treatment as an African American slave and how she used her sexuality to her advantage against her master. In reviewing this book, JacobsRead MoreBlack Like Me By John Howard Griffin966 Words   |  4 PagesEthnicity: Black Like Me â€Å"If a White man became a Negro, what adjustments would he have to make?† (Griffin pg. 2) First published in 1961, Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin is moving yet troubling autobiography about a privileged white man in America who has taken on the role of a Black man, a much more deprived status. Griffin is narrator, author, protagonist and main character. From both a black and white perspective, the writer hopes to better understand and convey what life was like for theRead MoreAmes s Long Battle Against Lynch Law1257 Words   |  6 Pagesof this book is a fascinating study over Jessie Daniel Ames, who was a southern woman who played major roles in several local social movements between the two world wars- as the very first President of the Texas league of woman voters, leader in the Texas Equal Suffrage Association, Director of Woman’s Work for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation in the 1920’s, and following that decade as the head of the a ssociation of southern Woman for the prevention of Lynching (ASWPL). The book deals bothRead MoreI Meet My Hero Kanye West1410 Words   |  6 Pages15 and I absolutely hated reading. Summer after summer I would begrudgingly read my schools assigned summer reading books or figure out a way I could not read the books and still complete my assignments. The summer before my sophomore year of high school was looking no different. With two weeks left before school started I hadn’t even logged onto my schools website to check which books I was supposed to read. What I was far more excited about was saving money to see Kanye West and Jay-z when they came