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Summary: This book it great!!!!! Smile
Review: I believe that this book can be taken many different ways. Many people may find that this book it offensive due to the language and the content of this book. I am now reading the book and am enjoying it throughly. The book brings to perspective how you as a reader can experience what the author is writing about.
you can do this by feeling hurt by what is said and by feeling all the pain that he experiences and the seperation that you can see, also you can see that people have
different views of racism. I feel that the book is very powerful and that if you have never read it and only heard about it that you should read it and develop your own review of this book.
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Summary: Compelling tale of the black southern experience.
Review: There are only a few books that have really given me a deeper understanding into the issues of the world around us. This book is one of them.
John Howard Griffin penetrates into a world that seems almost beyond belief and yet is undeniably and startlingly real. Realizations await on every page to show that the generally sheltered cultural perspective of the typical white (like myself) could not conceive the situation which confronted blacks in the south every day just a very few years ago -- as experienced by a white man who changed his skin color and dealt with the consequences.
The book is made even better by a series of stories about his experiences after returning to the world of caucausions and going on the lecture circuit about the plight of blacks in the south. He demonstrates the rationalization and close mindedness that characterizes even those who consider themselves "good people".
This book would probably be too much to accept if not for the authors remarkably unassuming and explanatory style. Rarely has such a sore subject been confronted so directly and yet so plainly.
Highly recommended. I keep having to buy new copies because people will read a few pages and want a copy.
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Summary: An Eye-Opener
Review: Racism has always been a sensitive subject for me. I've never been able to understand how a person could be judged based solely on their race. When I purchased this book, I had no idea how powerful and gripping it could be. Everything that I knew about racism was magnified as I walked with Griffin through the dangerous streets of the Deep South. I felt fear when Griffin was afraid, sadness when he was sad, and felt shock at the injustices that Griffin was seeing and experiencing - the same injustices that the rest of the nation was overlooking.After reading this book, I feel like I have a better understanding at how raw and intense racism was only a few decades ago. I understand the founding principles of affirmative action better (though I'm still not sure what my feelings on that subject are), and other modern-day controversies regarding the subject of race. It's hard for me to imagine that something like this was allowed to happen in the United States, and I'm sure many people feel the same as I do. A book like this is a constant reminder of what happened, and therefore a constant hindrance of similar occurrences in the future. Books and studies like these are the preventative measures that need to be taken in order to secure a truly colorblind nation, as Justice Marshall Harlan declared our Constitution to be in his dissenting opinion on the decision of the case Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896.
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Summary: A book that reflects society.......
Review: "Black Like Me" has to be one of the most accomplished books of all time by John Howard Griffin. This nonfictional piece of literature begins with Griffin, a Caucasian, pigmenting his skin to a darker brown, a color resembling that of an African-American, in order to feel what it's like to be an African-American. His destination proceeds throughout the South where he records his real-life experiences and encounters with other African-Americans as well as Caucasians. The transformation of his skin pigment leads him to face the discrimination and prejudice from Caucasians yet allows him to feel a sense of unity among the rest of the African-Americans. The differences of Griffins "two lives" (one being white and the other black) contrasts greatly. As a white, Griffin automatically had the opportunity of entering restaurants, shows, and other places without a problem. He remained healthy, physically, emotionally, and mentally. On the other hand, his life as a black made him lose the opportunities of a white, and therefore, Griffin became emotionally, physically, and mentally unhealthy. What does the large contrast between two lives of the same person with a different shade of skin show about human beings? Even though Griffin's experiences took place forty years ago, this book allows us to question whether society has improved and changed or not. In some ways, I believe it has, but in others, the traditional ways have dominated improvement. Unless you are a victim of prejudice today, one can finally perceive how brutal and painful prejudice and discrimination are through the mind of a white man battling the everlasting war of racism within society. -A.H., 16, IL
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Summary: Black Like Me
Review: "Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin is truly a magnificent book. All his life, he has seen the ridicule and hate towards African - Americans, but no he decides to journey into the life of a black man. With his skin tempoaririly darkened due to medical treatements, he says goodbye to his family and journeys into the life of an African American in the deep South. This book truly touched me. Me, being a young black woman, have exerienced minor events such as recorded in this book, but nothing ever this major. This is a book that all people need to read, wether you be white, black, chinese, asian.... ANYTHING!!! This book may only seem to focus on the love / hate relationship between whites and blacks, but really it reaches out to all types of racism.... girl / boy, chinese / japenese.... evendog / cat! This is definitely as must - read, page - turnin, "gimme just five more minutes, mom" type of book. I definietly give it two thumbs up!
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Summary: black like me
Review: Book Reviewby Adam Levinson
Core 8
The book BLACK LIKE ME by John Howard Griffin is a great non -fiction informative tale through racism, and prejudice. In this book John Howard Griffin tries to explain to the world that there is no difference between black and white, just on race called human. He also tries to show that not all white men are racist and prejudice against black people. The book is about a white writer that changes his pigmentation (change his skin color to black). After he changed his pigmentation he went to the Deep South to report what it is like to be a black man. He wrote this book from his own point of view but also put himself into the positions of other people. The author is a great writer and very persuasive. He can make you change your mind about an idea in one sentence. John is very flowing and one of my favorite writers. Although it was at some points boring and unnecessary he still seemed to impress me with his outstanding facts. I found it interesting that black people were not able to swim on some beaches. I feel that John Howard Griffin was an activist. I feel this way because he lived in a time were if you did not hate black people you were ridiculed and not hated by your town. Knowing that when he published his book that people would hate he took the risk and proved that there4 is no difference between black and white, just a different shade in color.
I would recommend this book to an teenager because it does tend to get a bit boring. Overall I loved this book and left an everlasting impression about this horrible period of time.
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Summary: Someone really did this
Review: I have read a lot of books some I liked, some were okay, and other I would never tell anyone to read it. I feel that black like me goes into all three areas. Some parts more then others I really liked the book. It showed how life is different between blacks and whites. John shows that it has to take a lot out ofa person to change their life like that. It must have taking a lot of weeks even months to come to the decision of changing your skin color, home, and family. Near the middle of the book John really starts to show how much he miss his family, and mainly miss his old life. Threw out the book John meets all different people. Some white, but must are black. The reason for John doing this is because he wants to find out why blacks and whites do not get along mainly so must in the south. Really going down and digging up dirt. After John is there for just a few weeks he starts to see all the hate with in the whites. Hate on how blacks can only go into a few restaurant, and only use bathrooms that have signs on them saying that blacks cna use that bathroom. The real challenge comes when John get back from his trip. It starts right before the book is going to come out. John wanted everyone to know what he did and how he felt and get through it so he want on talk shows to talk about everything. John get a lot of support for all around the world. The one place that you think would gave him the must support did not, his town. John's town hated him for what he did. the people threaten him and everyone in his family. Local stores would not help or serve him. People in the town, neighbors, and some friends will not talk to John. One group of people planned to attack John ans his family. So they had to stay with one family who would still talk to them. At John's daughter's school the same group lite a cross on fire. John saod that he wishes they would have burned the cross when he was home just so that the children would not have to see that. John trys to get on with his life but things just keep on going. No matter what he does he can not get passed it. there caomes a time when John has had all he can take so him and his family moves. I think that the book is good. I feel that everyone should read some part of the book just to see how things are different. A lot of thing have changed from that time and our time. It is good to see just how hard it was for people to get along.
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Summary: Great
Review: Black Like Me was an incredibly true story about the auther, John Griffen, who decided he wanted to find out how black people live. So, he changed his skin pigmentation to black. Then he went down south to places like St. Louis, and all over Texas and Louisiana to see how southerners have changed there opinions about racism. Every three pages showed a new story on how his life was changed and how people judged him about his color instead of his character. This is a classic novel, and it obviously takes a real dedicated author to go through changing his skin, leaving his family, and moving from the rich life to the poor life, to write good book. Although sometimes it droned on, it usually caught my attention enough to keep on reading. I would recomend this book to anybody who enjoys American History and Biographys.
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Summary: BLACK LIKE ME
Review:
"Black Like Me", originally published in 1960, is an autobiographical diary written and narrated in first-person by novelist John Howard Griffin. In the book Griffin, a white middle-aged journalist and specialist in race issues, chooses to leave his plush and privileged life-style in Texas to tour the Deep segregated South as a "Negro". His quest: to find out, "What is it like to experience discrimination based on skin color, something over which one has no control?" (p.7).
Griffin, the protagonist in this true story, undergoes a medical treatment to temporarily darken his skin in order to disguise himself as a black man in hopes of "learn[ing] the truth" and "bridg[ing] the gap" (p.7) between the two races. Making several stops in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Georgia over a six-week period of time, Griffin chronicles his enthralling saga and gives his readers his personal, firsthand accounts of the struggles and prejudices that he and many "nameless Negroes" encountered in the infernal world of racial segregation in 1959.
Griffin's nonfiction prose is one that cannot fit precisely into any particular category: His knack for turning a rather didactic documentary into an engrossing "non-fiction novel" ebulliently fortifies my love for him as a writer and entices me to read more of his work.
Noting the author's creative writing style as a definite strength, I would have to say his weakness was the usage of big ambiguous words, which did not contribute to the author's message. For example, on p.68, the author writes, "Canned jazz blared through the street with a monstrous high-strutting rhythm that pulled at the viscera." Viscera, is just another way of saying gut or intestines. If it were not for the context clues present in this book, I would have been lost in translation.
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Summary: The ultimate in "walk a mile in their shoes"
Review: The 1980's movie, "Soul Man" uses a premise similar to the basis for this book. In the movie, a white man darkens his skin color so that he can obtain a scholarship to law school that is reserved for blacks. It is a comedy and is very funny, although there is some serious social commentary. John Howard Griffin did the same thing in the late fifties in an attempt to learn the plight of black people in the south. It was a time of extreme racism and he took a great risk in doing so. Once he wrote of his experiences, the most extreme of white racists would target him for death.
It is a very powerful book and is the strongest possible commentary on how absurd racism is. By taking a chemical and changing the color of his skin, he goes from a respected member of society to a demeaned object. You also learn how much power the radical racists had in the south at the time. There were many whites that were disturbed by the intense racism in the south, but were terrified of the potential for violent retribution if they spoke out. Griffin also writes very well about the despair of the blacks and how it manifested itself in many of the behaviors used to justify the perception that they were inferior. It is clear that only the Federal government had the power to destroy racism and the actions taken by the courts to overturn the racist laws will forever rank as one of their finest hours.
I first read this book as a class assignment in high school and have reread it three times since then. Fortunately, we are decades beyond the type of events Griffin writes about. However, these events should never pass from the public consciousness and I strongly encourage everyone to read it.
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