[.ca] Black Like Me (ISBN 156849730X)

Good Book:
This is a clear indicator of what it was like to be African American in the 50's and 60's in the U.S. It is still a good indicator of what it is like in some parts of the U.S. even today. Its a powerful book that people should take a look at.

To walk in another man's mocassins:
It is said one cannot understand or empathize with someone else unless "you walk a mile in their mocassins." John Howard Griffin did just that, darkened his skin and took a walk into the Deep South to see how it would feel to be a member of a despised minority during 1959, the height of the Jim Crow years, when water fountains and rest rooms were separate for the races, when a black man or woman couldn't eat in a restaurant or get a hotel room. (It is said Bessie Smith, the great blues singer, died after a car accident because she couldn't be treated at a nearby hospital, for whites only.) The book is of course dated, but it is unique in that it is a viewpoint that is undeniably credible. Here is a white guy, saying: "It happened to me, just because my skin was dark. Believe it." He suffers the indignity of finding everyday tasks that become almost insurmountable--to find a restroom, a bus seat, a park bench, someplace to eat, to be left alone with out fear of harrassment. And it's this harrassment and outright fear that changes Griffin to the point he had to finally abandon his project. He was changed by it. The question I have is what would someone who chose Griffin's experiment find today? While Jim Crow is gone, the cultures still have a gulf between them. And since today, you won't see the "whites only" sign on drinking fountains that I saw as a child traveling in the Deep South, you should be sure to read this to get perspective on our history and culture. This is a brave book.

Thought-provoking stuff.:
While reading this book, I was suprised at how often I found myself thinking that it's a good thing that we, as a society, are so much more enlightened than the horrible, ignorant racists I was reading about. But when I stopped to take that thought a little further, I realized that a.)this book didn't take place all that long ago, relatively speaking and b.)racism isn't dead by a longshot. These and other instances of self-examination and introspection are part of the reason why this book is so good. The other part, of course, is that it's really well written and tremendously compelling. This man had an unbelievable amount of courage to undertake the journey he did. The rest of the world has certainly benefitted from it, and will undoubtedly continue to do so.

Fascinating Snapshot of Americana:
The story is well described in all of the other reviews so I will not rehash it yet again. A very interesting look from a unique perspective at the very start of the civil rights movement in the southern US. Forty + years later one has to wonder what it would be like for a new JH Griffin to repeat the experience. What would he find different? What would he find the same? In all honesty, a great deal has changed and great deal has remained unchanged. It would be even more interesting to have a white become black and a black become white. I'm sure that would be quite an eye opening report from the both of them. The book just goes to show that a person can never really know what something is like unless they themselves have experienced it. Watching "Saving Private Ryan" doesn't make a person know what combat is really like although it can give an idea of it; a white person can never really know what it is like to be black although they may some idea, it is never authentic.

An Eye-Opener:
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.