Black Like Me A Cultural Book Report free essay sample

Black Like Me: A Cultural Book Report Essay, Research Paper John Howard Griffin was a journalist and a professional on race issues. After publication, he became a taking advocator in the Civil Rights Movement and did much to advance consciousness of the racial state of affairs sand base on balls legislative assembly. He was in-between aged and populating in Mansfield, Texas at the clip of publication in 1960. His desire to cognize if Southern Whites were racialist against the Negro population of the Deep South, or if they truly judged people based on the single # 8217 ; s personality as they said. Because of this he felt that they had encouraged him to traverse the colour line and write Black Like Me. Plot: Black Like Me is the narrative of a adult male named John Howard Griffin, who underwent a series of medical interventions to alter his tegument colour temporarily to black ; a transmutation that was complete when John Howard Griffin shaved off his hair, and looking in the mirror, saw a bald, middle-aged black adult male. The ground he does this is for an experiment to see how racism was in the Deep South from personal experience. From November 6th to December 14th in the early 60 # 8217 ; s, he hitchhiked, walked, and rode through Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Georgia. After three hebdomads in the Deep South as a black adult male John Howard Griffin produced a diary covering his alteration into the black race, his travels and experiences in the South, the displacement back into white society, and the reaction of those he knew prior his experience. The book was published and released. The reaction on the society differed in great ammounts. Word picture: John Howard Griffin is the chief character in the narrative. Throughout the narrative, this individual displayed many qualities. He showed finding because he was bound and determined to go a black adult male so he could expose the truth about the Deep South and how racialist they were. He besides showed bravery, for being able to draw through and make the things he did, such as become a whole new individual of another race and traveling into unsafe district where he knew he wasn # 8217 ; t truly welcomed. He besides displayed a sense of self-respect, because after he was done with this experiment, he was threatened several times and even burned in image in his hometown, but he still maintained his land every bit long as he could. And last, but non least, he showed us a sense of hope, because no affair what, even in the darkest times, he would still maintain at least a little spot of hope in him. Cultural Penetrations: The things that I # 8217 ; ve learned about white people and black people is that things a ren’t ever what they seem to be. A white individual could be the nicest individual to you at first if you are white, but the following they could detest you for being black if you are a black individual. But non every white individual is like this. Cosmopolitan Insight: In Montgomery, Alabama, Griffin decided it was clip for him to reenter white society, but he besides wanted to derive information of the country as a black adult male. So, he found the technique of covering an country as a black and so returning the undermentioned twenty-four hours as a white. What he found was, as a black he would have the hatred stare from Whites and be treated with every courtesy by the black community. As a white, it would be the exact antonym, he would acquire the hatred stare from inkinesss and be treated wondrous by the same people who despised him the old twenty-four hours. The lone thing altered was his visual aspect. He dyed his tegument a really dark brown and shaved his caput, his vesture, address forms, and mentions had non changed and every inquiry was answered truthfully. If people did justice others by their qualities and makings, his clip in the Deep South should hold been reasonably uneventful. Alternatively, there were day-to-day Hunts to happe n rest- room installations, eating houses, shops, and assorted other # 8216 ; comfortss # 8217 ; that he took advantage of before he crossed the colour line. Even though he was the same exact individual, people treated him differently.Literary Analysis: To covey his message against racism, John Howard Griffin uses subject as one literary construct. He shows us that even though he was the same exact individual as he was when he was white even when he changed his tegument colour, people treated him in different ways merely because of his tegument colour. Another manner the writer conveys his message against racism is that he uses temper as another literary construct. He puts the reader in a temper of disgust, non against the book, but against the people in the book and the racism that takes topographic point in the book. Historic Mention: November 14, the twenty-four hours John Howard Griffin decided to go forth to carry on his experiment, was the twenty-four hours after the Mississippi jury refused to indict or see the grounds in the Mack Parker kidnap-lynch slaying instance. Because of this instance, the tenseness between black and white became stronger, which led to doing John Howard Griffin # 8217 ; s travels more hard, being a black adult male. This book relates to American history because it takes the reader into the Deep South before the Civil Rights Movements took clasp and shows what it was like to be black in the early 1960 # 8217 ; s.