“Black Like Me” Is Blackface Too
Should good intentions ever matter with blackface?
On October 28, 1959, a few days before Halloween, John Howard Griffin, a writer from Texas, decided to “stain” his white skin to experience life as a black man in the South.
Griffin’s purpose for black-stained skin was to research white racism because according to him there was no other way to know about white racism.
After his “experiment,” Griffin published his journal entries to narrate and aerate the horrors that haunted his new black hue so white audiences like him could better understand.
His book, Black Like Me, became a best seller. It sold over 12 million copies with versions in at least 16 languages, and many schools have made it required reading.
The front matter of the book claims it’s “the single most important documentation on American racism of the twentieth century.”
Well, excuse me! That’s where I heaved and hacked. Isn’t that a bloated boast given the steady testimony of firsthand witnesses who didn’t have to change their skin tone?
The foreword to the book opens by asking, “What is it like to be the Other?”
And the foreword in the book responds to its question with these words:
