Autobiographical Pieces About Being Black by John Griffin and Richard Wright - Essay Example

Being Versus Becoming: Racism in Black Boy and Black Like Me The John Griffin and Richard Wright both wrote autobiographical pieces about being black in the southern U.S. in Black Like Me and Black Boy, respectively. However, these accounts are in nature vastly contrasting; this is because John Griffin underwent a medical procedure to become a black man as opposed to Richard Wright having been born black. Both of these accounts show in-depth psychological and sociological effects of racism in the south, yet because Richard Wright shows how the mentality of racism is instilled into people from an early age, it is a necessarily more authentic account than what a white man dyeing his skin would have experienced. Both of these works have their own value for what they accomplished, yet they shouldn’t be considered to be the same kind of accounts. John Griffin was always an advocate for civil liberties for all. Yet he thought that he couldn’t be as effective as an advocate considering that he had never directly experienced the pernicious effects of racism himself. One day he came to a conclusion as to what to do about this problem: “How else except by becoming a Negro could a white man hope to learn the truth? (1). This is considered a sociological participation experiment. In order to accomplish this, he took medication, underwent long hours of exposure to ultra-violet light, and used skin dye. The result was a success, though Griffin wasn’t prepared for the extremes of treatment he would receive once he began his experiment. There are many interesting aspects of this account to consider. For instance, white people that he met that knew him before he underwent the procedure didn’t recognize him. This is because they apparently did not even take the time to look at him. As Ralph Ellison discussed in Invisible Man, to a certain extent black people are not even seen; they are lumped together and ignored or worse. Griffin was not visible to the people that he knew because they summarily dismissed him because they could see the color of his skin. The first person to recognize him, in fact, was the black shoe-shine man, and this was because he recognized his shoes. This is the sort of detail that a white person never would have picked up on considering they basically did not even take any amount of time to look at him. This was obviously a rather dangerous undertaking for Griffin to take. As the owner of the journal that financed Griffin’s experiment, George Levitan told Griffin that “You’ll get yourself killed fooling around down there” (2). In fact, it actually became more dangerous for Griffin once the account was published. Effigies were burned of him and he received threats to the extent that he had to move to Mexico. As a sociological reaction, racist white people took offense to their injustices being pointed out and identified Griffin with the group of people that he was defending. Of course, considering some of the events that took place to actual black people in the south during this time, Griffin should have considered himself lucky. In New Orleans as Griffin begins his experiment, Griffin finds that he is constantly looked down upon by white people. He has extreme difficulty in finding a job, and he can’t even find a restroom that he is allowed to use. Throughout his experiment, there were times when Griffin would allow his skin to lighten in order to see what kind of reactions he would have from the same people. Obviously his treatment varied greatly during these episodes. However, there are two fundamental differences that need to be remembered. First, Griffin did not grow up with this type of treatment, and so it was not instilled into him. Second, and most importantly, he had the option of stopping the medication and treatments and becoming white again. Though he was mistreated, it did not mean the same thing to him to be mistreated in this way. In the back of his head he knew that he was only being treated this way because he resembled a black man, not because he actually was a black man. Because of this, he had the knowledge that he could end this treatment by letting his skin lighten up again. The experiment was authentic in terms of the actual treatment that black people received at this time, but the psychological effects were not the same. The effects to black people were more psychologically detrimental because they knew at the same time that while they were being treated in this way, they had no real options of doing anything to discontinue this treatment. Griffin knew how to end this treatment, and since the option was available to him, it would not have had the same psychological effect on him as it would have had on people that could not do anything individually about this sort of treatment. Something to be considered is what Griffin called “fragmented individualism.“ As Griffin stated, what happened to a black man who tried to make it in this society: in order to succeed, he had to become an imitation white man--dress white, talk white, think white, express the values of middle-class white culture (at least when he was in the presence of white men)” (184). This effect which he noticed is probably the most detrimental of all psychologically, the feeling that a person cannot be themselves without fear of repercussions, and of course they will never be fully accepted and the black people that did pander to white values would be looked down upon by other black people that refused to act in such a way. Thus there was no real way in which to win in this situation. It had to change as a whole; the current rules were a complete no-win situation for black people. As mentioned, it is difficult to take Griffin’s experiment completely seriously as he merely became black. Richard Wright account can be taken completely seriously and considered authentic considering he was a black man born in the south who grew up having to deal with racism and adversities. Wright details an episode he remembers form his childhood as being the start of when he noticed that his life would be difficult. This incident happened when he was four and consisted of him accidentally burning down his house: “The fire soared to the ceiling and I trembled with fright” (4). Though no one was hurt or killed, this incident was detrimental to Wright’s relationship with his family. After mother beat him to unconsciousness after the incident happened. Things were different for him after that: “From that moment on things became tangled for me” (6). Though this events did not have anything directly to do with racism, it was to be a ort of pattern that would repeat for him as he grew up experiencing racism. Wright obviously experienced racism from white people, but what is missing from Griffin’s account is how and in Wright’s account was how black people, particularly Wright’s own family members, ingrained the attitudes that allowed racism to continue, though of course this was not something intentional that they would do. As merely surviving and eating was a constant struggle for the family, education was not a top priority. Of course, education is also at the same time the key to being able to better oneself and to be able to move upward and out of poverty. When Richard was in school, he was generally one of the best students in the school, despite his sporadic attendance due to various family emergencies. Wright decided that education was the key to bettering himself, and books were the key to educating himself if he was unable to personally continue to attend school: I concluded the book with the conviction that I had somehow overlooked something terribly important in life. I had once tried to write, had once reveled in feeling, had let my crude imagination roam, but the impulse to dream had been slowly beaten out of me by experience. Now it surged up again and I hungered for books, new ways of looking and seeing (70). His family also did not often support his interests in writing, which turned out to be what made him extremely famous, considering that Wright is still considered to be one of the top black authors who chronicled the black experience and the effects of racism. His family did not think that he would be able to truly better himself since it was so incredibly difficult to do so considering the circumstances in which he grew up, so they did not encourage him to pursue that which eventually bettered his situation. One must consider how many other great authors there might have been who simply needed the encouragement that Richard did not receive form him family. This sort of attitude kept the status-quo in check and kept black people form bettering themselves. Wright viewed religion as another way in which black people were kept in their place. Wright’s grandmother was the one person in particular that Richard clashed with over views on religion. She was extremely religious and very strict, and she and Richard clashed over the issue. Wright never had much interest in religion, and it could be seen as another thing that kept black people from bettering themselves to an extent. Since they had ingrained into them that there was no way to change their situation in this life, they needed something that would give them something to look foreword to. The promise of paradise if one if devote in this life on earth served as that which was looked forward to. This is not to say that religion never served as any sort of positive influence, especially considering Martin Luther King’s background as a preacher and his very effective advocacy of non-violent resistance, but if relied upon too heavily it became an excuse to not seek to better one’s life while living since there was supposed to be something as incredible to look forward to as Heaven. This is the sort of psychological effect that racist attitudes instilled into people. If anything can be gathered from both of these accounts, it is that the effects of racism affect everyone, from the person that is being discriminated against to the person who is doing the discriminating. As Wright wrote, and Griffin would obviously agree, “My life as a Negro in America had led me to feel . . . that the problem of human unity was more important than bread, more important than physical living itself; for I felt that without a common bond uniting men . . . there could be no living worthy of being called human” (171). The psychological and sociological effects of racism were and still are far reaching, and these two autobiographical accounts show different aspects of these. Works Cited Griffin, John, Black Like Me. New York, New American Library, 2003. Wright, Richard, Black Boy. New York, HarperCollins, 1993. Read More