BLM and the clip

So I was thinking about the clip we watched in class and Black Like Me and I couldnt help but leave class in somewhat of a bad mood. While reading Black Like Me it was hard to decribe how I felt. Ive had the thought at some point or another that it would be interesting for once to see what it would be like for a white person to live in the shoes of a black person…just to see some of the things we go through. But reading the book more and watching the clip it angered me to see how they acted when they were black, as if they understood everything because no matter what they will never be black and never understand our history, discrimination, etc. At the end of the day they can continue their lives as a white person.

Self-segregation: the epilogue of BLM

In the last few pages of Black Like Me, Griffin describes the attempt by the black civil rights movement to overcome the stereotype of blacks being followers in a white-led campaign for racial equality. He notes that “incipient racism had always led whites to assume the leadership positions” (p. 192). He then goes on to describe the consequences of the effort by blacks to overcome the stereotype: “College students formed black students unions and excluded white students…. White professors who had virtually dedicated their lives and academic careers…to the problems of racism and its cures…were asked to leave schools in favor of black teachers” (pp. 192-193). A sort of political/social self-segregation became “in.”

Perhaps I’m seeing something that isn’t there, but I get the impression that Griffin endorses this trend. He describes the response of the newly-excluded whites unsympathetically: “Few white students understood…. Some [professors who were asked to leave schools in favor of black teachers] turned very bitter….. Such men…sometimes begin to look for symptoms of inferiority as a means of self-defense” (pp. 192-193). Griffin acknowledges that these people are justified in feeling upset at the treatment (“[The newly-expelled professors] often suffer[ed] social and academic insults as a result [of their efforts in the civil rights movement]” and “To have one’s life’s work dismissed in such a frivolous manner by people who have never yet studied it was a severe insult” (p. 193)), but he only gives a token condemnation of the movement that led to the sackings (“It was fascinating and tragic…” (p. 192)). He even states in the very last paragraph that “this ’separation’ may be the shortest route to an authentic communication at some future date when blacks and whites can enter into encounters in which they truly speak as equals” (p. 194). Surely he would not end his book presenting a view he rejects.

I can’t help but find the trend Griffin describes—and Griffin’s attitude toward the trend—disturbing. I don’t mean to say that self-segregation is never appropriate (we all do it, like it or not), but I can’t imagine that self-segregation of the kind Griffin describes would improve black-white race relations. Certainly it couldn’t erase the stereotypes that whites have about blacks (and that blacks have about whites). Instead, wouldn’t it encourage those stereotypes? White scholars and activists would simply view the work of blacks, with whose work they would have little contact, and see it as the work of “the other.” Ordinary whites, their experiences cut off from those of blacks, would, without evidence to the contrary, be free to invent whatever prejudices they liked. After all, don’t we all judge others more harshly when we don’t know them? Aren’t we all less willing to hold prejudices against groups whose members we count as friends? In high school, don’t we all judge members of other social groups differently (usually for the worse) than we do members of our own? I don’t see how race relations could be any different.

BLM and the Panopticon

This point is perhaps an obvious one, but it’s striking how Black Like Me shows that society exerts its control over blacks (well, over Griffin, at any rate) by causing them to regulate their own behavior. The clearest example in the book is the scene where Griffin is writing his letter to his wife. As he begins to write, he imagines that an “observing self saw the Negro [i.e. Griffin], surrounded by the sounds and smells of the ghetto, write ‘Darling’ to a white woman” (Griffin, p. 68). Needless to say, Griffin on one level knows that no one else would ever know about his letter writing process, but in his mind he is being watched, and he fears that his action might be perceived, disapprovingly, by others. As a result, he is forced to regulate his own action.

Compare this to Foucault’s description of the function of the Panopticon: “to induce in the inmate a state of consciousness and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power…. [T]he perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary” (Foucault, p. 201). Of course, the whites who comprise the “ruling class” do exercise power directly, so in a sense their’s is not Foucault’s “perfection of power.” But insofar as they exert power without actually exercising it, it is because they (consciously or unconsciously) constructed a Panopticon in which blacks constantly reside.

Subtle Racism in Black Like Me

In my opinion, some of the most powerful scenes in Black Like Meoccured not when Griffin encountered overt racism, but rather his privatemental struggles with being a Negro. These vignettes tell much more about the social system of racism in America than the moments when he actually reflects on his experiences. The first of these scences is at the very beginning of the book when he has just shaved his head and is about to look at himself for the first time as a ‘black’ man. He writes “In the flood of light against white tile, the face and shoulders of a stranger-a fierce, bald, very dark Negro-glared at me from the glass. He in no way resembled me.” To me, Griffin’s word choice in these two sentences speak volumes about the way whites viewed Negros at the time. ‘Stranger’, ‘fierce’ and ‘glared’ are each extremely powerful words, full of connotations that, in this case, seem to be negative and evoke images of a violent, unfamilar being. Though most likely unintentional, these words were his first reaction to his new identity, and play into the very idea of the stereotypical Negro that he fights so hard to destroy.

Another theme that seemed to run throughout the entire book was ‘lonliness’. It first appears in his second diary entry and recurrs continuously. I think Griffin traces this lonliness back to the fact that he is unable to contact his wife and family, which is evident from the scene when he is trying to write his wife a letter. However it can also be used as a metaphor for how Negro’s were constantly treated and how they felt at the time. In depriving them of social, political and economic freedom, whites were essentially cutting them out of the  American identity. Thus Griffins lonliness parallels the Negros lonliness, which stems from their displacement.

Griffin as self-deluded narrator

For me, the primary problem with Black Like Me was its dependency upon interpretation: upon accepting a limited number of individual situations and subjective observations as a cross-section of the overall Southern black experience. This ignores, of course, a couple of basic problems.

First, Griffin allowed himself no grace period or time to aclimate to the culture and practices of black Southerners before he began to record his opinions as truths. This overlooks mounting evidence that, at least initially, his manner, speech, dress, and behavior marked him as a conspicuous outsider. That his dress suggested money, for example, immediately brands him as someone unaccustomed to the menial labor he sought and made him conditionally attractive to a recent widow seeking upward mobility. Also, the incident on pgs. 20-21 (Griffin makes sympathetic eye contact with a white woman only to be rebuffed in front of black and white passengers alike) reveals an obvious lack of familiarity with the fundamentals of Southern survival: “Other Negroes aboard eyed me not with anger, but with astonishment that any black man could be so stupid” (21). And yet, after this and more incidents proving his clumsy assimilation into black Southern life, he’s willing to assume that he fits in fine, that he’s reached an easiness and familiarity with all African Americans he encounters. He reflects on the (perceived) connected spirit of the African American community, noting the “courtesies we felt compelled to extend to one another” (16); to me, such “courtesies” imply distance more than intimacy. Does he not stop to think, even for a moment, that he may only feel comfortable because he’s being accomodated by the people around him, not because he in any way belongs?

… And on that note, even for all his “we” familiarities, his insistence that he feels at home within the black community, his initial few days suggest otherwise. On his first day alone, he attempts to reveal himself as only-pretending-and-actually-white twice, first to Sterling Williams and then to Mr. Guillory, his “lawyer friend.” To me, those desperate assertions of his own secret whiteness betray his desire to remain an outsider, not to assimilate, to act only as observer and never as participant, and ultimately to stay white and never lose himself in that body and that “oblivion.” This is only the beginning of the contradictory claims made (and implied) throughout Griffin’s Southern wanderings.

Thinking about “Black Like Me”

While we were talking about Black Like Me today in class, i remembered this TV Show that was aired on FX last year. Watch the whole thing, its realy interesting. The show was called Black.White. you can find more clips on youtube.