Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin

1
Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin

• Facilitated by Dr. Tonette Rocco

2
The story

• A white man driven by a desire to facilitate
  social justice lives as a black man for less than
  a month
• Is rescued once
• And goes between living as black and white for
  about two weeks
• Begins to truly understand the pervasive nature
  of racism in this country

3
Questions

• How many in this room identify as African
  American?
• How many in this room identify as white?
• Is this story exaggerated or realistic?

4
Unpacking the invisible Knapsack (McIntosh, 1990)

• 1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company
  of people of my race most of the time.
• 2. I can avoid spending time with people whom I
  was trained to mistrust and who have learned to
  mistrust my kind or me.
• 3. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure
  of renting or purchasing housing in an area which
  I can afford and in which I would want to live.
• 4. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such
  a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
• 5. I can go shopping alone most of the time,
  pretty well assured that I will not be followed
  or harassed.
• 6. I can turn on the television or open to the
  front page of the paper and see people of my race
  widely represented.
• 7. When I am told about our national heritage or
  about "civilization," I am shown that people of
  my color made it what it is.
• 8. I can be sure that my children will be given
  curricular materials that testify to the
  existence of their race. (there is more in the
  article)
• Available http//seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/mcisaac/emc
  598ge/Unpacking.html

5
Some more questions

• How did Griffin use his white privilege during
  his investigation?
• What would a white man find if he became black in
  2006?
• Would your life be different if you were an
  African American in 2006?
• What rights would be taken away from you legally
  if you were gay or lesbian in 2006?

6
A brief history of racism

• Race is a relatively new concept. Ancient
  civilizations, though they encountered and
  included people from many different parts of the
  world, did not make social distinctions based on
  physical appearance. They distinguished people
  according to customs and religion not race.
  (Morro, nd)

7
The building of a scientific theory of race

• Lord Bryce (1915) traced racism back to the
  desire of the English to dominate the Irish from
  at least the 12 century
• Henry II described the Irish
• Wherefore this is a race of savages I say again
  a race of utter savages. For not merely are they
  uncouth of garb, but they also let their hair and
  beards grow to outrageous length, something like
  the newfangled fashion which has lately come in
  with us. In short, all their ways are brutish and
  unseemly (Barnard's 1910 translation of a
  twelfth-century text by Giraldus Cambrensis,
  quoted in Curtis p. 124).

8
Theory of race (contd)

• The Spanish Inquisition was an extreme form of
  religious persecution searching for Jews and
  Moores by physical appearance and genealogy
  beginning the notion of the hereditary nature of
  social status
• In the 1500s when the English encountered Natives
  they associated them with the savage Irish which
  is the beginning of the English thinking
  themselves superior to other cultures
  specifically those they colonized
• In the 1600s when the English established the
  slave trade they quickly reduced the Africans to
  subhuman, inferior, and created a permanent
  underclass to support the labor intensive system
  of capitalism in existence

9
Scientific theory of race (contd)

• Ashley Montague author of Mans most dangerous
  myth the fallacy of race (1942/1997)
• challenged the notion that race was a determinant
  of behavior
• He believed that the idea of racism came to be in
  the late 18th century with the Linnaeus
  classification system.

10
Linnaeus classification

• Modern, scientific racial classification began
  with Carolus Linnaeus in 1735, who classified
  humans into four races, based mostly on
  continental separation and, later, on skin color.
  His four groups were
• Americanus reddish, choleric, and erect hair
  black, straight, thick wide nostrils, scanty
  beard obstinate, merry, free paints himself
  with fine red lines regulated by customs.
• Asiaticus sallow, melancholy, stiff hair black
  dark eyes severe, haughty, avaricious covered
  with loose garments ruled by opinions.
• Africanus black, phlegmatic, relaxed hair
  black, frizzled skin silky nose flat lips
  tumid women without shame, they lactate
  profusely crafty, indolent, negligent anoints
  himself with grease governed by caprice.
• Europeaeus white, sanguine, muscular hair long,
  flowing eyes blue gentle, acute, inventive
  covers himself with close vestments governed by
  laws (Smedley, 1993, p. 164).

11
Science backed the theory of race

• Several other scientists introduced racial
  classifications
• Buffon, (1745) is credited with introducing the
  word race and had six divisions
• later in the 1700s Blumembach had five divisions

12
Race

• This ill conceived notion of race as science has
  supported eugenics movements, standardized
  testing, etc.
• This science is used to rationalize, justify and
  support social, political, and economic
  degradation of marginalized groups
• Yet we know the concept of race is not based in
  biology but was socially constructed

13
Racism

• Racism is conduct based on the belief that
  physical and behavioral differences
  characterizing individual members of different
  groups or populations are determined by genetic,
  that is, innate factors, and that these
  differences enable one to rank each individual
  and group in the scale of humanity according to
  the attributed predefined values of those
  differences (Montague 1942/1997, p. 47)

14
Does racism still exist?
15
What does it mean that this breakdown is
important?

• FIU, a public Carnegie extensive institution, is
  the top producer of Hispanic graduates in the US
  and the third largest producer of minority
  graduates (52 Hispanic, 12 African-American,
  and 4 Asian) (Landorf, Rocco, Nevin, 2006).

16
Oppression is

• Systematic institutional processes which prevent
  some people from learning and using satisfying
  and expansive skills in socially recognized
  settings, or institutionalized social processes
  which inhibit peoples ability to play and
  communicate with others or to express their
  feelings and perspectives on social life where
  others can listen (Young, 1990, p. 38).

17
Five faces of oppression are

• marginalization,
• powerlessness,
• cultural imperialism,
• systematic violence,
• and exploitation
• against the social group (Young, 1990).

18

• Marginalization is the process of excluding
  people from centers of power and influence such
  as the system of labor (Young, 1990).
• Powerlessness is evident in workplaces and urban
  education centers where employees and students
  have little or no say in policy decisions that
  affect them directly.

19

• Cultural imperialism involves two primary
  dynamics. The first dynamic is the dominant
  groups ability to render the particular
  perspective of ones own group invisible (p.
  56-57) making the dominant groups power implicit
  and assumed.
• At the same time, the second dynamic of cultural
  imperialism stereotypes the group and labels it
  the Other (Goffman, 1963).

20

• exploitation occurs through paying the oppressed
  group less for the same work,
• or reducing the members to stereotypes such as
  savage sexual predators

21

• Violence is systemic because it is directed at
  members of a group simply because they are
  members of that group (Young, 1990, p. 62) .
• The layers of systemic violence include acts of
  violence, the threat of violence, and the lack of
  punishment for the violence.

22
Can you provide examples from the book for each
face of oppression? From 2006?

• marginalization,
• powerlessness,
• cultural imperialism,
• systematic violence,
• and exploitation

23
The ultimate act of violence

• On June 7, 1998
• James Byrd died
• What do you know about this?

24
An example of systematic violence

• Lynching is violence, usually murder, conceived
  by its perpetrators as extra-legal execution, or
  used as a terrorist method of enforcing social
  domination. Victims of lynching have generally
  been members of groups marginalized by society.
  (Source Wikipedia)

25

• What did you learn about race from Griffins
  story that you didnt know?