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2f3d534 I knew, and every black man there knew, that I, as a man now white once again, could say the things that needed saying but would be rejected if black men said them. John Howard Griffin
d5b766a My revulsion turned to grief that my own people could give the hate stare, could shrivel men's souls, could deprive humans of rights they unhesitatingly accord their livestock. I John Howard Griffin
82589eb They put us low, and then blame us for being down there and say that since we are low, we can't deserve our rights." Others" John Howard Griffin
6809938 Some wanted to know where they could find girls, wanted us to get Negro girls for them. We learned to spot these from the moment they sat down, for they were immediately friendly and treated us with the warmth and courtesy of equals. I mentioned this to Sterling. "Yeah, when they want to sin, they're very democratic," he said." rationalization John Howard Griffin
6af1196 We must return to them their lawful rights, assure equality of justice - and then everybody leave everybody else to hell alone. Paternalistic - we show our prejudice in our paternalism - we downgrade their dignity. John Howard Griffin
46bdc26 Phew!" His small blue eyes shone with repugnance, a look of such unreasoning contempt for my skin that it filled me with despair. It was a little thing, but piled on all the other little things it broke something in me. Suddenly I had had enough. Suddenly I could stomach no more of this degradation - not of myself but of all men who were black like me." John Howard Griffin
b0536e3 A] lot of them, without even understanding the cause, just give up. They take what they can-mostly in pleasure,and they make the grand gesture, the wild gesture, because what have they got to lose if they do die in a car wreck or a knife fight or something else equally stupid. poverty gangs John Howard Griffin
2848a70 measure up - disillusion us by showing John Howard Griffin
dc85d35 All human beings face the same fundamental problems of loving and of suffering, of striving toward human aspirations for themselves and their children, of simply being and inevitably dying. These are the basic truths in all people, the common denominators of all cultures and all races and all ethnic categories. In John Howard Griffin
ed35a70 I remained in my room more and more each day. The situation in Montgomery was so strange I decided to try passing back into white society. John Howard Griffin
8d41039 The Southern Negro will not tell the white man the truth. He long ago learned that if he speaks a truth unpleasing to the white, the white will make life miserable for him. The John Howard Griffin
36469d4 him dumfounded as he chanted the Gregorian John Howard Griffin
4456938 Yes, and then it's these things that cause the whites to say we're not worthy of first-class citizenship." "Ah ..." He dropped his hands to his sides hard in frustration. "Isn't it so? They make it impossible for us to earn, to pay much in taxes because we haven't much in income, and then they say that because they pay most of the taxes, they have the right to have things like they want. It's a vicious circle, Mr. Griffin, and I don't know .. racial-discrimination us-history John Howard Griffin
ad005a2 We need a conversion of morals," the elderly man said. "Not just superficially, but profoundly. And in both races. We need a great saint - some enlightened common sense. Otherwise, we'll never have the right answers when the pressure groups - those racists, super-patriots, whatever you want to call them - tag every move toward racial justice as communist-inspired, Zionist-inspired, Illuminati-inspired, Satan-inspired ... part of some secret.. racial-discrimination us-history John Howard Griffin
96d6595 Forgetting myself for a moment, I stopped to study the menu that was elegantly exposed in a show window. I read, realizing that a few days earlier I could have gone in and ordered anything on the menu. But now, though I was the same person with the same appetite, the same appreciation and even the same wallet, no power on earth could get me inside this place for a meal. I recalled hearing some Negro say, "You can live here all your life, bu.. racial-discrimination us-history John Howard Griffin
f8ed08f C]ulture-learned behavior patterns so deeply engrained they produce unconscious involuntary reactions-is a prison. John Howard Griffin
7a8e1f4 The core concept in Griffin's writings about racism--that members of dominant groups tend to view minorities, because they seem different in some extrinsic way, as intrinsically other, and "as merely underdeveloped versions of their own imprisoning culture"--was intuited in Black Like Me and articulated in a seminal essay, "The Intrinsic Other" John Howard Griffin
6fd188f The author meets an African-American who observes that his fellows who begin with aspirations to a good education, solid career, and the raising of a family slowly lose that incentive. Even those who have a college education, he observes, need to take menial jobs and begin to look for excitement in less productive places. education goals-setting John Howard Griffin
431d158 Our experience with the Nazis had shown one thing: where racism is practiced, it damages the whole community, not just the victim group. Were we racists or were we not? That was the important thing to discover. John Howard Griffin
d32788e Now you go into oblivion. john-howard-griffin oblivion John Howard Griffin
bd55e4f Racists are not the pipe-smoking type, I thought to myself. pipe-smoke racists john-howard-griffin John Howard Griffin
6b0d2d3 If the judgement makes the law and not the law directs the judgement, it is impossible there should be such a thing as an illegal judgement given. illegal john-howard-griffin law judgement John Howard Griffin
9fba5ad A law is not good merely because the legislature wills it, but the legislature has the mortal duty to will only that which is good. good john-howard-griffin law judgement John Howard Griffin
58dae27 Night coming tenderly Black like me. john-howard-griffin John Howard Griffin
d02e880 All the courtesies in the world do not cover up the one vital and massive discourtesy. perspective hypocrisy John Howard Griffin
0e8a752 The author explains that some find recourse from injustice in literature and art but that these tend to deepen sensitivity to injustice rather than dull it. idealism perspective John Howard Griffin
4f53046 God is invoked ... and He is invoked against the God of the spirit, of intelligence and love - excluding and hating this God. What an extraordinary spiritual phenomenon this is: people believe in God and yet do not know God. The idea of God is affirmed and at the same time disfigured and perverted. John Howard Griffin
832eb08 He showed me the lowest. I had to surmise the highest. optimism perspective John Howard Griffin
5cad5f4 We need a conversion of morals," the elderly man said. "Not just superficially, but profoundly. And in both races. We need a great saint-some enlightened common sense. Otherwise, we'll never have the right answers..." racism tolerance John Howard Griffin
121afd4 Customers came - whites, Negroes and Latin Americans. Well-dressed tourists mingled with the derelicts of the quarter. When we shined their shoes we talked. The whites, especially the tourists, had no reticence before us, and no shame since we were Negroes. Some wanted to know where they could find girls, wanted us to get Negro girls for them. We learned to spot these from the moment they sat down, for they were immediately friendly and tre.. racial-discrimination us-history John Howard Griffin
fe65da0 He told me how all of the white men in the region craved colored girls. He said he hired a lot of them both for housework and in his business. "And I guarantee you, I've had it in every one of them before they ever got on the payroll." A pause. Silence above humming tires on the hot-top road. "What do you think of that?" "Surely some refuse," I suggested cautiously. "Not if they want to eat - or feed their kids," he snorted. "If they don't .. racial-discrimination us-history John Howard Griffin
07ef6c3 The great danger in the South comes precisely from the fact that the public is not informed. Newspapers shirk notoriously their editorial responsibilities and print what they think their readers want. They lean with the prevailing winds and employ every fallacy of logic in order to editorialize harmoniously with popular prejudices. They also keep a close eye on possible economic reprisals from the Councils and the Klans, plus other superpat.. racial-discrimination us-history John Howard Griffin
f50f516 someone in a high place - the mayor, chief of police, or other official - would receive information that a neighboring city was already in flames and that carloads of armed black men were coming to attack this city. This happened in Cedar Rapids when Des Moines was allegedly in flames. It happened in Ardmore, Oklahoma, and in Fort Worth, Texas, when it was alleged that Oklahoma City was in flames and carloads were converging on those cities.. racial-discrimination us-history John Howard Griffin
eac78ef In no instance were these reports true or were any of these cities actually in flames. But the result was immediate action on the part of white officials. They got in contact with important community and industrial leaders. Riot control measures were ordered into effect. Civilians armed themselves for the coming attack and stationed themselves at strategic points. In most cases many whites became aware of the "danger" and no local black per.. racial-discrimination us-history John Howard Griffin
73b47a9 when the riot controls had been put into effect, and a nervous white population was waiting, it took little to set it off. In Wichita, a few white youths drove down into the black area and simply fired off guns. This brought black people out of their houses; in rage at seeing the harassment, they hurled stones or sticks at a passing car, and the battle was on. In that particular instance the police arrested the five whites who were armed an.. racial-discrimination us-history John Howard Griffin
2373b90 I traveled from city to city in those days, and the view from within the ghettos was terrible and terrifying. While white people in the periphery were arming themselves against the day when they would have to defend themselves from attack by blacks (and really believed someone was fomenting a racial war in which black people would rise up and attack them), black people mostly without arms huddled inside the ghettos feeling that they were su.. racial-discrimination us-history John Howard Griffin
5212976 Local white leadership was discredited in the eyes of black people, too, by their insistence on asking me, when we met to discuss the local events, usually with black people, if I had discovered who was the traveling black agitator who had come in and stirred up their "good black people." And had I discovered if there were any communists behind the disruptions?" racial-discrimination us-history John Howard Griffin
c05ea9e Certainly many Northern cities deplored what was going on in the South. But when Martin Luther King, who had been so praised in the North for the work he did in the South, came to work in the cities of the North, the very officials who had praised him sometimes led opposition to his work locally. racial-discrimination us-history John Howard Griffin
61f5773 It was now pointed out that the black male child, even in a black school using white textbooks, could early come to the conclusion that all the heroes in history were white men. Furthermore, with the exception of nationally known black civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins, James Farmer, and others, the black male child frequently saw the adult black male as ineffectual and defeated. The old picture of the white man lead.. racial-discrimination us-history John Howard Griffin
05f023a Some whites, who had never really understood, were offended by this sudden death of their role as the "good white leading the poor black out of the jungle." Many of these were among the saddest people of our time, good-hearted whites who had dedicated themselves to helping black people become imitation whites, to "bringing them up to our level," without ever realizing what a deep insult this attitude can be." racial-discrimination us-history John Howard Griffin
cb92d30 In Black Like Me, I tried to establish one simple fact, which was to reveal the insanity of a situation where a man is judged by his skin color, by his philosophical "accident" - rather than by who he is in his humanity." racial-discrimination us-history John Howard Griffin
783ab8c But part of that incipient racism had always led whites to assume the leadership positions and perpetuated the view that whites rather than blacks were the heroes of the movement. racial-discrimination us-history John Howard Griffin
b806be7 The same principle held in black universities, where students demanded more and more black teachers. White professors who had virtually dedicated their lives and their academic careers as historians, anthropologists, sociologists, to the problems of racism and its cures, thinking they did this for the good of the oppressed victims of racism (and often suffering social and academic insults as a result), were asked to leave schools in favor o.. racial-discrimination us-history John Howard Griffin
2b26772 The emotional garbage I had carried all of those years - the prejudice and the denial, the shame and the guilt - was dissolved by understanding that the Other is not other at all. racial-discrimination us-history John Howard Griffin
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