The Life and Times of John Howard Griffin: A Companion Volume to Black Like Me
Written: Aug 21 '02 (Updated Aug 21 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: provides insight into John Howard Griffin that was lacking in Black Like Me
Cons: includes sections of Black Like Me without clearly marking them as such
The Bottom Line: The Man in the Mirror presents a compelling view of John Howard Griffin and his beliefs, providing background information that was lacking in Black Like Me.
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| quasar's Full Review: Robert Bonazzi - Man in the Mirror: John Howard Gr... |
John Howard Griffin spent six weeks of his life masquerading as a black man in the deep south. His journey is chronicled in his book Black Like Me which provides a detailed account of his time as a black man. However, it fails to provide much in the way of background information on the decision to become a black man nor does it spend much time talking about the aftermath of the journey and the general reaction to it.
The Man in the Mirror: John Howard Griffin and the Story of Black Like Me by Robert Bonazzi fills in some of those gaps. The book is part biography and part commentary, a strange mix of personal information, insight into the beliefs and background of Griffin, and thoughts on Black Like Me and race relations in America.
One of my biggest problems with Black Like Me was the lack of background information. It was presented mostly without emotion, a detailed but dispassionate look at life as a black man from an outsider's viewpoint. I didn't get any sense of why Griffin chose to become black, of his motivation and his viewpoints before he started. Nor was the aftermath of his journey explored in more than the simplest and unemotional ways. I read this book in the hopes that it could provide some much needed background and insight into who Griffin was. It did.
Interestingly, the first section of The Man in the Mirror discusses Griffin's reaction to being asked why he masqueraded as black. He apparently hated being asked that question, feeling it indicitive of an inborn prejudice and feeling that the answer to the question was irrelevant. Why didn't matter. That he did make the journey did. I have to disagree. Yes, when push comes to shove, the important thing is that Griffin made many people aware of the living conditions of blacks in the deep south in a much more real way than they probably had been before. But the why is still important, particularly since Black Like Me is a first person story, one individual's experiences. Some understanding of that individual and what he brings to the table is important.
After this discussion, the book jumps into a biography of Griffin beginning with his early childhood in Dallas in the 1920s and 30s and his impressions of race relations in the south at that time. It then proceeds to Griffin's school days in France and his eventual entry into the French resistance movement. This is perhaps the most interesting section of the book, as it compares the Nazi treatment of Jews to the treatment of blacks in America and talks a great deal about how much easier it is to see prejudice in someone else's backyard than your own:
However, what was not clear at that point was the connection between the total destruction of Jews by anti-Semitism and the dehumanization of black people by racial prejudice. "I made no connection between the racism that was murdering the Jews of Europe and the racism that afflicted the minority people of America." And he still rationalized his own complicity with white Americans, even as he criticized the complicity of Frenchmen "who considered themselves perfectly decent" in their denial. He "heard the Nazis say the same thing about Jewish people that I had grown up hearing about black people but I did not recognize the similarities."
There is a rather long and very interesting discussion of why this was the case that I think was my favorite section of the book. It was well thought out and well presented, showing a chilling clinging to the idea that what you're used to must be right. Perhaps the most compelling part of this discussion was when Griffin equated the groups of people "back home" with those in France and matched up the genteel Southerners who turn a blind eye to unequal treatment of blacks to the resistance fighters in France (a.k.a. the good guys) rather than to those who ignored the Nazis.
Griffin doesn't come to understand the inherent sameness of people until he loses his sight. Blind for many years (Griffin miraculously regained his sight in 1957), the sections discussing his blindness in my mind provide the key insights into Griffin's decision to live like a black man. Not only is Griffin unable to determine the skin color of the people he interacts with, but for the first time Griffin is treated like a second class citizen himself. Like the blacks, blind people were generally considered stupid and not good for much (alas we haven't made much progress in this direction in the intervening years). Griffin fought against that image, fought to show that he was intelligent and that he hadn't suddenly dropped 50 points off of his IQ with the loss of his sight. It was during this period Griffin became a published writer.
In an interesting move, the book transistions slightly from straight biography to a sort of combination biography and discussion of the book Black Like Me. In some ways this made sense, as Black Like Me is basically an autobiographical book covering a few months of Griffin's life, but it was still a little jarring. To add to the strangeness, much of this section is taken almost directly from that book with little modification. There was no indication that this was happening (although there was a section at the back of the book explicitly outlining what information came from Black Like Me).
Having just read Black Like Me I almost felt like I was reading an abbreviated version of it again, peppered with a few comments here and there. It was a half-hearted attempt at analysis, not really a true commentary on the work. It felt like at the last minute someone said we can't just excerpt Black Like Me so we'd better find something to say about it.
Perhaps the most interesting of those comments we did see revolved around what was left out of Black Like Me. Griffin, a devout Catholic at that point in his life, decided not to mention the prejudice he encountered in churches throughout the south. The same churches that would have unquestioningly allowed him entry as a white man turned him away as a black man more often than not. Griffin himself later states that this ommission was the biggest fault with the book and he did write an essay on the treatment of blacks by the church later in his life.
The immediate aftermath of Griffin's time as a black man is also discussed in more detail than it is in Griffin's book. I would have liked more still. Here the reaction is limited mostly to immediate family reaction with some small accounts of public reaction.
The book then reverts back to a fairly traditional biography, covering the rest of Griffin's life, his interactions with other famous people, his other writing, and finally his long drawn out illness and death. I found all of it interesting and good reading.
Robert Bonazzi is actually the second husband of Griffin's widow Elizabeth, a fact that is not mentioned at all in the book (although a mention of Elizabeth Griffin-Bonazzi does imply some relation). It's unclear what the relationship was between Bonazzi and Griffin save that they met at least once in the late 60s. I found him an odd choice of biographer for Griffin, although I guess his relationship with the family does give him insight and contacts others might not have. That said, I feel he did a good job on the biographical sections of the book and in capturing a bit of the essence of John Howard Griffin.
The Man in the Mirror: John Howard Griffin and the Story of Black Like Me adds a lot of texture to Black Like Me, enhancing the experience of reading that book. I definitely recommend reading it after reading Black Like Me.
Recommended:
Yes
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