Into Oblivion(black man 1959) essays

Into Oblivion(black man 1959) essays For years John Howard Griffin had pondered the idea of what it would be like to live as black man in the Deep South in the late 1950s. Griffin was a specialist in race issues; he was very aware of the fact that a black man would never speak the truth about his situation to a white man. Griffin explained that the blacks of the South had learned not to speak of anything that the white man might find displeasing, doing so would most certainly be in vain. The white man would simply not listen, or make sure that the black mans life became one of misery. Griffin was not satisfied in hearing only the answers a black man would give to a white man. He felt that if he was ever going to intimately understand the life of a black man in the South of the late 1950s he must become a black man himself. Griffin was more than aware of the risks that doing something of this nature would bring to himself and to his family, but he did it all the same. Griffin must have been an incredibly compassionate ma n. Griffin would make his transformation to a black man through the use of medication and exposure to a sun lamp. He would leave behind his identity as a white man and his family for seven weeks. As Griffin left the office of the doctor who helped him with his transformation the doctor called out, "Now you go into oblivion (p. 14). The word oblivion is defined as the state of being utterly forgotten. Oblivion is a suiting word for the white view of the black man of the South in the late 1950s. From reading Griffins experiences as a black man is quite obvious that many Southern whites were oblivious to the fact that a darker shade of skin does not lessen a persons humanity in anyway. While he was living the life of a black man Griffin was made aware of many of the stereotypes that were applied to black men by whites. Blacks were believed to have lower moral values than whites. Many whites seemed to hold distorted vie...