Black Like Me Research Paper

Did you know that around 1,572 people every year decide to take their life due to discrimination? This is a boggling statistic that goes to show that people are still being discriminated today. Harry Bridges once said, “No man has ever been born a Negro hater, a Jew hater, or any other kind of hater. Nature refuses to be involved in such suicidal practices.” This quote and the statistic are relevant to the lesson that people must not discriminate or show contempt for a person because of size, gender, race/color, religion, or sex. People are people no matter what factors they may have.

Many examples of discrimination can be found in Black Like Me written by John Griffin. For instance, one example could be when Mr. Griffin is taking the

Griffin’s book is John gets on the bus to Hattiesburg and a man named Christophe hops on the bus. As soon as he gets on the bus he starts criticizing people of his own race. Christophe says on page 53, “This place stinks. D***** punk n******. Look at all of them- bunch of dirty punks- don't know how to dress. You don’t deserve any better. Mein Kampf! Do you speak German? No. You’re ignorant. You make me sick.” This scene in the book goes to show that discrimination not only happens when there is opposite race, religion, sex, etc., but that discrimination can happen even when the person has the same factors or features as the person they are criticizing. Many people buy into the stereotypes about the people of the same attributes as them, which means that these people are brainwashed by other people who discriminate them to think that their attributes aren’t acceptable in society. That is one reason that some people discriminate against their own people. There are many other reasons as to why they do this and depends on the situation and who the individual is being discriminating. If people would stop discriminating people we wouldn’t have this problem and as many insecure people in the