Black Like Me

Content Warning: This section of the study guide contains detailed discussions of racism and violence motivated by racism, including references to lynching and suicide. The source material includes outdated and offensive racial terms and slurs, which are reproduced in this guide only via quotations.

Segregation is a constant motif in Griffin’s memoir, a force that shapes his every experience and interaction. Griffin spends most of his time in neighborhoods deemed “ghettos,” places within cities where Black people were driven to live, away from white people. In these neighborhoods, he is denied service at several businesses while other white men stand on street corners attempting to entice him to buy from them, a contrast that Griffin finds darkly ironic. On the busses he takes along his journey, Griffin is judged for actions as simple as looking at or offering a seat to a white woman, witnesses Black passengers being told to vacate their seats for white passengers, and experiences discrimination when he and other Black passengers are not allowed to deboard for a washroom break. Griffin has to walk, sometimes for miles, to find basic facilities, such as washrooms, places to get water, or hotels available to Black people.