RACIAL PREJUDICE UNDERLYING THE JIM CROW LAW PRACTICES IN THE DEEP SOUTH REVEALED IN JOHN HOWARD GRIFFIN’S BLACK LIKE ME
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By
ALICE FEBRIANNE
Student Number: 034214039
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2007
i A Sarjana Sastra Undergraduate Thesis
RACIAL PREJUDICE UNDERLYING THE JIM CROW LAW PRACTICES IN THE DEEP SOUTH REVEALED IN JOHN HOWARD GRIFFIN’S BLACK LIKE ME
By
ALICE FEBRIANNE Student Number: 034214039
Approved by
Paulus Sarwoto, S.S., M.A. July 28, 2007. Advisor
Elisa Dwi Wardhani, S.S., M.Hum. July 28, 2007. Co-advisor
ii A Sarjana Sastra Undergraduate Thesis
RACIAL PREJUDICE UNDERLYING THE JIM CROW LAW PRACTICES IN THE DEEP SOUTH REVEALED IN JOHN HOWARD GRIFFIN’S BLACK LIKE ME
By
ALICE FEBRIANNE Student Number: 034214039
Defended before the Board of Examiners on September 26, 2007 and Declared Acceptable
BOARD OF EXAMINERS
Name Signature
Chairman : Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd., M.A. ______Secretary : Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka, M. Hum. ______Member : G. Fajar Sasmita Aji, S.S., M.Hum. ______Member : Paulus Sarwoto, S.S., M.A. ______Member : Elisa Dwi Wardhani, S.S., M.Hum. ______
Yogyakarta, October 22, 2007 Faculty of Letters Sanata Dharma University Dean
Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd., M.A.
iii
For with GOD Nothing shall be impossible.
(Luke 1 : 37)
iv
This undergraduate thesis is dedicated to my beloved parents, my sisters and brother, my beloved mate, and those who love and support me.
v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First, I would like to thank Jesus Christ for His love and kindness. His greatest blessing and miracle has guided me in finishing this thesis.
I would also like to thank Mr. Paulus Sarwoto, S.S., M.A. for his guidance in writing this thesis. I thank him so much for being patient in reading, correcting, and re-reading this thesis. I also thank the co-advisor, Ms. Elisa Dwi Wardhani, S.S.,
M.Hum. for her suggestions that surely improve this thesis.
My greatest gratitude goes to my beloved parents, Langgeng Cahyono and
Nora Siamsuria, and Tante Henny for their supports and prayers; my sisters, Gretha
Carolina and Jeannie Stephanie, and my little brother, Ricky Nelson for their supports that pushed me to finish this thesis soon.. I would also thank my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins for their supports, prayers, trusts and love that means a lot to me. My great gratitude also goes to SPM sisters, especially Sr.
Veronique, SPM.
I would thank my beloved mate, Albert for being patient in facing my temper, especially during this thesis making process. I would also thank ce Rita, ko
Wawan, and Joe for their supports and their efforts to cheer me up facing these stressful days. I would like to thank my friends, A ching, Dwi, Renzzie, Tika, Poppy,
Reni, Tio, Andhika, Margareth, Nina Sing 02, ce Vany, ko Aswin, Bernard, Tatag,
E’in, Detty, Cahyadi, Fr. Dimas, Nova, Meta for the lovely friendship we have.
Last but not least, I would thank everyone whose names are not mentioned here, who has helped me finish this thesis. May God bless them.
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE ...... i APPROVAL PAGE ...... ii ACCEPTANCE PAGE ...... iii MOTTO PAGE ...... iv DEDICATION PAGE ...... v ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ...... vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... vii ABSTRACT ...... viii ABSTRAK ...... ix
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study ...... 1 B. Problem Formulation ...... 3 C. Objectives of the Study ...... 3 D. Definition of Terms ...... 4
CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW A. Review of Related Studies...... 5 B. Review of Related Theories...... 7 1. Theories on Character and Characterization ...... 7 2. Theories on Setting ...... 10 3. Theories on Society ...... 12 4. Theories on Prejudice ...... 16 C. Theoretical Framework ...... 21
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY A. Object of the Study...... 22 B. Approach of the Study...... 24 C. Method of the Study ...... 24
CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS 1. Jim Crow Law Practices Revealed in Black Like Me Through the Character of Griffin and the Deep South Society ...... 26 2. Racial Prejudice Underlying the Jim Crow Law Practices in the Deep South as Revealed in Black Like Me ...... 38
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ...... 45
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 49
vii
ABSTRACT
ALICE FEBRIANNE (2007). Racial Prejudice Underlying the Jim Crow Law Practices in the Deep South Revealed in John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.
This study discusses a work by John Howard Griffin entitled Black Like Me, which was written in the year of 1959. This book was aimed as an investigative journalism book since it reflects plainly the period of bitter racism towards the Blacks practiced by the Whites in the Deep South. Therefore based on a clear understanding that this investigative journalism book is clearer in exposing the real condition of the society in that era than any other literary work, the writer chooses John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me to be discussed further. In this study, there are two objectives to guide the analysis. First, this study attempts to find out how the Jim Crow Law practices revealed through the character of Griffin and society as setting in Black Like Me. Second, the study is aimed to see how the race prejudice underlying the Jim Crow Law practices revealed in Black Like Me. To do the analysis, the writer did several steps. First, the writer conducts library research in working on the subject. Next, sociocultural-historical approach is applied as a means to analyze the problems. Then, some theories such as theories on character and characterization, theories on setting, theories on society, and theories on prejudice along with the review on Jim Crow Law are also employed to guide the analysis. The result of this analysis shows that the characterization of Griffin and society as the setting implied the practices of Jim Crow Law as a means of segregation in the Deep South with racial prejudice stood behind its practices. Those practices impacted on the Blacks’ feeling of inferiority. They denied their identity, their negritude, their culture, as a demand to follow the prejudices Whites put on Blacks.
viii ABSTRAK
ALICE FEBRIANNE (2007). Racial Prejudice Underlying the Jim Crow Law Practices in the Deep South Revealed in John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me. Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Skripsi ini mengupas sebuah karya dari John Howard Griffin yang berjudul Black Like Me, yang ditulis pada tahun 1959. Buku yang dimaksudkan sebagai jurnal investigasi ini menggambarkan dengan gamblang masa-masa pahit merebaknya rasialisme oleh masyarakat kulit putih terhadap orang-orang kulit hitam. Mengingat buku jurnalisme investigasi ini dapat memberikan gambaran yang lebih jelas tentang kondisi yang sebenar-benarnya mengenai jaman tersebut dibandingkan karya-karya literatur lainnya, maka penulis memilih Black Like Me karya John Howard Griffin ini untuk dikupas lebih dalam. Dalam skripsi ini terdapat dua pokok bahasan yang akan mengarah ke sebuah analisa nantinya. Pertama-tama, dalam skripsi ini akan dipaparkan mengenai penerapan dari Jim Crow Law yang dialami oleh sang tokoh, Griffin dan lingkungan dalam Black Like Me. Kedua, skripsi ini akan menganalisa bagaimana Black Like Me mengungkap bahwa prasangka terhadap ras tertentu mendasari diterapkannya Jim Crow Law tersebut. Dalam melakukan analisanya, penulis menggunakan beberapa tahapan. Yang pertama, penulis melakukan studi pustaka. Kemudian sebuah pendekatan sosiokultural-historikal diterapkan untuk menganalisa permasalahannya. Akhirnya, beberapa teori seperti teori tokoh dan penokohan, teori seting, teori tentang masyarakat, dan teori tentang prasangka disertai dengan tinjauan tentang Jim Crow Law juga diterapkan untuk mendukung analisa tersebut. Hasil dari analisa tersebut menunjukkan bahwa penokohan Griffin dan lingkungan sebagai seting mengungkap Jim Crow Law sebagai alat dari praktik pengucilan orang kulit hitam di Deep South dimana prasangka terhadap ras tertentu berada di balik dari penerapannya. Penerapan tersebut berdampak pada perasaan orang-orang kulit hitam bahwa mereka memang lebih rendah derajatnya, sehingga mereka mengingkari jati diri, kepribadian, dan kebudayaan mereka sendiri sebagai seorang kulit hitam dan bertingkah laku seperti halnya yang telah disangkakan oleh masyarakat kulit putih terhadap mereka.
ix CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
Literature is not merely a creative creation of an author when expressing his mind and idea. Literature also conveys important messages of a society. When there is a society, then there would be a literature work follows. Then, literature and society is a unity. Social condition, such as culture, custom, problem, or conflict in the society can be a great inspiration for an author to create a literary work. Since literature reflects the society, literature can be said as a media that recorded the situation of a society in a particular time then exposes it to the new generation.
Therefore, the new generation could experience the situation and thought happening in that certain setting of time and place, as stated by Graham Little in his Approach to Literature:
Literature is the principle element of a culture. It contains the record of values, thought, problem, and conflict, that are transmitted either through written and spoken words. With such acknowledgement, literature stands up as a tool to pass the experience from one generation to the next. Literature, then functions as a representation of the situation and thoughts happening in certain setting of time and place (1963: 1).
Since Wellek and Warren have stated in their Theory of Literature that
“literature represents life and life is a social reality” (1956: 94), the reader of a literary work may know afterwards what happened in the past or the era when that work was written. Furthermore, the readers may find out how the real condition of that society through the reflection of the story itself. The literary work itself then can
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be used as a social or historical record of human life. Wellek and Warren have also stated as follows:
The artist conveys truth and necessarily, also historical and social truths. Literature is really not a reflection of the social process, but the essence, the abridgement and summary of all history (1956: 95).
It is also written in the book that readers may come to a conclusion that trough his work, an author wants to deliver such awareness of specific social situation. In other words, the reader may get the social criticism that an author wants to say trough the work (1956: 95).
Black Like Me, which was written in the year of 1959 reflects plainly the period of bitter racism towards the Blacks practiced by the Whites in South America.
Therefore based on a clear understanding that this investigate journalism book is clearer in exposing the real condition of the society in that era than any other literary work, the writer chooses John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me to be discussed further.
This book, in the writer’s perspective, is a success in conveying the real condition of a society and delivering the atmosphere of what the author had experienced. The form of dairy shows his integrity on his own feeling which reflects the Blacks’ on the racism practiced in the society. Griffin experienced everything
Blacks had those days, from the difficulty of finding a restroom in New Orleans to the gripping atmosphere of Montgomery, Alabama in the era of Martin Luther King,
Jr. and he let the world know what exactly happened inside what people called as racism and the segregation - the Jim Crow Law practices -.
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Eric Hass argues in his Socialism: World Without Race-Prejudice about the
Whites’ view toward Blacks (Negroes) and the prejudice behind any treatments they did toward Blacks as:
The Negro is unemployed — therefore he is indolent. The Negro is forced into arduous, menial jobs — therefore, he hasn’t the capacity to perform operations requiring intelligence and skill. The Negro is compelled to live in black ghettos — therefore he brings down property values. The Negro’s life is shortened by malnutrition and extreme poverty — therefore he succumbs more readily to disease and is dangerous to be around. And so on (2006: 3-4).
Therefore, the topic chosen will explore the racial prejudice that triggered by the Whites’ view toward Blacks on the rise of Jim Crow Law practices in South
America society which resulted in the suffering of racism and segregation experienced by the Blacks in John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me.
B. Problem Formulation
1. How are Jim Crow Law practices revealed in character of Griffin and
society in Black Like Me?
2. How is race prejudice underlying Jim Crow Law practices revealed in
Black Like Me?
C. Objectives of the Study
According to the problem formulation above, there are two aims that can
be obtained from this study. First, this study is attempts to find out how the Jim
Crow Law practices revealed in character of Griffin and the Deep South society
3 4
in Black Like Me. Second, the study is aimed to see how the race prejudice
underlying the Jim Crow Law practices revealed in Black Like Me.
D. Definition of Terms
1. Prejudice
According to The New Encyclopedia Britanica prejudice is:
Adverse or hostile attitude toward a group or its individual member, generally without just grounds or before sufficient evidence. It is characterized by irrational stereotyped beliefs, that tell more about the bearer of the attitude than about the persons who are objects of prejudice (1983: 190).
2. Jim Crow
Encarta Webster’s College Dictionary defines Jim Crow as the practice of
discriminating against Black people, especially by operating systems of
segregation (2005: 775).
4. Society
According to Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, society is a part of
community that is a unit distinguishable by particular aims or standards or
living or conduct: a social circle or a group of social circles having a clearly
marked identity (1983: 1119).
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CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
A. Review of Related Studies
Black Like Me was written by a White noted journalist, John Howard
Griffin. It was first published in 1961 and still published by Wing Press in 2004. In
1964, a film version of Black Like Me starring James Whitmore was produced. John
Howard Griffin was concerned about the practice of racism in America, especially
South America. Griffin's books include The Devil Rides Outside (1952); Nuni
(1956); Land of the High Sky (1959); The Church and the Black Man (1969); and A
Time to be Human (1977). He published photography in Jacques Maritain: Homage in Words and Pictures (1974) and Twelve Photographic Portraits (1973) and wrote several books on Thomas Merton: A Hidden Wholeness (1970), The Hermitage
Journals (1981), and Follow the Ecstasy: Thomas Merton, the Hermitage Years,
1965-1968 (1983). Griffin also wrote syndicated columns for the International News
Service and King Features from 1957 until 1960.
www.sparknotes.com counts that since its publication, Griffin’s book, Black
Like Me has sold 10 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 14 languages. While in http://www.wingspress.com/Titles/Black_Like_Me.html it was written that St. Petersburg Times commented “This is the human story . . . a book about simple justice. It suggests that any white man who thinks the Negro in the
South is secure and contented should try being one.” Specifically, the site also provide a comment from an English professor Claire Garcia of Colorado College in
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Colorado Springs said in a recent interview that Griffin's book was "a significant historical/cultural phenomenon," and "important for its primary audience -- white people living outside the South who had little experience with black people or Jim
Crow laws."
The same site also contained Robert Bonazzi’s argument while answered a question on why Black Like Me as "My initial fascination was with the way it was done. It reads like a novel. As a reader I was immersed in his immersion (in the black community). We're in on the secret. That's why it touches so many readers." Robert
Bonazzi was Griffin’s admirer and the writer of the ‘afterword’ part in Black Like
Me. He was the man who subsequently published the book Man in the Mirror: John
Howard Griffin and the Story of Black Like Me
His admire toward Griffin was simply shown in his words below:
"I think its impact on the white community has been significant," Bonazzi continues. "Griffin always said, 'I don't speak for black people. I speak for myself.' He made a pact with Martin Luther King to go into white communities and do his work there, because he said they're the ones that needed to be illuminated to the realities" (http://www.angelfire.com/or/sociologyshop/BLM.html#blm).
Those reviews and the last line of Langston Hughes poem "Dream
Variations" which the author used as the title of his work to describe the entire story encouraged the writer to look deeper on how exactly the Jim Crow Law practices experienced by Griffin and the society depicted in Black Like Me. Later on the writer will reveal the race prejudice that underlying the Jim Crow Law practices in Black
Like Me.
7
B. Review of Related Theories
1. Theories on Character and Characterization
In his book, Understanding Unseen, Murphy gives nine ways to make the character of the story understandable.
a. Personal description.
The author can describe a person’s appearance and clothes as a clue to
present or describe the characteristics of the author’s characters.
In this way, the author gives a description of the character’s physical
appearance directly. The personality itself can be reflected from the
external appearance or character whether in good or bad appearance. Those
personal descriptions always help the readers both to visualize the author’s
character and to understand his characteristics, even such obvious physical
attributes as clothes, young, old, beauty, and ugliness should be taken in
this way.
b. Character as seen by others
The character is not described directly by the author. Instead he uses other
characters’ eyes and opinions to help us draw the description of that
character. The readers get as if it were a reflected image.
c. Speech
The author can give the readers an insight into the character of one of the
persons in the book through what that person says. Whenever a person
speaks, whenever he is in conversation with the others, whenever he puts
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forward an opinion or makes utterances, actually he is giving the readers
some clues to his character. d. Past life
By letting the readers learn something about what the character had
experienced in his past, at the same time the author delivering some clues to
all events that have helped to shape a person’s character. This can be done
by direct comment from the author. The fact that what happened in the
character’s past life will influence the development of the character’s
personality. The past life of the character is main factor, which shape the
character’s personality. The character absorbs everything that he learns
from his experiences in the past. e. Conversation of other characters
The author can also give us clues to a person’s character through the
conversations of other people and the things that they say about him. People
do talk about other people and it can gives the readers clues to the character
of the person they talked about. f. Their reaction
How people react toward various situations and events can also give the
reader clues to characterize a character. Here the characters are described
by the author through the character’s reaction to the various events they
faced. Every reaction is describing the characteristics of the character,
because reaction is a result from person judgement based on their
knowledge and objective reason.
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g. Direct comments
The author can describe or comment on the person’s directly. It helps us to
find out the information about the character easily. Probably the description
is provided at the beginning of the story when we have not been quite
familiar with the personality as accurate as the writer intends to, which also
means that the possibility of misinterpretation can be decreased.
h. Thoughts
The author can give us direct knowledge of what the person is thinking
about. In this respect, the author is omniscient; he is able to do what we can
not do in the real life. He can tell us what different people in his work are
thinking about. The readers then will be in a privileged position.
i. Mannerisms
The author can describe a person’s mannerism, habits on idiosyncrasies
which may also tell us something about his character. Through the person’s
mannerism and habit, the readers can understand better, because every
manner and habit are resulted from people’s rational thinking which is
believed as the description of the person’s character (1972: 116-118).
Those are some ways in which an author makes the readers aware of the personalities and the characters of the people that he writes about in his book. Sylvan
Barnet in Literature for Composition adds Murphy’s idea that character can be interpreted by:
a. What the character says
10
b. What the character does
c. What other characters say about the character
d. What other characters do (1988: 71-72).
Moreover, there is another theory to reveal the character’s characterization written by Barnet, Berman and Burto in the same book, Literature for Composition
(1988: 71-72) which said that the character’s characterization can be seen from the characters themselves said (think, if the author express their thought), what the characters do, what the characters say about them and the last is what the author says about them.
While according to Abrams in his book A Glossary of Literary Terms, characterization could be presented in two ways: First is “showing (dramatic method), the author merely presents his characters talking and acting and leaves the reader to infer the motives and dispositions lay behind what they say and do.”
Second is “telling, the author himself intervenes authoratively in order to describe and often to evaluate the motives and disposal qualities of his character” (1981: 21).
2. Theories on Setting
Setting is one of important points that construct the story in a literary work.
Setting becomes more important in this study since this study deals with historical events. Therefore, it is important to understand what setting is and how setting works to support this study.
M.H. Abrams in his book A Glossary of Literary Terms gives the definition
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of setting:
The setting of a narrative or dramatic work is the general locale and historical time in which it's action occurs; the setting of an episode or scene within a work is particular physical location in which it takes place (1981:175).
Therefore, seen from the quotation above, the setting of a literary work can be divided into three components, they are general locale which means location, historical time, and social circumstance (society).
According to Holman and Harmon in A Handbook of Literature, setting refers to “physical, and sometimes spiritual, background against which action of narrative (novel, drama, short story, poem) takes place.” They mention that there are four elements making up the setting as follows:
First, the actual geographical location, its topography, scenery, and such physical arrangements as the location of the windows and doors in a room. Second, the occupation and daily manner of living of the characters. Third, the time or period in which the action takes place, for example epoch in history or season of the year. Fourth, the general environment of the characters, for example, religion, mental, moral, social, and emotional condition which the people in the narrative move (1986: 465)
Another expert, William Kenney in How to Analyze Fiction states that setting is composed by some elements. They are:
1) The actual geographical location including topography, scenery and
even the details of a room's interior,
2) The occupation and modes of day-to-day existence of the characters,
3) The time or period in which the action takes place,
4) The religious, moral, intellectual social and emotional environment of
the characters (1966: 45).
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The first element points out the nature, including a detail object where plot occurs.
Human behaviour, interrelation on one to each other, dogma, belief, and perspective of people are included in the second element. Third element deals with the time when the story happened. The last element indicates the social setting of the story.
In short, there are two kinds of setting based on Kenney’s definition:
(1) setting that people live in it, and (2) setting that people live with it which its existence grow together with human existence.
3. Theories on Society
According to Verne S. Weedlun and Golda M. Crowford in their book The
Man in Society, society is social being men express their nature by creating and recreating an organization which guides and controls their behaviour in myriad way.
This organization, society liberates and limits the activities of men, setup standard
(values, norm, and law) for the member to follow and maintain. Society is a system of usage and procedures, of authority and mutual aid of many groups and divisions, control of men behaviour and of liberties. It is the web of social relationship.
If there is relationship between people and society, each of this is affected by the existence of the other. Their relationship is not social one. Their relationship is not in any way determined by mutual awareness. Without mutual awareness and social recognition, there is no social relationship, no society because society is exist only where social being “behave” toward one another in ways determined by their recognition of one another, as a result of the people awareness toward their needs.
Society is also a medium which transmitted values from one generation to
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the next through the socialization process and interaction between each member of the society. Through those two processes, hopefully that the members of society will learn and apply it to their environment and behaviour in which elicits a response of esteem, further this relationship depicts that human beings would have a sense of belonging. There would be no social systems if there were no sense of community or belonging together and no co-operative undertaking by men (1956: 13-14).
Erich Fromm stated in his book The Sane Society (1955: 20-69) two types of society, which are: healthy society and unhealthy society. In healthy society, everyone gives a chance or opportunity to the others to develop their maturity and their love. A society, which does not give opportunity for the people to develop their maturity and their capacity to love, is a sign of mental illness; meanwhile that mental health is achieved if a society give opportunity for men to develop their maturity, as stated below:
A healthy society furthers man’s capacity to love his fellow men, to work creatively, to develop his reason and objectively, to have a sense of self which is based on the experience of his own productive powers. A healthy society is also corresponds to the needs of man-not necessarily to what he feels to be his needs, because even the most pathological aims can be felt subjectively as that which the person wants most; but to what his needs are objectively, as they can be ascertained by the study of man (1955: 20).
In the healthy society there is a universal criterion for mental health which is valid for the human race, and according to which the state of health of each society can be judged.
Mental health is characterized by the ability to love, and to create, by a sense of identity based on one’s experience of self as the subject and agent of one’s power by the grasp of reality inside and outside of ourselves, that is, by the development of objectivity and reason (1955: 69).
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While unhealthy society goes to the other side, it refers to the social disorganization where people do not have their right as human beings, they are considered as an instrument to achieve the goal. As Erich Fromm’s The Sane Society states:
An unhealthy society is one which creates mutual hostility, distrust, which transforms man into an instrument of use and exploitation for others, which deprives him of a sense of self, except inasmuch as he submits to others or becomes an automaton (1955: 73).
According to the theories, society without any norms and human right is kind of insane society, because in this society, norms, values, and law are considered as informal ways of life-just the primitive people did-with social disorganization as the result.
The disorganized nature of life rises from the effects of poverty, anonymity, overcrowding absence of “root” or ties to the community consequences of these condition are higher rates of crime, mental illness, disease, family instability, exploitation, and abuses for the others.
Besides the quality of the society itself, there are several values follows the existence of society, namely values of individual and values of society as Milton’s
Human Behaviour in Organization explained:
They are the values of individual; individual welfare, freedom, opportunity, self-realization, and human dignity, and values of society; social welfare, the good life, culture, civilization, order, and justice (1981: 45).
Since this study also concerns about motivation related to the society, then the theory Abraham Maslow says in his Organizational Behaviour that the most well known theory of motivation is hierarchy of needs theory is needed. These needs are:
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1. Bodily needs: includes hunger, thirst, sex, and others.
2. Safety: includes security and protection from physical and emotional
harm.
3. Social emotion: includes affection, belonging, acceptance, and
friendship.
4. Esteem: internal esteem factors such as self-respect, achievements, and
external esteem factors such as status, recognition, and attention.
5. Self-actualization: the inner personal drive to become what one is
capable of becoming; includes growth, achieving one’s potential, and
self-fulfilment (1979: 206).
6. Theories on Prejudice
The term prejudice refers primarily to a judgement or preconception reached before the relevant information has been collected or examined and therefore base on inadequate or even imaginary evidence. Prejudice also involves an attitude for or against, the ascription of positive or negative values, an affective, or feeling, component. Furthermore, it is stated that “usually there is a readiness to express in action the judgement and feeling which we experience, to behave in a manner which reflects our acceptance or rejection of others (called conative, or behavioural aspect of prejudice)” (Sills, 1968: 432).
Allport in Social Experience: an Introduction to Sociology states that prejudice refers to attitude of aversion and hostility toward the member of group simply because they belong to it and so are presumed to have the objectionable
16
qualities that are ascribed to it. Prejudice is a state of mind, a feeling, opinion or disposition. Sociologist Herbert Blumer notes four feelings typically characterize dominant members:
1. Sense that they are superior to member of the minority group.
2. A feeling that minority members are but their nature different and alien.
3. A sense that dominant-group member have a proprietary claim on
privilege, power, and prestige.
4. A fear and suspicious that members of minority have designs on
dominant-group benefit. Ion this respect, prejudice frequently reflects a
sense of “group position” (Zanden, 1988: 258).
According to Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary, prejudice follows these several implications. That prejudice is a kind of suspicious, intolerance, or irrational hatred of other races, creeds, regions, or occupations. Prejudice also produces injury or harm that is resulting from some judgement or action of others.
Prejudice also implies a preconceived and unreasonable judgement or opinion, usually an unfavourable one marked as by suspicious, fear, or hatred (1974: 1420).
In the book Encyclopedia of Psychology which is edited by Raymond J.
Corsin, it is stated more specifically that social scientists view prejudice as the possession of negative attitudes targeted as members of some particular group
(religious, racial, ethnic, political). The attitudes of prejudice give rise to negative or unfavourable evaluations of individuals seen as belonging to that group. The perception that one belongs to certain group is precipitating factor in prejudicial
17
feelings, not the actual attributes or behaviours of person being judged. The term stereotype has come to designate network or clusters of such beliefs and expectations. At the basis of all stereotypes is the assumption that all those who belong to specific category or group, such as ethnic, religious, race, political, or any other classification, manifest similar behaviours and posses similar attitudes.
Individual who are prejudiced against specific groups will tend to experience intense negative feelings when they meet these groups, either directly or indirectly (1994:
110).
Some theories serve as explanations of the cause of prejudice. La Farge roughly divided emotional and mental factors that are mistaken for legitimate motives by those who practice race prejudice. The first factor is economic motivation, which plays a large part in prejudice. “Prejudice is roused against a race because there is a fear that jobs held by the dominant race will be lost” (1943: 177).
Besides the fear of losing their jobs, the dominant race also uses prejudice as a means to exploit non-dominant race. ”Negro sociologist put this bluntly in saying that a great deal of what is termed racial prejudice originates simply in the desire for cheap labour” (1943: 177).
The other factor is the maintenance of social status, not only by condemnation of the less privileged body of citizens, but also by cultivating the approbation of the privileged group (1943: 177). The last factor is customs and stereotyped ways of thinking and acting. These take shape in expressions as well as in giving more occasions to more prejudice (1943: 178).
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5. Review on Jim Crow Law
The African Americans or Blacks life in South America in 1950s was all about what they called as Jim Crow Law. Jim Crow Law was the name of the racial caste system which operated primarily in southern and border states, between 1877 and the mid-1960s. Jim Crow Law was more than an anti-Black laws; it was a way of life. Under Jim Crow Law, Blacks belonged to the status of second class citizens. Jim
Crow Law represented the legitimization of anti-Black racism.
Publics were poisoned by the excessive idea of superiority and inferiority between Black and White. Newspaper and magazine writers routinely referred to
Blacks as niggers, coons, and darkies; and worse, their articles provoked anti-Black stereotypes. Even children's games portrayed Blacks as inferior beings. All major institutions reflected and supported the oppression of Blacks.
The Jim Crow Law was under girded by the following beliefs or rationalizations: Whites were superior to Blacks in all important ways, including but not limited to intelligence, morality, and civilized behavior; sexual relations between Blacks and Whites would produce a mongrel race which would destroy America; treating Blacks as equals would encourage interracial sexual unions; any activity which suggested social equality encouraged interracial sexual relations; if necessary, violence must be used to keep Blacks at the bottom of the racial hierarchy (http//www.nps.gov/malu/documents/jim crowlaws.htm).
The same site also provides the rules in Jim Crow Law practiced at that certain era:
a. A Black male could not offer his hand (to shake hands) with a White male
because it implied being socially equal. Obviously, a Black male could not
offer his hand or any other part of his body to a White woman, because he
risked being accused of rape.
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b. Blacks and Whites were not supposed to eat together. If they did eat
together, Whites were to be served first, and some sort of partition was to
be placed between them.
c. Under no circumstance was a Black male to offer to light the cigarette of a
White female -- that gesture implied intimacy.
d. Blacks were not allowed to show public affection toward one another in
public, especially kissing, because it offended Whites.
e. Jim Crow etiquette prescribed that Blacks were introduced to Whites, never
Whites to Blacks. For example: "Mr. Peters (the White person), this is
Charlie (the Black person), that I spoke to you about."
f. Whites did not use courtesy titles of respect when referring to Blacks, for
example, Mr., Mrs., Miss., Sir, or Ma'am. Instead, Blacks were called by
their first names. Blacks had to use courtesy titles when referring to Whites,
and were not allowed to call them by their first names.
g. If a Black person rode in a car driven by a White person, the Black person
sat in the back seat, or the back of a truck.
h. White motorists had the right-of-way at all intersections.
Stetson Kennedy, the author of Jim Crow Guide, also offered these simple rules that Blacks were supposed to observe in conversing with Whites:
1. Never assert or even intimate that a White person is lying.
2. Never impute dishonorable intentions to a White person.
3. Never suggest that a White person is from an inferior class.
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4. Never lay claim to, or overly demonstrate, superior knowledge or
intelligence.
5. Never curse a White person.
6. Never laugh derisively at a White person.
7. Never comment upon the appearance of a White female (1990: 116-117).
When most people think of Jim Crow Law they think about the practices that excluded Blacks from public transport and facilities, juries, jobs, and neighborhoods.
Jim Crow states passed statutes severely regulating social interactions between the races. Jim Crow signs were placed above water fountains, door entrances and exits, and in front of public facilities. There were separate hospitals for Blacks and Whites, separate prisons, separate public and private schools, separate churches, separate cemeteries, separate public restrooms, and separate public accommodations. In most instances, the Black facilities were grossly inferior -- generally, older, less-well-kept. In other cases, there were no Black facilities -- no Coloured public restroom, no public beach, no place to sit or eat (http//www.nps.gov/malu/documents/jim crowlaws.htm).
C. Theoretical Framework
All the theories mentioned in the Review of Related Theories are a chain to answer the problems mentioned in Problem Formulation because they related one another. In this study, first, the writer will analyze how the Jim Crow Law practices revealed in the Deep South’s society and character of Griffin in Black Like Me, so the Theories on Character and Characterization, Theories on Setting along with the information in the Review on Jim Crow Law are the basis to do that analysis. Next, the Theories on Society and Theories on Prejudice will give the greatest contribution
21
in the next step answering the second problem, which is how race prejudice underlying the Jim Crow Law practices that revealed in Black Like Me. Thus, finally the two problems mentioned in Problem Formulation will be answered and clearer to the readers.
CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
A. Object of the Study
The object of this study is an investigative journalism book written by John
Howard Griffin in 1959 entitled Black Like Me. This book was first published in
1961 by a magazine named Sepia in exchange for the financial foundation given by the publisher to support Griffin’s touring and still published by Wing Press in 2004.
Since its publication, Black Like Me has sold 10 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 14 languages. The writer uses one that published in 2003 by New
American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. The entire book is in the form of a journal of the author’s experiences during the period when he had temporarily transformed himself into a Black man. The book is divided into 3 parts; the story itself has 164 pages, a 30 pages epilogue “What’s Happened Since Black
Like Me” and an afterword written by Robert Bonazzi completed the book into 200 pages
As written in thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Black_Like_Me/Black_Like
_Me25.html, Black Like Me is divided into five sections. As the story begins, Griffin decided to do something really historic and unique that is temporarily became a
Black man. In spite of all the warnings of his friends, he was adamant to cross the colour line, became a Black and discovered through his own personal experiment in truth the white racism.
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The second part described the three long weeks he travelled through the four Southern States of Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Georgia. He discovered, how deep and widespread, White racism against the Black was. Here he gave a very detailed description of his personal experiences as a Black man.
The third part described his went back and forth between a Black and a white. The entries of these three weeks were short and sharp, like the author’s rapid and quick skin colour changes and his acutely contrasting experiences as Black and white.
The fourth part showed his preparing materials for publication and then going public with his story in the press, the radio and on TV.
The fifth and final part was the consequences he took on wide-spreading the truth in his society. The most terrified him and his family was when his effigy was hung in the center of the main street. Griffin was also threatened with castration. For the security of his family, at the end, Griffin was forced to flee from America and went to Mexico.
Michael Power, a historian who lives and works in Welland, Ontario, wrote for TORONTO about Griffin’s motive on doing this extreme experiment as quoted from http://www.angelfire.com/or/sociologyshop/BLM.html#blm as:
This was his life prior to Black Like Me. Happily married and a father, life was good and the future looked bright, but at thirty-nine years of age, Griffin did the unimaginable for a Southerner: he decided to confront the ugly reality of his own racism by crossing the racial divide, by becoming one of them, and then he did the unthinkable by writing about his time on the other side of American life. He was often asked why he did it. His answer was simple: "If I could take on the skin of a black man, live whatever might happen and then share that experience with others, perhaps at the level of shared human experience, we might come to some understanding that was not possible at the level of pure reason."
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B. Approach of the Study
The writer employs sociocultural-historical approach in conducting the analysis. Rohrberger and Woods state that sociocultural-historical approach is an approach that has something to do with analyzing civilization, and it means that it concerns with the society including the condition of the society; the way of life, the attitude, and also the historical background of the story (1972: 9-10).
Then, it can be said that this approach has two factors that distinguish it from the other approaches. First, the approach finds the accuracy of historical parts from the historian and second, a work of literature might have a historical significant.
This approach is appropriate to do the analysis on the topic chosen by the writer since the writer analyzes the novel based on historical perspectives. Thus, it concerns with the situation of a society with all its aspects in certain place, during certain time in the past.
C. Method of the Study
In conducting the analysis of this study, the writer employs a library research method. The data gathered are classified into two categories: primary data and secondary data. The primary data is obtained from the literary work itself, John
Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me. The secondary data is taken from books, encyclopedias, and internet.
Four steps are taken to conduct the analysis in this study. First, the writer reads the book thoroughly to get adequate understanding of Jim Crow Law practices in the society and the experiences of the character of Griffin as the subjects that are
25
going to be analyzed. The process of reading also helps the writer in making notes of points, quotations, and also summary of the story which are useful to find the significant element of the story.
The second step is reading all of secondary sources and information from internet related to the subject that is going to be analyzed and linking the information of all those sources to the book to get correct relationship between the information given by the author and its circumstances.
The third step is the analysis part by answering the question mentioned in the problem formulation. In this analysis part, the problems are answered one by one.
First, the writer will analyze the Jim Crow Law practices revealed in South
America’s society and character of Griffin, so the Theories on Character and
Characterization, Theories on Setting along with the information in the Review on
Jim Crow Law are the basis to do that analysis. Next, the Theories on Society and
Theories on Prejudice will give the greatest contribution in the next step answering the second problem, which is how race prejudice underlying the Jim Crow Law practices revealed in Black Like Me.
After doing the analysis, the last step is conclusion drawing, in which all the discussion in the analysis part is summed up. It also includes the short answers of the problem formulation. Thus, finally race prejudice underlying Jim Crow Law practices in South America revealed in John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me will be answered and clearer to the readers.
CHAPTER IV
ANALYSIS
In this chapter, the writer will answer the two problem formulations mentioned in the previous chapter. This chapter will be in two sections analysis. In the first section, the writer will reveal Jim Crow Law practices through the character of Griffin and society in Black Like Me. Later on, the result will be used in the second section to analyze the race prejudice that underlying the Jim Crow Law practices in South America revealed in Black Like Me.
1. Jim Crow Law Practices Revealed in Black Like Me Through the Character
of Griffin and the Deep South Society
During his six weeks journey as a black man, Griffin had experienced many
Jim Crow Law practices. Those practices covered almost all aspects in human life, even the basic needs one. It influenced Griffin much during his transition from a
White man to the Black one. How Jim Crow Law depicted in the book can be seen clearly from the characterization of Griffin and society as the setting given by the author.
When Griffin was a White man, the author describes him as having a good life while in the contrary, as a Black, he was described as a poor. It shows that
Blacks had a very low degree of economic values in reality in the Deep South. It can also be seen through the way the author describe the setting of place where Griffin as a White and Black man stood.
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The streets were full of sightseers. I wandered among them, entranced by the narrow streets, the iron-grill balconies, the green plants and vines glimpsed in lighted flagstone courtyards. Every view was magical, whether it was a deserted, lamplit street corner or the neon hubbub of Royal Street. I had supper in a superb courtyard under the stars-I saw everything, the lanterns, the trees, the candlelit tables, the little fountain, surrounded by elegant waiters, elegant people, and elegant food. (2003: 5).
Joe began to cook our lunch on the sidewalk. He put paper and kindling from an orange crate into a gallon can and set it a fire. When the flames had reduced to coals, he placed a bent coat hanger over the top as a grill and set a pan on to heat. He squatted and stirred with a spoon. I learned it was a mixture of corn, turnips, and rice seasoned with thyme, bay leaf and green peppers. Joe had cooked it at home the night before and brought it in a milk carton (2003: 27).
In his early days as a Black man, Griffin once forgot his skin colour and studied the menu that exposed in a show window one of New Orleans’ fame restaurants. Then he realized that:
“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” (2003: 42).
Through the other characters conversation, he knew that there was no reason for a Black to enter that kind of place unless as a servant.
I recalled, hearing some Negro say,”You can live here all your life, but you’ll never get inside one of the great restaurants except as kitchen boy” (2003: 42).
And it raised his thought that “The Negro often dreams of things separated from him only by a door, knowing that he is forever cut off from experiencing them” (2003:
42).
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The other Jim Crow Law practices revealed through the characterization of
Griffin was that Blacks acted as the oppressed side. It can be seen clearly through his thought, his reaction, mannerism, and speech. Besides that, how the other characters saw him and the direct comment given by the author also completed the series of revealing the Jim Crow Law practices in the Deep South.
In his first step entering Black’s world, Griffin was confused on how he should act toward the first White man he met. Mannerism was practiced differently when he was a Black man. There was a border that he could not greeting or even nodding to a White man as what he did before while he was a White man to the other
White man or woman.
I heard footsteps. From the shadows, the figure of a white man emerged. He came and stood beside me. It was all new. Should I nod and say “Good Evening” or simply ignore him? He stared intently at me. I stood like a statue (2003: 12).
The blackness that had infected him badly affected Griffin to react uncomfortably while he got a friendly treatment from a white old-friend, P.D. East.
He shook my Negro hand in full view of everyone on the street (2003: 71). We drove through the darkened streets to his home, talking in a strangely stilted manner. I was embarrassed to ride in the front seat of the car with a white man, especially on our way to his home (2003: 72). However, it was painful for me. I could not accustom myself to sitting in their living room as an “equal” (2003: 72).
He wondered why he had that feeling to such manner which he had so accustomed before, and then realized that he had grown more accustomed to being a Black man, to being shown contempt, that he could not accept any equal treatment given by the
29
Whites. For a Black man, rode in the front seat of a car drove by a white man, shook hands with a white man, and any other acts that indicated equality were forbidden.
I remember I stopped at a little custard stand and bought a dish of ice cream merely to have the excuse to sit at one of the tables under the trees-none of which were occupied. But before I could take my ice cream and walk to one of them some white teenagers appeared and took seats. I dared not sit down even at a distant table. Wretched with disappointment I leaned against a tree and ate the ice cream (2003: 85).
Another characteristic that he and the other Blacks male shared was warm and good attitude toward woman. But all of that friendly attitude should be put aside since any suspicious movement or look toward White woman would endanger their very life because they would accuse of rape.
For an instant our eyes met. I felt sympathy for her, and thought I detected sympathy in her glance. The exchange blurred the barriers of race (so new to me) long enough for me to smile and vaguely indicate the empty seat beside me, letting her know she was welcome to accept it. Her blue eyes, so pale before, sharpened and she spat out, “What’re you looking at me like that for?” (2003: 20).
“Well, you know you don’t want to look at a white woman. In fact, you look down at the ground or the other way.” “If you pass a picture show, and they’ve got women on the posters outside, don’t look at them either.” “Is it that bad?” He assured me it was. Another man said: “Somebody’s sure to say, “Hey, boy-what are looking at that white gal like that for?”” (2003: 59).
The pressure of how he as a Black man should act toward White woman affected
Griffin much when he wrote a letter to his wife. It was such a big problem for him to write “Darling” to a white woman, though he knew whom he wrote to was his own wife.
30
Though I understood and could analyze what was happening, I could not break through. Never look at a white woman-look down or the other way. What do you mean, calling a white woman “darling” like that, boy? (2003: 68).
Griffin said that his daily life was spent searching for basic things in human life, such as: “a place to eat, or somewhere to find a drink of water, a restroom, somewhere to wash my hands" (2003: 99). At that time, Blacks had only a little number of places they could enter. That limited places were surely separated from
Whites. To indicate which places belong to Blacks, the owner or particular state authority wrote it clearly in the front part of place.
In the station, they had separate waiting room, although might be because of the interstate travel regulation, they labelled it as a “COLORED CAFÉ” (2003: 52).
It had once carried a sign reading WE DON’T SERVE NEGROES. Then this was replaced by a larger sign: WHITES ONLY. Now another had joined it: NO ALBINOS ALLOWED (2003: 155).
In some restaurants or bars, it was fine for Blacks to enter to buy food to take out or to stand at the end of a lunch counter until their order was taken. Usually, they would then leave and wait outside for their food to be brought to them. Some other places provided tables and chairs outside.
A few Negroes, who could not enter the white bar, were served from the back. They stood around or sat at wooden tables drinking (2003: 23-24).
Griffin expressed his regret on how bad it felt to dream of things separated from him only because his skin colour as: It is too poignant, like the little boy peering in the candy store window (2003: 42).
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At those days, the Jim Crow Law were not applied only in that area, but also the other human basic needs, such as rest-room. When Griffin had a cup of coffee with a man in a Black restaurant, that man gave him some advices about the town. The first line in his advices list was about the rest-room. From their conversation, it was clear how crucial that simple matter at certain time.
If you stick around this town, you’ll find out you’re going to end up doing most of your praying for a place to piss. It’s not easy, I’m telling you. You can go in some of the stores around here, but you’ve almost got to buy something before you can ask them to let them use the toilet (2003: 19).
But at that time of the rebuff, even when the rebuff is impersonal, such as holding his bladder until he find a “Colored” sign, the Negro cannot rationalize (2003: 45).
The other characters also inform him as a new guy in the neighbourhood that it was something really good if the Whites permitted Blacks to use the rest-room or soda fountain service after bought something in the store because most stores would not let it happened though the Blacks had spent their money there. Not until the other day, he experienced the warning.
More than once I walked into drugstores where a Negro can buy cigarettes or anything else except soda fountain service. I asked politely where I might find a glass of water. Though they had water not three yards away, they carefully directed me to the nearest Negro café (2003: 99).
It is not that they crave service in the white man’s café over their own-it is simply that in many sparsely settled areas Negro café do not exist; and even in densely settled area, one must sometimes cross town for a glass of water. It is rankling, too, to be encouraged to buy all of one’s goods in white stores and then be refused soda-fountain or rest-room service (2003: 100)
“Yes, sir,” the white man said congenially. “You want something else?” “Where’s the nearest rest room I could use?” I asked.
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He brushed his white, brimless cook’s cap back and rubbed his forefinger against his sweaty forehead. “Let’s see. You can go on up there to the bridge and then cut down the road to the left…and just follow that road. You’ll come to a little settlement- there’s some stores and gas stations there.” “How far is it?” I asked, pretending to be in greater discomfort than I actually was. “Not far-thirteen, maybe fourteen blocks.” “Isn’t there anyplace closer?” I said, “I can’t think of any…” he said slowly. “Any chance of me running in there for a minute?” “Nope,” he said-clipped, final (2003: 85).
As a Black in Jim Crow Law era, Griffin described his daily life was only about the thought of food, water, how to behave, and where were the places for
Black to fulfil their needs; where he could find the rest-room, restaurant, store, and places to sit and live in. There was no time and blank space in his mind to think of something else. As a human being, he “felt a great hunger for something merely pleasurable, for something people call ‘fun’” (2003: 117), since Blacks were strictly prohibited from entering pleasurable places, unless which were built in Blacks area, for example bars.
“Unless a Negro sneaked off to some isolated spot, he’d never know how the water was, since Negroes weren’t permitted to enjoy the beaches.”
The other character told him that though there was a policy mentioned the upkeep of the beaches comes from a gasoline tax that Blacks paid as much as the Whites, but the Blacks were not allowed to enjoy it.
“Every time we buy a gallon of gas, we pay a penny to keep the beach up so the whites can use it” (2003: 83).
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Blacks as what Griffin had experienced, was known as untrustable. When
Griffin decided to leave New Orleans for Mississippi, his money was running low and he decided to cash his traveler’s check, but stores rejected him. They thought that Blacks who had a lot of money must be a robber or got that money illegally. The shopkeepers’ smiles turned to grimaces when they knew that he meant not to buy but to cash a check. It happened even in the store where he had made most of his purchases.
“I need to cash a traveler’s check,” I said smiling. “We don’t cash any checks of any kind,” she said firmly. “But a traveler’s check is perfectly safe,” I said. “We just don’t cash checks,” she said and turned away. “Hey! Do we cash traveler’s ch-----“ “No!” the white woman shouted back (2003: 49).
Besides all those treatments, Whites showed their disrespect toward Blacks in the way they called them, which indirectly expressed their thought that Blacks were inferior. Blacks were called as ‘nigger’ in common and ‘boy’ though they were old. As Black Griffin had experienced, those names pinched him much.
The word “nigger” picked up the bell’s resonances and repeated itself again and again in my brain. Hey, nigger, you can’t go in there. Hey, nigger, you can’t drink there We don’t serve niggers. And then the boy’s words: Mr. No-Hair, Baldy, Shit-Head (Would it have happened if I were white?) And then the doctor’s words as I left his office yesterday: Now you go into oblivion (2003: 36).
“Boy!” I heard a woman’s voice, harsh and loud. I glanced toward the door to see a large, matriarchical woman, elderly and impatient. Her pinched face grimaced and she waved me to her. “Boy, come here. Hurry!” Astonished, I obeyed.
34
“Get those bags out of the cab,” she ordered testily, seeming outraged with my lack of speed (2003: 126-127).
Besides the way Whites called the Blacks, the look given, known as ‘the hate stare’, was also resembled Whites’ thought toward them. Griffin got his very first “hate stare” when he tried to buy a ticket to Hattiesburg. The lady ticket-seller gave him that look and served him rudely.
“She jerked the bill furiously from my hand and stepped away from the window. In a moment she reappeared to hurl my change and the ticket on the counter with such force most of it fell on the floor at my feet” (2003: 51).
About the quality of the “hate stare” itself, Griffin said, “Nothing can describe the withering horror in it. You feel lost, sick at heart before such unmasked hatred, not so much because it threatens you as because it shows humans in such an inhuman light. You see a kind of insanity, something so obscene the very obscenity of it
(rather than its threat) terrifies you” (2003: 51).
All of those treatments were proposed to make Blacks remembered their inferiority toward the Whites as Griffin wrote in his book.
“Negro is treated not even as a second-class citizen, but as a tenth-class one. His day-to-day living is a reminder of his inferior status” (2003: 45).
Later on in the analysis, it was clear that Jim Crow Law also found as practiced in a larger scope than personal.
Griffin’s experiences showed how the society reacted toward Jim Crow
Law practices, whether they agreed or disagreed and whether they would follow or against. Both races, Blacks and Whites, were strongly infected by this law without
35
exception: from the youngest until the oldest, from the highest social class until the lowest.
I looked to see a middle-aged white man across the park slowly fold the newspaper he was reading, get to his feet and amble toward me. The fragrance of his pipe tobacco preceded him, reassuring me. Racists are not the pipe-smoking type, I thought to myself. With perfect courtesy he said, “You’d better find yourself someplace else to rest.” I took it as a favour. He was warning me so I could get out before someone insulted me. “Thank you,” I said. “I didn’t know we weren’t allowed in here” (2003: 43).
Griffin was disappointed at that moment because he took it as a favour since he thought such educated first class person would think and act differently than others.
In fact, they were just the same; it was not a warning, but the man simply did not want Griffin there.
Once in Mississippi, Griffin met a white guy who asked him to ‘hop in’ with a friendly glance and no condescension. He hoped that this guy would change his perception on Southern Whites. After a long talk, Griffin once again disappointed because that nice man was not Southern. From this guy, Griffin knew the attitude of the society in Mississippi. That man told Griffin the problem he had with his neighbours on the race questions.
“They can’t discuss it,” he said. “It’s a shame but all they do is get mad whenever you bring it up. I’ll never understand it. They’re blocked on that one subject. I’ve lived here over five years now-and they’re good neighbors; but if I mention race with any sympathy for the Negro, they just tell me I’m an ‘outsider’ and don’t understand about Negroes. What’s there to understand?” (2003: 84).
From the Whites view point, they needed to run Jim Crow Law well in society; to move the society against the Blacks existence in order “to drive them out”
36
or “to keep them in their place”. Even if there was any White who felt sympathy for a Black, he would soon deny it because he could be accused against his own race.
“How can we live?” I asked hopelessly, careful not to give the impression I was arguing. “That’s the whole point,” he said, looking at me square in the eyes, but with some faint sympathy, as though he was regretted the need to say what followed: “We’re going to do our damnest to drive every one of you out of the state.” Despite his frankness and the harassment of his intentions, I nevertheless had the impression he was telling me: ”I’m sorry. I’ve got nothing against you personally, but you’re colored, and with all this noise about equality, we just don’t want you people around. The only way we can keep you out of our schools and cafés is to make life so hard for you that you’ll get the hell out before equality comes” (2003: 100-101). The woman protested on what Griffin had done for his race, she said: ”Why he’s just thrown the door wide open for those niggers, and after we’ve all worked so hard to keep them out” (2003: 150).
At the Atlanta station we waited for the whites to get off. One of them, a large middle-aged man, hesitated, turned and stepped back toward us. We hardened ourselves for another insult. He bent over to speak to the young Negro. “I just wanted to tell you that before he slapped you, he’d have had to slap me down first,” he said. None of us smiled. We wondered why he had not spoken up while whites were still on the bus. We nodded our appreciation and the young Negro said gently, “It happens to us all the time.” “Well, I just wanted you to know-I was on your side, boy.” He winked, never realizing how he had revealed himself to us by calling our companion by the hated name of “boy” (2003: 132).
No individual wanted to interfere in such a society matter. They chose not to comment or act against Jim Crow Law practices in their society. They just followed what the other people said or did, whether they agreed it was the right way, or they did not want to cause any trouble to himself and his family, or they just did not care.
“The minute you give me my rights to vote when I pay taxes, to have a decent job, a decent home, a decent education-then you’re taking that first
37
step toward ‘race-mixing’ and that’s part of the great secret conspiracy to ruin civilization-to ruin America” (2003: 41).
Their ignorance and the practices of Jim Crow Law raised intense pressures for the Blacks. Griffin who had just experienced being Black for few moment could feel the suffering of living in poverty and the gloomy atmosphere of Black world as an oppressed to his skin.
Blacks were not educated because they either could not afford it or else they knew education would not earn them the jobs. They had to do menial works. And even when they graduated, they did preaching. “It was all part of the pattern of economics-economic injustice... This is the dream. A man knows no matter how hard he works, he’s never going to quite manage…taxes and prices eaten up more than he can earn” (2003: 39).
“The economic structure just doesn’t permit it unless he’s prepared to live down in poverty and have his wife work too” (2003: 39).
I concluded that, as in everything else, the atmosphere of a place is entirely different for Negro and white. The Negro sees and reacts differently not because he is Negro, but because he is suppressed. Fear dims even the sunlight (2003: 101).
Griffin symbolized the Black world as hell since there was only loneliness and hopeless:
“I knew I was in hell. Hell could be no more lonely or hopeless, no more agonizingly estranged from the world of order and harmony” (2003: 66).
The hard life of Black facing White society as he experienced made Griffin frustrated. Blacks needed a place for their own, to feel safe from the Whites and their
‘hate stares’ and the Jim Crow Law practices segregated them.
The large bus station was crowded with humanity. In the men’s room, I entered one of the cubicles and locked the door. For a time I was safe,
38
isolated; for a time I owned the space around me, though it was scarcely more than that of a coffin. In medieval times, men sought sanctuary in churches. Nowadays, for a nickel, I could find sanctuary in a colored rest room (2003: 132).
I took some joy in the mere fact that I could be alone for a while inside the rest-room cubicle. Here I had a water faucet to drink from and I could experience the luxury of splashing cold water on my face as much as I wanted. Here, I was isolated from the hate stares, the contempt (2003: 118).
The night was always a comfort. Most of the whites were in their homes. The threat was less. A Negro blended inconspicuously into the darkness. Night coming tenderly Black like me. At such a time, the Negro can look at the starlit skies and find that he has, after all, a place in the universal order of things. The stars, the black skies affirm his humanity, his validity as a human being. He knows that his belly, his lungs, his tired legs, his appetites, his prayers, and his mind are cherished in some profound involvement with nature and God. The night is his consolation. It does not despise him (2003: 119).
Beside all of the racism and segregation practices, Black Like Me revealed the raise of humanity aspects in such an oppression. From his experiences riding a bus through deep Mississippi, Griffin wrote how Blacks encouraged one another:
Whereas in New Orleans he paid little attention to his brother, in Mississippi everyone who boarded the bus at the various little towns had a smile and a greeting for everybody else. We felt strongly the need to establish friendship as a buffer against the invisible threat. Like shipwrecked people, we huddled together in a warmth and courtesy that was pure and pathetic (2003: 64).
In that kind of social condition, the Blacks encouraged each other. With smiles, they as oppressed humans wanted to tell the other who experienced the same that they were not alone.
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2. Racial Prejudice Underlying the Jim Crow Law Practices in the Deep South
as Revealed in Black Like Me
In the previous analysis, the writer has analyzed how the Jim Crow Law practiced through the character of Griffin and Jim Crow Law practices in society. In this analysis part, the writer will analyze the racial prejudice beyond those practices.
Throughout the story, the writer found that what stood behind Jim Crow
Law as racism practices was about the race prejudice. In the further analysis, the writer would categorize the race prejudice into smaller parts, which was Whites’ prejudices toward Blacks.
Though Griffin said he did not represent himself as a spokesman for Black people, but it was stated in the book that Black Like Me was written for Whites; to save Whites from the evil inside. From the analysis of Jim Crow Law practices in character of Griffin and the society, the writer found that most of the practices were centered in Whites as the trigger, especially their prejudice toward Blacks.
“Blacks were irresponsible; Blacks were different in the sexual morals; Blacks were intellectually limited; Blacks had a God-given sense of rhythm; Blacks were lazy and happy go lucky; Blacks loved watermelon and fried chicken” (2003: 166).
The quotation above was the stereotype did by the Whites toward Blacks. It was perfectly a prejudice since Griffin mentioned:
I never knew a black man who felt this view him fit. They just have to be as the white’s image on him. If black men did not play the stereotyped role of the “good Negro,” if he did not do his yessing and grinning and act out the stereotyped image, then he was immediately considered a “bad Negro,” called uppity, smart alecky, arrogant, and he could lose his job, be attacked, driven away (2003: 166).
40
The truth would never reveal since the Blacks themselves did not have any courage to speak their disagreement out. They had to do as Whites patterned on them not because it was the fact, but they just did not want to make their lives worst.
When I was employed at some menial job, I noticed that one of the white middle-aged bosses kept looking at me and getting more and more irritated. I could not imagine what I was doing wrong. Certainly I was sad, and that sadness must have shown, for finally he yelled at me: “What’s eating you, anyway?” “Nothing,” I said. “Well, what’re you so sullen about?” he said. “Nothing,” I repeated. “Well, if you want to hang on to this job, you better show us some teeth.” And I did my grinning (2003:167).
If you didn’t grin and yes, you were in deep trouble. If you did, then you allowed White America to go right on believing in the stereotype (2003: 167).
If there was any cause for the Whites actions and thoughts, it was the prejudice. They closed their eyes from the reality facing by the Blacks and believed the issues White society said that Blacks were inferior and destructive so they deserved those injustice practices.
“You are black. You are condemned.” This is what the white man mistook for “jubilant living” and say, “They live like dogs,” never realizing why they must, to save themselves, shout, get drunk, shake the hip, pour pleasures into bellies deprived of happiness (2003: 69).
“How can you render the duties of justice to men when you’re afraid they’ll be so unaware of justice they may destroy you?-especially since their attitude toward their own race is a destructive one” (2003: 8).
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The other prejudice revealed in Jim Crow Law practices in Black Like Me was that
Blacks did not have enough money to buy things, or if they did, they were suspected for having that money by doing crime.
“Each time they refused me, they implied clearly that I had probably come by these checks dishonestly and they wanted nothing to do with them or me” (2003: 50).
Whites stereotyped Blacks as not intelligent, uneducated. They thought that Blacks were intellectually limited and equality would be a tragedy for them because it would prove how bad the Blacks were.
“Why, you talk intelligently!” he was so obtuse, he did not realize the implied insult in his astonishment that a black man could do anything but say “yes, sir” and mumble four-letter words (2003: 89).
Many sincerely think the Negro because of his Negroness could not possibly measure up to white standards in work performance. I read recently where one of them said that equality of education and job opportunity would be an even greater tragedy for us. He said it would quickly prove to us that we can’t measure up (2003: 40).
According to Lafarge in his The Race Question and The Negro, Whites prejudices mentioned above can be said as caused by a fear that “jobs held by the dominant race will be lost,” or they “simply desire for cheap labour” (1943: 177). It means that those issues were just a prejudice spread by the Whites to press the Blacks for an economic motivation.
He was a sawmill worker and never made quite enough to get out from under his debts. Always when he took his check to the store, he owed a little more than the check could cover. He said it was the same for everyone else; and indeed I have seen the pattern throughout my travels. Part of the Southern white’s strategy is to get the Negro in debt and keep him there” (2003: 108)
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The other factor of prejudice as the motive to raise the Jim Crow Law practices stated by Lafarge that revealed in Black Like Me was the maintenance of social status. Many Jim Crow Law practices that experienced by the Blacks were just to keep them in their place. Professor Ulrich B. Phillips in The Strange Career of Jim
Crow Law described the South as ‘a people with a common resolve indomitably maintained-that it shall be and remain a white man’s country’ (1979: 8). The Whites put a pattern that chained Blacks remained in their place, as second class citizen.
“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 how we’ll get out of it. They put us low and they blame us for being down there, and say that since we are low, we can’t deserve our rights”(2003: 40).
All he can see is that the white man wants to hold him down-to make him live up to his responsibilities as a tax payer and soldier, while denying him the privileges of a citizen. At base, though the white brings forth many arguments to justify his viewpoint, one feels the reality is simply that he cannot bear to “lose” to the traditionally servant class (2003: 121).
There was a belief that ‘whenever the Negroes move into an area, the property values go down’ (2003: 143). That belief expressed clearly that Whites did not want to be in a same environment with Blacks because it implied equality.
Another prejudice on Blacks was that they were different in the sexual morals. Blacks were stereotyped as having lower moral standard than Whites.
All had, at base, the same stereotyped image of the Negro as an inexhaustible sex-machine with oversized genitals and a vast store of experiences, immensely varied. They appeared to think that the Negro has done all of those “special” things they themselves have never dared to do (2003: 86).
43
They appeared as a prejudice since the Whites their selves were the side who showed biggest immoral sexuality than the Blacks.
Some wanted to know where they could find girls, wanted us to get Negro girls for them (2003: 26).
I read the neatly typed NOTICE! until I saw that it was only another list of prices a white man would pay for various types of sensuality with various ages of Negro girls. The whites frequently walk into colored rest rooms, Scotch-taped these notice to the wall (2003: 82).
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 everyone of them before they ever got on the payroll.” 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 put out, they don’t get the job” (2003: 103).
Once, Griffin had a young white man in his late twenties spoke with an educated tone picked him up. Unfortunately he wasn’t as educated as the way he spoke.
Though he ‘pretended’ to be above such racial superiority idea, the entire context of his talk was the contrary. Griffin wrote about that man’s opinion about Blacks as:
The information he sought was entirely sexual, and presupposed that in the ghetto the Negro’s life is one of marathon sex with many different partners, open to the view of all; in a word, that marital fidelity and sex as love’s goal of union with the beloved object were exclusively the white man’s property (2003: 88).
He thought that Negroes grew up with seeing sex behaviour from infancy:
“Parents sharing a room with children, the father coming home drunk and forcing the mother onto the bed in full view of the young ones. You people regard sex as a total experience-and that’s how it should be. Anything that makes you feel good is morally all right for you. Isn’t that the main difference?” (2003: 89)
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That long conversation ended in a request for Griffin exposed himself to him. He said he never seen a Negro naked.
In this Black Like Me, Griffin revealed his idea that what happened in
Blacks’ behaviours were not as what the Whites had prejudiced, but rather to the condition of living that forced them to do that way.
“If you want to know about the sexual morals of the Negro-his practices and his ideals-it’s no mystery. These are human matters, and the Negro is the same human as the white man. Just ask yourself how it is for a white man and you’ll know all the answers. Negro trash is the same as white trash. Negro decency is about the same, too.” … “They don’t deal with any basic difference in human nature between black and white,” I said. “They only study the effects of environment on human nature. You place a white man in a ghetto, deprive him of educational advantages, arrange it so he has to struggle hard to fulfill his instinct for self-respect, give him little physical privacy and less leisure, and he would after a time assume the same characteristics you attach to the Negro. These characteristics don’t spring from whiteness or blackness, but from a man’s condition” (2003: 91).
The most crucial matter of prejudice revealed in the case of Valentino type-
Blacks. This prejudice was triggered by the Whites since they categorized Blacks into Valentino-type; the lighter White-imitation Blacks or mulatto and the dark
Negro. The doctor who made Griffin a Black man revealed this fact. Griffin regretted that such an intelligent man could fall for this cliché, placed the dark Negro in an inferior position and judging a man by his colour. The doctor also warned him about the Blacks world by telling him what kind of Black that was trustworthy, as “the lighter the skin, the more trustworthy the Negro” (2003: 8) and he also said, ”Now
45
you go into oblivion” (2003: 9) because Griffin had made his skin darker than a mulatto had.
Whites placed the mulatto highest than the dark Negro and it was successfully raised a high nerve between people in a race. The Blacks thought low on some of their own race and look up to a mulatto, a Valentino type because they were considered as having class. While in contrary, no matter how much someone was educated, as long as they were ‘dark Negroes’, they were ignored, even with their own race.
No, you have to be almost mulatto, have your hair conked and all slicked out and look like a Valentino. Then the Negro will look up to you. You’ve got class. Isn’t that a pitiful hero-type? (2003: 32).
When Griffin’s bus drove through New Orleans, there was a Valentino type among them. Griffin noted that this type of guy had a characteristic against his own race because the feeling of his superiority. He walked toward the rear, giving the whites a fawning, almost tender look. His expression twisted to a sneer when he reached the back and surveyed the Negroes. “This place stinks. Damned punk niggers. Look at all of them-bunch of dirty punks-don’t know how to dress. You don’t deserve anything better. Mein Kampj? Do you speak German? No. You’re ignorant. You make me sick” (2003:53).
What happened here was that if a Black man wanted to make a better life, he had to become an imitation of White man. They had to dress White, talk White, think White, and follow the White culture. Implied in all this was the hiding, the denial of his selfhood, his negritude, his culture, and a demand to follow the prejudice Whites put on Blacks.
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
This thesis analyzed John Howard Griffin’s investigative journalism book entitled Black Like Me. This book revealed the author’s experiences during the period when he had temporarily transformed himself into a Black man. The book depicted clearly how the Blacks were treated by the Whites at that Jim Crow Law era in South America.
The analysis was done in two sections. The first section contained the writer’s analysis on Jim Crow Law practices through the character of Griffin and society as setting in Black Like Me. That analysis then is used in the second section where the racial prejudice underlying the Jim Crow Law practices was revealed.
Review on Jim Crow Law in the previous chapter was used to classify which treatment in Southern society experienced by Griffin during his six week journey that categorized as practices of Jim Crow Law. The kind of Jim Crow Law practices experienced by Griffin covered:
In the public facilities
Blacks should sit in the rear of the streetcars or anywhere they wanted in
the Black section; Blacks were not allowed to take the front seat in a car
drove by a White because it implied equality, and they should give up
their seats to White passengers during peak or crowded times.
46 47
Blacks’ right in using public transportation including the right to get off at
a rest-stop or at their stop was raped since the White drivers had full
authority.
Blacks only permitted to use Black rest-room, Black restaurant or café,
and they were prohibited from using soda fountain to drink. Blacks were
allowed to enter some restaurant to buy food to take out or to stand at the
end of a lunch counter until their order was taken. Usually, they would
then leave and wait outside for their food to be brought to them. Some
other places provided tables and chairs outside.
The etiquettes
A Black male could not offer his hand (to shake hands) with a White
male.
When a White man sits in a table, Blacks were not allowed to sit down
even at a distant table.
Never look at a white woman; look down or the other way. If you pass a
picture show, and they’ve got women on the posters outside, don’t look at
them either.
Blacks were called as ‘nigger’ in common and ‘boy’ though they were
old.
In the society, Jim Crow Law practices had qualities as:
Obeyed by all social classes and ages of citizens.
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Whites who disagree with Jim Crow Law practices were considered as
outsider.
If there was any White who felt sympathy for a Black, he would soon deny it
because he could be accused against his own race.
Jim Crow Law practiced against Blacks existence in order “to drive them
out” or “to keep them in their place.”
Whites would just follow what the other people said or did, whether they
agreed it was the right way, or they did not want to cause any trouble to
himself and his family, or they just did not care.
Blacks were the oppressed side.
What the Black suffered was started from a simple “hate stare” until the huge segregation and discrimination in almost all public areas and constitutions.
Griffin described his daily life was only about the thought of food, water, how to behave, and where were the places for Black to fulfil their needs; where he could find the rest-room, restaurant, store, and places to sit and live in.
In short, it can be said that all the practices in Jim Crow Law acknowledged the existence of:
1. Invisible border between Blacks and Whites in their social life.
2. Separation in many institutions and public areas.
3. Injustice in law.
4. Whites economic domination over Blacks.
5. The society unchangeable perception of race.
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In the second section, the writer analyzes the race prejudice and found that
Whites’ prejudices toward Blacks revealed as underlying the Jim Crow Law practices in the Deep South. It was mentioned in the book that Whites had stereotyped Blacks by saying “Blacks were irresponsible; Blacks were different in the sexual morals; Blacks were intellectually limited; Blacks were lazy and happy go lucky” (2003: 166). They also stereotyped Blacks as criminal, not intelligent, and uneducated. They thought that Blacks were intellectually limited and equality would be a tragedy for them because it would prove how bad the Blacks were, so the existence of Jim Crow Law was needed.
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