Discrimination By John Howard Griffin Summary

The story begins with John Howard Griffin, a white male from Texas, who explains his concern of not being able to understand the prejudice and struggles that blacks face. He wonders what it would be like to face discrimination based on a factor that he can’t control, the color of his skin, and comes up with an idea to experience discrimination firsthand. He leaves his white family in order to undergo a skin darkening process, which will allow him to disguise himself and be able to fit in with the black community. On this journey he encounters others of his new race accepting, while the whites tend to be rude and unaccepting of his new appearance. He experiences the racial segregation on buses and trains such as not being able to get off for a bathroom break.
When he interacts with Whites he is faced with the conflicts of not being able to speak his mind in fear of offending. Along the way he receives a ride in which the white male questions his race being a black person?. Griffin explains that race doesn’t determine the differences, they are the same “ These are human matters, and the Negro is the same human as the white man”(Griffin, 91). He also discovers the distasteful thoughts White males felt as though they were helping by offering sexual exploits for black females to earn money. Griffin soon becomes drained by with the experience of being black so he switches back to his race and realizes it’s not the same, now knowing the racism given from his race. In hopes of resolving the issues and misunderstanding between the races Griffin wanted to share his experiences through a