Katie answers “Do people find it offensive that he...”

Natalia asked this question about Black Like Me:

Do people find it offensive that he darkened his skin that way?

Katie I think if someone did the same thing today it would be offensive, but this was the 1950s, before the Civil Rights Act, and as white as the media is n…moreI think if someone did the same thing today it would be offensive, but this was the 1950s, before the Civil Rights Act, and as white as the media is now, it was much, much more so then. He mentions in the epilogue that a Black man could talk about how white people treated him and be trivialized and ignored, but when Griffin told white people the exact same thing, they WOULD listen to him, even though obviously a Black person knows more about anti-Black racism than a white man who only lived as a Black man for eight weeks. So I think this book can't really be viewed through the same lens we view things today. His actions would be considered blackface and white-splaining today, but because of the state of the US at the time, I think the book ended up doing more good than harm.(less)

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