Griffin Captivates Audience
By PETE BALLANCE
John Howard Griffin claimed
to be mesmerized by the
audience so he spoke longer than
he had intended. The audience,
in turn, seemed mesmerized by
the guest speaker and remained
noticeably silent throughout.
However it was not hypnotism,
but communication that
produced this effect.
John Griffin speaks to a
sociology class during his visit on
campus last Thursday.
The Guilford College Art
Series participants were forced
to reconsider their "liberal"
views on blackness. The word
"liberal" itself is an example of
white thinking: it merely
expresses tolerance of something
that is intrisically other.
Mr. Griffin told of his
experience as a black man and of
the profound lesson of that
experience, that racism must be
overcome on both a
philosophical and an emotional
level in order to be fully
overcome. The appeal of Mr.
Griffin lies in the sincerity and
logic of his delivery. He is
extremely sensitive to massive
human tragedy and explains how
many people—good and decent
people—are inadvertantly
participating in racism.
Examples of this type of
participation are statements such
as "... but are they ready for
their rights?", and "... but why
don't they try to improve
themselves?". These statements
reflect white thinking, as
opposed to human thinking.
In contrast to the gentle
delivery of Mr. Griffin is the
brutal cruelty of his subject
matter. Racism dehumanizes
both the victim and the
practioner. The simple thought
was repeatedly presented to the
audience and successfully
assimilated. The apparent
hypnotism was the force of this
message as communicated by
Mr. Griffin.
As a result of Mr. Griffin's
book, he is now afraid for his
life when he travels through
some of our Deep-South slates.
This is a different fear, he
explains, than he experienced
while traveling as a black man.
The horror of the situation lies
in the fact that black men in the
Deep-South have to live in fear.
Not only are they not treated as
citizens, they are not even
treated as human beings. The
massive human tragedy caused
by racism precludes his returning
to the Deep-South as a black
man. Mr. Griffin is no longer
involved in data gathering for
sociological studies, as was his
aim before writing "Black Like
Me." His involvement today is
the telling of the story of the
black man, which unfortunately
gains credibility when told by a
white.
