In 1997 or thereabouts I wrote the first draft of Black Like Him, more than 200 pages of analysis. Since that time I've lost a great deal of information including a number of my manuscripts. But anything that can be done can be done twice in a better way. This time, I decided that instead of reading the book all over again, I would take a shortcut since, after all, I already understand the gist of what Griffin wrote in his 1961 tome, Black Like Me.
I went on line and found a version by SparkNotes. In case you don't know what that is, it is another version of Cliff's Notes, where there are edited versions of the classics and other works. Since most people are too lazy or busy to take the time to read the likes of Manchild in the Promised Land, Odysseus, To Kill a Mockingbird and other classics these books - usually found on college campuses - are available in most book stores for a price. In today's hi-tech world, I figured that a downloadable copy of Griffin's book could be located.
Instead, I got another idea. I downloaded a SparkNotes version of the book and this would give me the chance for dual analyses: my previous understandings of the original Black Like Me as well as some white man's "interpretation", via SparkNotes, of what the book was about.
I hope to add this analysis to other racial critiques I have written to publish and use as a model for what few conscious black people there are left in America. Scholars such as myself cannot compete with the hi-tech, manipulated manifestations of reality that these white people are so good at producing. But the truth will eventually find its way and will find an audience of activist thinkers. And that is my goal.
Introducing, a look back at the 1961 publication, Black Like Me.
