Common Themes in “A Raisin in the Sun” and “Black Like Me”

“A Raisin in the Sun” and “Black Like Me” are the definitely one of the most thought-provoking films I have watched recently. The first movie, starring Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee, being a picture of the young African American man’s struggle to reach for his dreams and to provide his family with an affluent life. Watching the motion picture I sympathized with the main character’s distresses and dilemmas and hoped that everything would work out well for him in the end, however the reality proved to be quite brutal . The other film tells the story of a white American journalist who artificially darkens his skin color and travels throughout the deep south to experience what is it like to be black. The story is based on facts, which is very impressive and courageous considering the period which the story takes place in. John Horton, shows how important it is to put yourself in the shoes of another person, and try to understand them and how they feel, especially in the rough situation of the African Americans at that time. It’s clear that the writer did not mange in the end to understand how is it like to be born with dark skin, mainly because – as one of the characters pointed out to him – he can return to being white, he did not grow up having to deal with the “hate stare”. I believe the same thing can be found in A Raisin in the Sun, the creator of the play it was based on tried to present the story in such a way as to make the audience (white people) feel the pain of the main character to look at his situation from the being-black point of view. Another aspect that both movies have in common is that they are much more true when it comes to showing the reality of African Americans in the 50s and 60s. The scenes where the journalist travels through hitchhiking are very intense because they show the attitude of white men towards black men, their perverse fascination over the subject of Afro American men lust after “their” women. It unmistakably pictures how they were looking down on them and treating them as inferior during the times of segregation in the south even though they would call themselves tolerant citizens. Connected with the encounters during Horton’s journey I came to a conclusion that hatred always bears hatred, which also means that the experiment told in Black Like Me had a devastating effect on the psyche of the journalist. It took only a few weeks of being black in the segregated south, the struggle to survive and remain sane at the same time, when finally his psychical health deteriorated significantly, the anger began to pile up inside of him, every word from the white man had a malicious meaning to him and by the end of the movie he almost killed a person. The main goal of both of the films is to persuade everybody that the key to peace between different races but also different ethnic groups or religions is to try hard to understand the opposite sides believes, fears and thoughts. Ultimately that is the only way to make world a better place to live.