White Like Me Analysis

In this past week, we learned about inequality, mainly concerning African Americans. I will be discussing the film White Like Me, along with the readings 5 Faces of Oppression, and Identity/Social Location. White Like Me is a film about inequality among the African American population. In 1959 a man named John Howard Griffin, conducted an experiment using himself as the subject. He did this by making the color of his skin darker by taking medication and spending up to 15 hours under an ultraviolet lamp. Griffin then traveled for six weeks to some of the southern states. He was treated differently now that his skin was darker, Griffin met another African American who told him that he would never fully understand what it is like to live in the
United States as a black man. Inequality is still an issue to this day. More blacks are currently imprisoned, than those were enslaved. In 1990 an African American male named Adolph Archie shot a police officer in a standoff. Once Adolph was brought to the police station, a scuffle took place between him and the officers. Adolph was later taken to the hospital and later passed away due to his wounds.
African Americans are much more likely to go to jail for drug related charges, along with others; whereas a white person would most likely get a slap on the wrist and they would be on their way.
African Americans also experience inequality and discrimination throughout the work place and government assistance. A white person with a criminal record is to be expected to get a job, than an African American applying for the same job, but without a criminal record. Since it is harder for African Americans to find jobs, their wealth is 20 times less than whites. Before laws involving race were put into place, whites were receiving welfare before blacks could even apply for welfare. Whites even have a higher life expectancy than African Americans. A white man will on average live to be 76 years old, whereas a black man will live to roughly 71 years old. A white woman has a typical life expectancy of 81 years old, while an African American woman’s life expectancy is 78 years
old.
Many people thought that once Barak Obama became the first African American president in US history, that there would no longer be any race inequality. In reality race inequality still happens in the work place, schools, transportation, housing ect.
There are five faces of oppression which include: exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, culture imperialism, and violence.
Exploitation “occurs through a steady process of the transfer of the results of the labor of one social group to benefit another” (Young). Marginalization is a group of people that are socially excluded. Powerlessness happens to “those who lack authority or power even in this mediated sense, those over whom power is exercised without their exercising it…” (Young). Cultural imperialism is when a dominant group’s experience and culture is recognized as the norm. Lastly violence which has to do with members of a group that “live with the knowledge that they must fear random, unprovoked attacks on their persons or property, which have no motive but to damage, humiliate, or destroy the person” (Young).
The Complexity of Identity, and Identities and Social Locations discussed the two types of factors affecting people’s identities’ which are, colonization and immigration. Kirk and Okazawa-Rey conversed about the four types of structural inequality. The first is using the dominant group’s characteristics, features and values as the neutral standard. Second, using terms that separate the subordinate group from the dominant group. The third type of structural inequality is stereotyping; and lastly, two types of appropriation, exoticizing and
romanticizing.
I had previously seen the film White Like Me in an ethics class. Watching it again, I felt like I would have to watch it repeatedly to be able to absorb all of the information. The classroom exercise where the psychology students answered the question, “I am ____” helped me understand race inequality better. The other readings also helped me understand the material better.