Black Like Me

In the novel “Black Like Me,” the black people’s definition of freedom is different from the white’s definition. In one case, however, both races agree with each other. The Negroes want the freedom to choose where or how they do stuff, and the whites want their constitutional rights. Both races agree with each other and want respect from the other race.

           The Negroes definition of “freedom” is that they can choose what they do, or where they do it… that is, without being discriminated by the whites. Most of the time, there were “White Only” bathrooms, and crappier “Black Only” bathrooms. In my opinion, they’re both bathrooms, and anyone should be able to use them. Also, there were a lot of restaurants and stores that had pop machines, where the white man could walk in and buy one regardless of whether he bought anything else in the store. Usually, the black man couldn’t buy a pop. Only sometimes if they bought something else in the store, they might be able to get a pop.

           On the other hand, the white’s “freedom” is mainly considered as the constitutional rights. I think the whites used the freedom of speech, and also the right to bear arms a little too much, ending in fights and sometimes even death. Like Peggy McIntosh said in “White Privilege,”“As a white person, I realized had been taught about racism as something as something which puts others at a disadvantage…” Most of the white adults were teaching the younger generations racism and discrimination against the blacks. They also used the freedom of speech to their advantage in lying about any discrimination against the in or out of the courthouse. In the novel, an article in the Negro newspaper The Louisiana Weekly said that an innocent Negro man was kidnaped and murdered by a lynch mob. The white mobsters were not sentenced for penalty, even though the FBI had compiled information about the murder, hereby proving Mississippi had a long reputation of not punishing white men accused of criminal acts towards Negroes.

           The one crucial agreement of freedom fro both races is respect. Both the whites and the Negroes want respect from each other. It starts out when the first acts of discrimination were committed against the Negroes; the separation of bathrooms, schools, water fountains, etc. “Whites Only.” “Blacks Only.” In doing this, the Negroes had no respect for the whites, thinking that the whites didn’t consider them as equal. In turn, the whites had no respect for the black man. In the novel, John was sitting in the park one day, and a white man came up to him and told him to move. It turns out the white man didn’t want John to sit there. In my opinion, I think that the white man figured that since John was black, he had no respect for the whites, so he had no respect for John.

           That’s why the definition of “freedom” differs between races. The black people want to be able to do what they want to, without being discriminated. The whites want their constitutional rights, and they both want respect from each other. So there you go, three definitions of freedom, one of which everyone can relate to.