Visiting Scholars, III; #1 And #2

It's visiting scholars series WB O.E. presents visit with a philosopher by one of the visiting scholars program of the Cleveland public schools well developed under the direction of Superintendent Paul Briggs. It was designed to bring teachers and students into direct personal contact with outstanding American and European scholars. We bring you now the first of two interviews with John Howard Griffin the noted author and lecturer. Mr. Giffen has had an unusual and varied career. He studied medicine in France specializing in psychiatry during World War 2. He joined the resistance movement in France helping German and Austrian Jewish refugees to escape from the Nazis. He then served with the United States Air Force in the South Pacific. And as a result of runes received in the service became blind following this he turned to work in musicology and also began to write. Then in 1957 11 years after he had lost his sight it was partially restored through medical treatment. He is an authority on the Gregorian chant

and also lectures on aesthetics race relations and history. Each summer he teaches a course in dialogue at the University of peace in Belgium. Mr. Griffin has received numerous awards. The Saturday Review and its field world award the pack em in terrorists award the Christian culture award and others. He has written several novels among them the devil rides outside and new money and a book on the church and the black man. The John Howard Griffin reader published by Mifflin in 1968 contains a shortened versions of his novels his essays short stories and photographs as well as Black Like Me A work which has attracted worldwide attention. In order to write Black Like Me Mr. Griffin darkened the color of his skin through a medical chemical process and then lived as a Negro in several southern states. This book later made into a film is the result of his experiences is interviewed today by Cecilia Evans of WB O.E..

Mr. GRIFFIN In addition to being a writer how would you describe yourself professionally as an educator philosopher psychologist. I ask you this because your studies have been so varied and your interests are so very broad. I suppose really philosopher but in a sense and Europe philosophy includes all the daughter sciences of psychology sociology and anthropology. What I would really love to do I don't do what I like to do. I'm. The kind of man who like to be an artist I like to spend rest my time in musty or libraries looking up at your things and. That's my nature. And you can't retreat that you know you can't. I would like to ask you your opinion of the state of race relations in the United States today. Do you see the problem as clearly black and white. And what are the socio economic cost implications. Well I see it basically and I'm very sad to see this as

more and more black and white. I would like to see it as the advocates of justice in opposition to the advocates of injustice. But. We haven't developed that kind of national wisdom and the manipulation of the races has driven us to a point where it is pretty much black and white and I'm afraid if we come to any kind of a true explosion it's going to degenerate to that more economically. Yes oh yes I don't think that too. I think that social economic question was valid 10 years ago when we had the kind of fragmented individual ism the black man has suffered from so terribly where you know order to progress he had to become less black. You see where we tended to see the successful negro detach himself from his brothers and sisters. That is in a process of total

reversion. Now that's a complete about face it now and has been for some time that this successful. Black man socially economically and educationally considers it the deepest kind of insult to suggest that he's that way because he's the exception you're seeing. He's plowing his energy he's plowing is concerned back in to the black community of the total community. I mean he's more involved now than he was on her station years ago haven't. Yes. Yes well this is this would be a positive development certainly. I guess I should say it is the thing that really distresses me is that we have racism the way to racism after a long long period has given birth to black racism there's no question about that. And in both instances I think the latent away racism is massive. But certainly the overt bigotry

represents a minority. And in both communities the extreme bigot has a great power to manipulate the community. In what sense do you mean that he can influence the community through the mass media who are also very skilled. For example in a smaller community in a community like Cleveland for example that you can see the prototype parents much better in Mansfield where we had the first of the of the great upsets in the school desegregation. Five men manipulated that whole community. They would go to all of the businessmen and they would say on Friday you are going to close up and march in protest against the desegregation of the school are you'll have no more business. They did this giving each businessman the feeling that the other 29 had already agreed to it was going to be held and he'd hold out a

loan and so they were very successful. They had 100 percent success I did a study of that situation in every one of those businessmen and felt that he had acted against his conscience but he was the lone holdout. So the community was very thoroughly manipulated by five men. And you're saying that this can happen much more readily in a small community than in a cosmopolitan city that happens. It happens in essentially the same manner in a cosmopolitan center except much more subtle it happens through the deliberate spreading of rumor. It happens through. A kind of ability to create a panic situation where men don't check the facts you know in Fort Worth Texas for example. That whole community was ready to explode because it was spread widely and rapidly that the north side of town was in flames when why wasn't aflame in the north side of town or city. But with a little bit more manipulation that community could have gone up in flames there could have

been rash killings of black men and those rumors were started by white knuckles Yes of course. You speak of spreading rumors that create panic. Hasn't that happened to some extent in the New York City situation where the teacher strikes have taken place and there's been this division among groups. I suspect it's been an extraordinary poisoning of the atmosphere. With rumors we and this is one of the things that we have found consistently in Cedar Rapids I was called into there when it was they got a call that the morn was in flames which it wasn't and that armed black men were converging on Cedar Rapids to burn it down. There was a further rumor that some two teenage negroes had castrated a white clad behind a downtown department store. We went in we demanded to see that there wasn't any victim we went on. We spoke publicly we analyze what the situation was and yet when the three days later when the taxi driver took me to the airport he insisted that that had really happened and that they were just rushing it up to keep the

thing from exploding you see these are very difficult things to kill and you can't get through with the truth. It's very difficult in a panic situation to get through with the truth in a bigoted situation. Yes yes what about the problem of black racism has begun to develop in the United States. Mr. Griffin one of the things I would like to state is that it exists there's no question about it. There is a cycle of hate in both communities that we are trying to break. It is a source of profound concern to black men to see this is one of the things because black men know these patterns backwards as they know how that racism has blinded the way man. And so the black community overwhelmingly is concerned about this how do you be militant without becoming a black racist yourself. And that concern is the. The greatest proof in my mind that want to

spread like wildfire. Because the black person sees this as the source of the sickness of this country and you can certainly see that the you don't employ the same source to try to cure the sickness of sin. But there is a minority that is infected with this kind of black racial prejudice. Yes yes they are men who simply get driven beyond the point of an Durance and who finally give up on the way men and who then drop an indictment against the whole white community just as we have done in the way. What about some of the prejudices that have begun to develop and become stronger in the Negro community. For example anti-Semitic feelings. Yes well this isn't it. This is an enormously important thing. Very often this has been deliberately and cock a tit thing by white racists I know that when I was a black man in Mississippi and Alabama for example.

Red Neck types that you could recognize red necktie. We come up you know and whisper to a group of us black men that we'd like to see it better for you know and we like to give you a better think. But it's the Jews that control everything you see and they've got all the money and they'll cut us off. So so that was the cause we did we believe that you can imagine that didn't. You don't believe it for a moment. But when you keep getting hammered with this then it begins to have an effect on the unreflective mind and. And so we had to deliberate in co-creation and I Semitism one of the tragedies of this New York situation now has been that in the panic in the turmoil a great number of the teachers involved I happened to be Jewish and so we are seeing a spillover of anti-Semitism in the part of the black community which is we've always had on the part of the way community which is tragic for both groups it leads nowhere. The group of course. Yes I suppose the fact that in the past too many of the

businesses in the ghetto have been owned by Jewish businessmen has had some effect on the prejudice that's developed among Negroes. Yes. On the other hand some of those business men there's no question but there's been exploitation but some of those businessmen are also been the most heroic workers for civil rights that we've had which again brings us back to the idea that you brought out so many times you cannot condemn a whole group. Heavens no I simply cannot. As we look at the school in the situation Mr. Griffin in relationship to the whole problem of racial prejudice can the school undo in let's say seven or eight hours each day attitudes that have been taught in the home or learn from society. How do you see the educators role in this. Oh of course. School can do. I mean it's not only that what the school can do it what the school has done and it's been a great deal of squawk about the schools. Nevertheless anyone who deals with school children who deals with

young adults in the schools have done something pretty tremendous here already there. There's a lot more that needs to be done. But the school can certainly counter the moment it learns to recognize those initial symptoms of racism it can certainly counter them as long as it recognizes the same thing the recognition is happening. Yes well what are some specific strategies that educators may apply in in breaking the reproductive cine the propagation of racial bigotry. Well of course one of the things that I think. It has proved very successful in the few places where it's been tried is a thing that's burdensome to the schools obviously but one of the things is is more open houses the involvement more parents of both black and white students are safe where they're in that kind of an atmosphere where the parents are visiting the classrooms on a 10 minute schedule rather than on the 15 minute schedule that

student has are sitting in the classrooms are listening to the same teacher are in one another's presence. This does two things one of the things it does is that it encourages all children. But in this particular instance we're dealing particularly black children. It encourages the black child to go ahead and win the approval every every child wants to win the approval when he sees the interest of the parent which can be supplied by the school. And this is one of the one of the enormously have always of course then sitting in a room together like that parents imitating the children is an enormously healthy thing too because one of the things we've learned is that the prejudice exists the irrational level. You can't just through intellectual appeals you've got to make man experience one another. If you want another look at one another and find that they don't hurt each other but they don't hurt to tell you Mr. Griffin thank you for helping us to think a little more clearly about this

complex and agonizing problem of racism. Thank you. In the visiting scholars series you've heard John Howard Griffin in a visit with a philosopher. Part of what your interviewer was Cecelia Evans. This is the national educational radio network. It's visiting scholars series w o b o e presents a visit with a philosopher too. We bring you now the second of two interviews with John Howard Griffin the noted author and lecturer. Mr. Griffin has had an unusual and varied career. He studied medicine in France specializing in psychiatry during World War 2. He joined the resistance

movement in France helping German and Austrian Jewish refugees to escape from the Nazis. He then served with the United States Air Force in the South Pacific and as a result of wounds received in the service became blind. Following this he turned to work in musicology and also began to write. Then in 1957 11 years after he had lost his sight it was partially restored through medical treatment. He was an authority on the Gregorian chant and also lectures on aesthetics race relations and history. Each summer he teaches a course in dialogue at the University of peace in Belgium. Mr Griffin has received numerous awards. The Saturday Review and its field will award the park in Terrace award the Christian culture award and others. He has written several novels among them the devil rides outside and new knee and a book on the church and the black man the John Howard Griffin reader published by Houghton Mifflin in 1968 contains a shortened versions of his novels his

essays short stories and photographs as well as Black Like Me and work which is attracted worldwide attention. In order to write Black Like Me Mr. Griffin darken the color of his skin through a medical chemical process and then lived as a Negro in several southern states. This book later made into a film is the result of his experiences. He was interviewed today by Cecilia Evans of WB O.E.. Mr. Griffin in black like me you spoke of Lionel Trilling has remarked that culture that is learned behavior patterns so deeply ingrained that they produce unconscious involuntary reactions is a prison. Can cultural conditioning be modified. What's the key that unlocks the door. Well I think the key that unlocks the door. It can be modified Of course if it couldn't we wouldn't have any hope to talk. The key that unlocks the door is the key to an understanding of how this functions. First thing that this does is is teach us that a great deal of what we call human nature and

dismisses as hopeless is not human nature it taught that these are learned behavior patterns that are fed into us almost with our mother's milk. One of the things that there are two parts to this one of the things that we frequently find is that men can recognize this can recognize this is a handicap you see and can at the intellectual level overcome it without overcoming it at the emotional level. It takes experience it takes an emotional experience. Because it has to be based on ignorance. I've lived and worked in many many societies and I've never trusted myself to function in that society until I became that other person or see until I adopted his taboos till I could sit there and look at him and see that at some profound human level we responded in the same way. Then I could trust myself to function back and not to judge him from my cultural prison yosi. This this can be done one of the reasons it isn't being done

in our particular situation in this country has been that we have only a superficial knowledge of one another. You know it when I first big I was shocked when I first began to do this to realize that although I had been brought up to think that I knew everything about black people and I had been reared by a black lady I ask myself wonder how many of us would have any idea of the conversations that go on around the dinner table in a black person's home where one discusses one's part. I knew of no way man that would know that as you see we have not. We do not know and the thing that finally cured these wounds in me if they got cured was having to live in the homes of black people and of having to see that. That they're the same things happen that happen in every home. They're the squabbling over which child's turn it is to clear the table and help wash the dishes and well you get the homework immediately or play awhile and you know the same thing and then suddenly this this illusion

of this person is an other kind of being begins to vanish. It begins to vanish when you perceive that you are him. There isn't any other and dialogue. The great philosopher of dialogue was Dominic Pierre and he said that before we can truly authentically dialogue with one another profound depth and without impairing we have to open ourselves to the other. I always said that's not enough. We have to realize not only intellectually but emotionally that there is no other that I am him. We face the same problems and doesn't matter whether he looks. Exactly like me and I see. And yet most people don't have the desire or the ability to enter another car and many people have the desire and don't know how to do it I'm asked this question incessantly How do I do this. How do I accomplish this usually. How do I get over this terrible in green conviction that this man responds differently to stimuli that he that his frustrations don't damage him the way my frustrations

damaged me. And again I've been asked by very young students and I had a young two young ladies from Memphis asked me this one day because what they say is that I'm a doesn't tell us that what you tell us I said well I'll text you tomorrow why she doesn't tell you what I tell you. But a young black lady George has come home with me for the weekend. It's almost that simple. Sadly it is almost that simple. Mr. GRIFFIN What effect does prejudice have as it continues on those who practice it in those who suffer from it. Well it has an essentially dehumanizing effect on both groups. No question about that. What we have failed to see you know I said if the if the white man in this land could see where the real damage lies he would in from himself in light of self-interest to everything he could to assure that all men

receive rights and justice in this land. Because what is very clear is that the most guys end up being the racists themselves or say in Germany even this was terribly self evident that the ones who ended up the most dehumanized were the concentration camp guards. They were the SS troops. And I learned certainly we can hardly bear to read or to experience the things that are happening because certainly the men who murdered acquired canard for example on his deathbed he said it. I be glad this happened did show people where men finally end up as racist. And I told him I said what I'm going to tell the story he said in the last words he uttered on earth he said will be sure and tell them that those that what happened to me is less terrible and what happened to the man who killed me because this is them has turned them into beasts and it will turn their children into beasts. You see we've got just this week the settlement of a

situation where a group of white Klansman promiscuously picked up an elderly black man and riddled him with bullets. And we got a judgment of a million dollars and 21000 damages against three of the man but we could not get the clan or the clan leadership indicted in this essay. Well then the root of the poor is still very little of boyishness still there of course runs very still. If there is those 22 men for example in the queue in the CO for killings who picked up these young men and this was pre arranged there were weeks of planning on that one of them was a minister and when they chained those three young men went to Chaney and Goodman together they prayed before they began to beat James Chaney to death with changes to see what kind of humans of these terribly sick. Well.

As a result of what's existed in this country and continues to exist we have a growing negro militancy. In your essay titled racist sins of Christians you wrote that whites view the growing negro militancy with fear negroes view it is the only solution because they can see little hope that whites will voluntarily grant them these rights. Yes and they can no longer live without these right now if this is true. Mr. GRIFFIN Where is it leading us. Well I think one of the things that is leading us to is that I think that it's very bewildering to black men you see because the highest concepts of black power have nothing to do with violence and nonviolence that have to do with self-defense that sort of thing. And what black people see is that when a weight oppressed groups unlikely Irish and the Hell's Kitchen riots in New York in 1863. R. stood up and demanded he seen these raids that were being denied him as a minority group. This was always been considered in the great old American tradition when a black man does the same thing the way man instead of seeing it as

something that should be encouraged sees it as somehow subversive you see it as somehow a threat. The militant Black went on to talk about the racist black man because there's a very great contradiction to be made between militancy and Ray and black racism has come to realize largely through the work of Martin Luther King's through his confrontations outside of the Deep South where anough opposition always rose to the surface. And cities are so deep south to show black men that it's the wait man who is going to perpetuate the separation you see he's always going to bring to fore to bear anough opposition. And so black men have decided let's give up on that. Let's take a terrible situation and turn it into an advantageous situation you're seeing there. I've always said that there were eight men who could see clearly. Will you look upon this as a great development because it brings strength to fellow citizens it makes it's the

one chance that poses and have a becoming truly fully functioning human beings U.S. but we have been so conditioned We have fought it. We have fought it. I can see because we will tend to fight as long as there are men whose minds are poisoned with prejudice. We will continue to fight anything the black man does except his total submission you see which we're not going to ever have again in this land. You know fortunately for us all of us for the waiters were the people. Mr. Griffin in this short story that you wrote the cause that deals with a lynching in the south and you chose not to think it's a been dehumanised yet you made the point that the blood lust of men is tragic because it exists submerged in an illusion of human affection. But how does this illusion lead to further destruction and how can people be freed of it. Well one of the things of course is the. This is one of the deeper

aspects of our Southern problem is that almost all of us who are Southern white and almost also are southern blacks. Have had early in our lives deeply affective experiences with black people. We've had the black lady that helped rear us. We had her children we were allowed to play when there were six or seven years of age or so we kept that illusion of effect of affection which without urge or allowed the black man in the south to go around saying how much he loved how much he loved what he called his negroes. And so the black woman has left this child this way child has love that black lady who was lap he stepped on and so forth. And what happened then was that society when we were six or seven told us we had to stop all of that actually my GA grandmother told me I was getting too big to come and sit on the lap of the lady that had brought me up. And so we have this residue of an illusion of affection. But it's always for the individual and we don't spread it out to

encompass the group and of course it's not really affection because. We could watch this lady go home to a pigsty every evening. And I asked my sister about this one day I said you know this was great we loved her and we still talk about it with great affection. But what would you have done if she came in one day and said I don't think it's fair in all the years I worked for you never raised my wages a penny. And my sister had to agree. We would have said I wonder what's got into her she would be such a wonderful person. Now she's getting ugly. She's getting sullen. You say she's getting a puppy. And this is interpreted as a deep offense of gratitude on the part of the wage man Paddy Boyle said it very well she said we restore one tenth of black men's rights and then we are offended if they don't fall on my knees in gratitude. Totally unrealistic so it really isn't realistic. Mr. GRIFFIN How great is the responsibility of American education in working to help cure this social and psychological disease. Well American education. And including their

religious and secular education is to me in carries the great hope that we have and it carries also a part of the great button of the fact that we haven't done it better and it has to change. It has to improve. It has to improve. Mr. Griffin thank you for coming here today to discuss this problem with us and I think it's true as you've written that the ultimate idealism is the greatest practicality. Yes there's no question about that. The visiting scholars theories you've heard John Howard Griffin in this it with a philosopher but do your interview or was it Syria evidence. This is the national educational radio network.