Children

Won't somebody please think of the children?!  Oh, wait. Somebody has. And his name is Griffin.

Having kiddos as a symbol in Black Like Me may seem like a sort of manipulative move… because it is. Children are equated universally with innocence and adorable hijinks. Griffin is hardly the first person to use children symbolically and he sure wasn't the last. You want someone to buy something? Use children. You want someone to feel something? Use children:

Their children resembled mine in all ways except the superficial one of skin color, as indeed they resembled all children of all humans. Yet this accident, this least important of all qualities, the skin pigment, marked them for inferior status. It became fully terrifying when I realized that if my skin were permanently black, they would unhesitatingly consign my own children to this mean future. (15.111)

Not subtle, Griffin.

But before you think our hearts are too sizes too small, let's take something into consideration. Griffin's use of children as symbolism might be poor literary form, but Black Like Me isn't literary fiction: it's non-fiction acting as a kind of call-to-arms. There are serious and truly evil problems that Griffin is trying to make America aware of, and he wants to use every weapon in his wordsmith's arsenal.

So he talked about kiddos with the intention of pulling on his audience's heartstrings, and it worked. Fair play, Griffin. You done good. And you know who else talked about children "(living) in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Yup. That's right. This guy.