In that sketch, Murphy channeled John Howard Griffin’s then much acclaimed 1960 bestseller, Black like Me, which advanced the dubious premise that a well-meaning white man who temporarily dyed his skin could know what it was like to live as a black man in the Jim Crow South. In Murphy’s adaptation, he plays “Mr. White,” a black man who puts on white makeup and a conservative business suit, changes his haircut, affects uncool eyeglasses, and tries, he tells us, to walk with a tight butt. Looking perfectly plausible and utterly anonymous, Mr. White then goes out into midtown Manhattan to see what he has been missing, and to understand how the secret world of American white people really works. Murphy’s voiceover throughout is that of the same earnest I-am-the-inquiring-documentary-reporter that was Griffin’s pose. First, Murphy visits a greeting card shop and begins to memorize the potted messages, as if they were revealed truth. Then he goes to a newspaper stand, where the owner, with a knowing, insider’s look, waives the cost of the paper when he attempts to pay. He goes to a bank to ask for a loan, presenting no collateral and no identification: a black bank officer summarily refuses him, but a white bank official, with the same knowing look, intervenes, and not only gives him the loan, but opens a locked box and generously presents him gratis with as much cash as he wants. The sketch culminates on a public bus, on which there is one identifiable black passenger and a group of bored, wary white passengers, with vacant expressions, and, in his racial disguise, Mr. White. The lone black passenger leaves, and the white people immediately roll out a rollicking party, accompanied by music, which seems to be their standard practice as soon as they are alone with one another.

To read the full article, please click here to download the PDF file.