Race

First up; I have read 'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett.  Seconded up; I have not watched the film.  Third up; I am fed up of reading reviews that miss several extremely important points of the book.

For example, a quote from the Mslexia article 'Point of View' in the current issue (Mar/Apr/May 2013):



"It's fair to say that writer Roxane Gay was unimpressed when she read 'The Help'.

Kathryn Stockett's bestselling novel, which became a successful film, is set in 1960s

Mississippi and focuses on an affluent young white woman who befriends some of the

local black maids and then writes a book about the racism they suffer.  Critics and

historians claim it contains lazy stereotypes about African Americans and dislike the fact

the maids are 'saved' by a young white woman during a period when the Civil Rights

movement was being led by the black community. Gay also thinks the film relies

heavily on the trope of the 'magical negro' - a black character who is only there to

'bestow upon the protagonist the wisdom they need to move forward'."

First off I take umbrage at the words "affluent young white woman".  Well Miss Skeeter maybe white and she maybe young but she is not affluent.  Yes, her family maybe rich but Miss Skeeter is trapped at home at twenty three because her mother refuses to give her the money she needs after coming home from college to moved out:

"What I needed to do was find an apartment in town, the kind of building where single,

plain girls lived, spinsters, secretaries, teachers. But the one time I had mentioned using

money from my trust fund, Mother had cried - real tears."

I don't know about you but that doesn't sound like an affluent woman to me.  It sounds more like one who is trapped in an almost emotional abusive relationship with her mother i.e. she's the one being abused by her mother.  Yes, Miss Skeeter does befriend two of the maids - Aibileen and Minny - but the book she writes is not just about the racism they suffer but also that gives them the hope and the strength to face one more day:

"When I ask for a raise they gave it to me.  When I needed a house, they bought me

one.  Doctor Tucker came over to my house himself and picked a bullet out my

husband's arm because he was afraid Henry'd catch something at the coloured

hospital. I have worked for Doctor Tucker and Miss Sissy for forty-four years.

They have been so good to me."

As for the critics and the historians that claim it contains lazy stereotypes - are any of them black?  Are any of them coloured?  Where any of them alive in the 1960s?  Have any of them bothered to go and talk to the black women who were maids in that time?  Kathryn Stockett grew up in that time, the family black maid practically brought her up: "Demetrie knew it and took my hand and told me I was fine".  The only way she could have had a closer knowledge of that time would to have been an adult then.  A stereotype is not a stereotype if it is the truth.

Also what is this whole nonsense about the maids being 'saved' by Miss Skeeter?  Miss Skeeter doesn't 'save' them, in fact she admits that she's put them in more danger.  She never professes to having saved them:

"And while I'd never lie and tell myself I actually changed the minds of people like

Hilly and Elizabeth, at least I don't have to pretend I agree with them anymore."

As for the whole bit about the Civil Rights movement being lead by the black community in the 1960s?  I agree with it whole heartedly but there were white people who recognised that segregation was wrong and did their best with what they had to put it right by helping those they could.  Or do people forget that 'To Kill A Mockingbird' is the true story of a white lawyer sticking his neck out (nearly into a lynch mob noose at one point) for a black man (cross reference with the part of the autobiography 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings' when the white sheriff comes round to tell her grandmother to hide her Uncle because a black man has 'raped' a white girl and the mobs will be out that night)?  What is more 'To Kill a Mockingbird' is set in the 1930s.  Think about that, thirty years before the time of 'The Help' there were white people willing to go out on a limb for black.

Also one more thing.  The author of the Mslexia article has revealed her own bias with the line "lazy stereotypes about African Americans".  There are some black Americans who find the term "Africa American" highly offencive!   For example Whoopi Goldberg writes in 'Book':

"Call me an asshole, call me a blowhard, but don't call me an African American.

Please.  It divides us, as a nation and as a people and it kind a pisses me off.

It diminishes everything I've accomplished and everything every other black person

accomplished on American soil.  It means I'm not entitled to everything plain old regular

Americans are entitled to."

Who better to pass judgement on the subject than a black American?