"The Help"

[GreyGeek]

My wife and I just got back from an afternoon for fine dining and viewing one of the best movies I have ever seen, "The Help".

Viola Davis turned in an Academy Award performance as the maid, and so did Bryce Dallas Howard, who played the main racist.

"The Help" appears to be an autobiography, if nothing else, of Kathryn Stockett, the author.

This movie ranks right up, if not above, "Driving Miss Daisy", and reminds us of the ugliness, blindness, stupidity and total evil of racism. The most racist person depicted in the movie chastises the girl playing Stockett for reading a State manual on the rules for separation of the races because "some racist may see her reading it".

Because of the current financial situtation affecting most of the world, and the US, we have a lot of political discourse taking place in the comment section of CNN, Fox News, DailyMail.UK, Politico, Huffpo and other similar sites. The number of vitriolic, illogical, asinine posts that read like quotes from Neo Nazis, White Supremacists and other racist hate groups is disheartening. It sours and cheapens political discourse and seems designed to promote brainless violence as a solution. Seeing oppression with the eyes of the oppressed, and learning from it, is good for the soul.

[charles052]

Re: "The Help"

I'm not going to watch this. It feels to me like another movie vilifying white people, and while I'm sure the movie has a lot of historical accuracy, it is not of interest to me. The past was what is was and while we should know as much about the past as possible so we can learn not to repeat the same mistakes, I believe the same mistakes will happen regardless.

I personally feel as if racism has been reversed, with white people being discriminated against very frequently, being called 'racist' when they're anything but. I have seen a black co-worker, who I was good friends with, call our bosses racists and 'hating' him when he was simply just a bad employee who needed to be let go. And of all the black people that worked there, only he and one other that I know were bad workers. The racism was only in his head.

Still, though there were black and white alike working together in harmony, being friends even, whenever lunch time came around, black people and white people sat at their own tables. It was like a form of self-segregation. They didn't hate each other and they got along, but I suppose they felt that the color of skin was enough to still keep them apart.

I believe that as long as there are peoples that are 'different', whether it be color of skin, cultural, or religious, there will be segregation and persecution.

As for me, I don't ever see a 'black' or 'hispanic'! I see a human being whom I will treat with respect as long as they respect me as well as themselves.

[GreyGeek]

Re: "The Help"

Racism is not the private property of any particular race, but past institutional racism had given unfair advantages to Whites at the expense of other races. Some people will be racists all their lives and will have to die before their influence in their community disappears. But, disappear it will. What is making the difference is the destruction of the institutionalized racism (Jim Crow laws), and the enforcement of the Civil Rights laws which merely made it clear what the Declaration of Independence ("... ALL men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights..."), and the Bill of Rights (1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th and 14th Amendments) had said from the beginning, over 230 years ago. It was racism that took away the freedom of Blacks who fought in the Revolutionary War and forced them into slavery. It was racism that led the US government to violate all 52 of the treaties it made with various Indian tribes. It was racism that led to the laws discriminating against the Chinese after they laid the intercontinental railroad tracks. It was racism that instituted Jim Crow laws to reverse the Confederate loss of the Civil War, and to the lynching of thousands of Blacks for imaginary offenses. It was racism that led FDR to sign the Executive Order that forced over 100,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry into concentration camps, while only a token number of Germans and Italians suffered the same fate. It was racism that bombed Black churches, targeting women and children.

I would much rather prefer to live in today's environment than that which existed while I was a student attending college in Texas. As a White boy growing up in nearly the pure White city of Englewood, CO, I never knew or heard of a Black person. In Texas I saw an environment which was out of synch with what I was taught about freedom and the US. In the mid-sixties in Texas I saw what the movie "The Help" was portraying. In 1980 I flew to Waterproof, LA, on a business trip and witnessed that "The Help" was still alive and well in that small village.

So, you are right. Racism still exists, but it hides its ugly head. Hopefully, it will eventually die out. Where I worked before I retired the Blacks and Whites got along fine. They worked together, ate together, and visited in each others homes. At the Church I attend we have a mixed congregation .... Blacks, Hispanics, Africans (born there), Whites, Europeans (don't know their ethnicity), and inter-racial marriages. From our point of view, as Christians, we are blood brothers, made so by the blood of Christ.

As I tell some of my Fundamentalist Brothers who think I am a "brother in error", if you can't treat me as a brother then treat me as an enemy. Then, follow Christ's injunction: "Love your enemies".

[Detonate]

Re: "The Help"

I have not seen the movie, but I read the book. I was born and raised in Mississippi and can vouch for the accuracy of the conditions portrayed by the author. A major omission to me, was the failure by the author to include us poor white folks in the book. The book was about a upper class of whites and their hired help. Life for me was a lot different.