My Take: Norway attacks show why you cant #blamethemuslims – CNN Belief Blog – CNN.com Blogs

My Take: Norway attacks show why you cant #blamethemuslims – CNN Belief Blog – CNN.com Blogs.

School District Wont Allow Black Valedictorian, Lawsuit Alleges

School District Wont Allow Black Valedictorian, Lawsuit Alleges.

Speechless 😐

Mom whose son killed by hit-run driver asks compassion in her sentencing | ajc.com

Mom whose son killed by hit-run driver asks compassion in her sentencing  | ajc.com.

Justice would not be served by sending this woman to jail.  There should be at least a Casey Anthony level of outrage at this verdict if she gets even 1 minute of jail time.

David Briggs: Frequent Bible Reading Tied to Social Justice, Openness to Science

David Briggs: Frequent Bible Reading Tied to Social Justice, Openness to Science.

The Road Not Taken – NYTimes.com

The Road Not Taken – NYTimes.com.

The Opposing Party – NYTimes.com

The Opposing Party – NYTimes.com.

Rev. Mary M. Brown: The Problem With Preaching

Rev. Mary M. Brown: The Problem With Preaching.

Quick Thoughts on The Help

It has been quite some time since I read a book all the way through in one setting, particularly one that is more than 500 pages.  But yesterday, I did that very thing with The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.¹  If you haven’t heard of it, you’ve probably been too busy with work or you’re not a reader.  The book, published in 2009, has spent 18 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, the last 2 of those at number one.  Word of the novel spread like the latest gossip, and my wife, who doesn’t have much time for extracurricular reading these days, read it two weeks ago.  She and her mother both encouraged me to read it, assuring me that I could finish it in short order, so I picked it up.  That was yesterday around 2 in the afternoon.  I finished it at 2 am this morning.  (It would have been sooner, but I stopped to have dinner and put my daughter to bed.)

I have mixed thoughts about this book.  First, it not a man’s book.  It is by a woman, about women, and arguably for women, although that last descriptor might be considered an indefensible one in this day, and particularly given my generally positive reaction/response to the text.  Certainly, there are men in the story, and a couple of them play prominent roles, but they are presented from the perspective of the women.  There is no value judgment in this observation, only the fact that I felt a bit like I was eavesdropping, like I had somehow found myself in the ladies lounge and for some reason, I was not at all noticed.  Even though I might have been eavesdropping, I wasn’t at all self-conscious about listening in.  It was a riveting conversation.

My generally positive reaction/response leads me to my second point, which is that it is a novel about Black maids and a budding young white journalist in 1960’s Jackson, Mississippi.  My reaction/response is notable because I am particularly critical of white authors (Ms. Stockett is white) who attempt to write from the Black perspective.  It’s not that I think that white authors shouldn’t attempt to do so, but the attempt usually falls woefully short in my opinion.  There is always something missing, some unintelligible but essential element to the Black experience that white folks will never be able to capture, and I am nagged by this missing element to the point of distraction.  In my estimation, Ms. Stockett it the first author that I have read in a long time who comes closest to capturing this unknowable, unnameable quality.  It is not a bullseye strike, but is it remarkably closer than any other white author that I have read, and I have read many.  I was particularly impressed with the incident involving the character Gretchen, who expresses skepticism and open contempt for what Skeeter, the white protagonist, is endeavoring to do with the help of the Black maids.  I might have found a conversation partner with Gretchen because her feelings echoed some that I have entertained a time or two (or ten), only with less vitriol for my part.  Sadly, any conversation with Gretchen was forestalled because she never reappears in the novel.  Still, the fact that her view was included in the narrative was a fair shot at making the plot as round as possible.

My third, and most significant thought concerned my grandmothers, both of whom were Black women who worked in the homes of white women in and around Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1960’s and 70’s, and for my maternal grandmother, into the ’80’s.  My thoughts actually turned to them when I saw the trailer for the cinematic depiction of The Help (which is due in theaters in August), which led me to be more receptive to reading the book.  I thought of them because I know very little of their experiences working for white folks as their domestic help, and I wondered very vividly whether this novel captured anything resembling their own experience.  My paternal grandmother died when I was seven, so all that I know of her work I got from my father, which is not much at all.  My maternal grandmother was with us until two years ago (sn: miss her still), so I had more opportunity to learn what she did during the day during my formative years.

Reading The Help stirred up a vivid recollection of the few times when Mama’s work life and her home life intersected, and it always happened at holidays.  A whitelady rang the doorbell on Christmas day when I was in my early teens, and I eyed her with great suspicion.  Who was she, and what could she possibly want with my grandmother, and on Christmas day, no less?  I told Mama (we all called her Mama- her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren) there was a whitelady at the door, and she came, not with great haste, but not leisurely, either.  When she saw who was at the door, she smiled and invited the whitelady inside.  I think I was astounded, I might have been staring.  Mama introduced those of us who were standing nearby- my mother, my sister, me, and a couple of cousins, I think- to her whitelady boss.  The whitelady smiled and greeted us all.  I have to assume her pleasure in meeting us was genuine, but I’ll never know for sure.  She smiled a lot, and she looked at the pictures of Mama’s family that overpopulated the front room (which, of course, was off-limits to us children), and congratulated Mama on her family.  Then she apologized for interrupting our holiday, and told Mama she had to come by to bring her Christmas.  She wished us a happy holiday and was back out the door.  Mama stood on the porch and watched her back down the long dirt driveway.  As I recall this, I cannot remember if Mama introduced the lady to us.  The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that Mama did not.  And then I recall that Mama did not introduce us by name, only by position- “This my daughter,” “This my granddaughter,” “This my grandson,” “These my great-grands.”  I never gave it much more thought.  We would see Mama’s whitelady bosses a few more times throughout the years, no more than a dozen or so.

Ms. Stockett speaks truthfully about the complex relationships between the Black maids and their whitefamilies.  In the past, I have wondered vaguely about how my grandmothers managed to care for whitefamilies all day, and then come home to care for their own, especially my  maternal grandmother, who was widowed young, with six children, and never remarried.  Mama told amusing anecdotes about her experiences in those homes, but as I look back on it, I feel pretty certain she did so in a way that made it clear to us that she was to be the last generation in our family to work in whitefamilies’ homes.  Mama harbored no illusions about her place in the lives of these whitefamilies, and she gave us no reason to believe that we should have any other connection to them except through her.  It was not done with any malice or ill-will, it simply was the way things were.  After reading The Help, I wish I could ask them both if any part of the book accurately reflected any part of their life experience.  One other incident with Mama leads me to believe that it did.  I lived with Mama for a year and a half before I moved away from our hometown.  One evening I heard her on the phone, yelling to be heard by whomever was on the other end of the line, a person who was obviously terribly hard of hearing.  She was telling that person that she would come by to see her on Tuesday.  When she hung up the phone I must have been staring at her, because Mama volunteered, without any prompting, that she had been talking to the “whitelady [she] used to work for.”  If Mama was 80 (we weren’t quite sure of her age), then this whitelady had to be nearing 100.  I once asked my mother some years before why my grandmother kept going to these whiteladies’ homes to “work” when she was well into her seventies and beginning to feel the effects of arthritis and 30 years of dealing with diabetes.  Mother said they probably just kept each other company.  I didn’t think that I would ever understand that back then, and I never got up the nerve to ask Mama about it directly, but I think I might understand it now, at least a little bit, after having read The Help.  So for that reason, I enjoyed the book.  The plot was believable, and the narrative was gripping, but the thing that most drew me into the book was imagining that if the location were Charleston instead of Jackson, MS, and if my grandmothers had been there, their stories might have been a part of this literary idea.  And if nothing else, I always relish opportunities to remember my grandmothers.

¹Stockett, Kathryn. The Help. New York: Berkeley Publishing, 2009.