The Helped

*Attention, Language Police: I’m only quoting other people here.*

**But I quote myself when I call my boyfriend “The Cuban” because I simply refuse to use his real name.**

Last summer I wrote about having tried to get through Kathryn Stockett’s book The Help and I could barely finish it. Instead, I listened to it on audiobook. At the time, a few readers / commenters asked what it was that I hated so much about the book because it was much received on bestseller lists and I kept saying, Okay, I promise to write about it soon. Here we are an entire school year later.

I will give Stockett credit here: she weaves an interesting story with semi-bodied characters, but most of it left a bad taste in my mouth. For instance, Skeeter’s character irked me some with her altruism and she seemed weak to me when she finally started dating so I didn’t fully believe her as a character. Or maybe it’s just that this character has been written so many times before: sympathetic, zealous, solicitous white protagonist? Yeah. I’ve read that one before. Her black characters have been written before, too: loyal, dutiful, heavy on the black dialect, and oh-so-loving of her white charges. Sprinkle in a sassy and defiant black stereotypical maid and all Stockett had to do was create a few other changes to become a big seller.

My issues with the book are no different from many other critics who wrote about the injustice of putting to paper the stories of black maids from the perspective of the white people for which they worked. I didn’t want Stockett’s version of it. I wanted theirs. The story flip-flops so much in showing the unending cruelty and hatred that the blacks lived with the wonderful goodness of whites who wanted desperately to help them that it’s hard to see any credibility. Well, which is it? You can’t have it both ways. All I could think, when listening to the book, was that the writing of this supremely important topic was that it was just so…lazy. Stockett softballs it in with her stereotypes and  her but-the-help-loved-us-so-much attitude. Frankly, readers are cheated by her pilfered storytelling and overt pandering.

She even suggested that it’s difficult for a Southerner to write about these delicate relationships because no one would understand how black maids truly loved the white family members of the household. She is right about that because I don’t find that very believable. Their lives would be more fleshed out if they talked about how much they loved their own families and how they sacrificed being mother to their children because they were busy raising someone else’s kids. That comes full circle when discussions of how black families (and mothers in particular) today get the short end of the stick when it comes to raising children. As if motherhood is cherished and relegated to only the white.

Don’t even get me started.

I have noticed in my interactions with students that the white ones will readily tell me that their mom is a “stay at home mom” and the black students will simply suggest that “my momma don’t work”. If I could tally up the times that exact phrase was said to me it would, undoubtedly, break my heart.

Not long ago The Cuban came home from work and told me about his difficult day and he was obviously distressed over dealing with a customer. Due to the nature of his work he comes into contact with a lot of older, white couples who enjoy life in their RV and he sometimes patiently explains obvious issues of race that they casually mention in their vernacular. Yesterday, in fact, he had to tell a customer that he wasn’t “nigger-rigging” the problem they were having with their vehicle.

Where I come from they call that nigger-rigging.

Well, that’s not what they call that where I come from and that’s not what I’m going to do to help you fix your problem.

A few months ago a few guys came into his work from Chicago and they were impatient and demanding with their needs. The Cuban was tiring of their attitude but he doesn’t want to lose customers for the business and, to hear him tell it, his patience was running thin so his answers became curt so that he could stop working with them quicker. They were looking to purchase a used trailer and, upon entering one of them, they noticed how worn and musty it was so one of them commented on it.

Smells like a nigger sweated his ass off in here.

Would any normal, adult person even know how to respond to this?

Am I to understand that this guy has such limited experiences with black people that he found this at all a rational thing to say?

Why would any worker want to continue to help this guy?

The Cuban was distraught over this. I was mostly wide-eyed as to the context of the statement. And also because it’s 2011. He did his level best to answer their other questions and not enrage this man and got out of there as quickly as possible. It bothered him for days afterward. I can’t say that I’m always shocked to hear ignorant language like this but I am not accustomed to hearing it in a business environment so I can guess as to how he felt hearing it. Work-wise, he has to continue to care for them but just because he has to wait on them doesn’t mean that he can’t let them know how he feels about their language. Never once has he called someone on it where they have gotten mad at him, but he firmly lets them know where he stands.

Whether you are The Help and want to tell your own story or you are The Helped who have the privilege of a literary platform on which to write it, history is what it is and shouldn’t be romanticized to suit selfish needs. As a couple, The Cuban and I are certain we won’t forget our recent brushes with racism, but we are better people for learning how to correct the ignorant and tolerate the uneducated about how they will talk when we’re present.

In college I much preferred Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. At least those are authentic writers. Perhaps I’ll pick one of those up to re-read it. I felt it necessary to at least end on a good note with some excellent books.