Whenever a movie based on a novel comes out, I cringe a little bit. Maybe it's a personal bias, but fiction never translates absolutely from the page to the screen. Nevertheless, having recently finished this book, I am REALLY excited to see the movie.
This book was particularly interesting to me because of my family background. My mother is from an Italian immigrant family and was raised in Philadelphia's Little Italy. She attended Catholic school K-12 and can still remember the two girls in her graduating class who did NOT have Italian last names. My father was born and raised in rural New Hampshire. He had 5 brothers and sisters. There wasn't much money. Needless to say, nobody in my family tree ever employed any servants and the Civil Rights movement was news from afar that had little impact on their personal lives.
I guess because of this, I think of it as ancient history. Because it didn't directly affect my family I think of it as something that happened a long time ago. I've even wondered at times why black/white racism is still such a big issue.
This book shed new light on the subject.
I realized while reading that had my mother been born into a different social class and in a different location, she too may have been practically raised by a black maid, like so many of the characters in the book were. Had my father been the son of a Mississippi businessman, he could have been nursed when he was sick and fed breakfast each morning by a servant who was more invested in his well-being than his own mother. And had this been the case, they both would have been taught somewhere along the way that the same person who cared for them as children was less human, less important and less worthy of respect than they, simply because of their skin color.
Which made me realize... this is not ancient history. This is current. This is my parent's generation and so my generation is certainly directly affected.
Call this an obvious realization if you will, but it changed my perspective.
Read the book. It's good.
I haven't yet read "The Help", but after reading this I actually might. This has been the most honest review I've read -- most of them seem to be pats on the back for reading something "controversial". I can appreciate your perspective about racism seeming so long ago.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Rachel.