The Help
Author: Kathryn Stockett
Publisher: 2009
Page: 464
Reviewed by: Dinis Dwi Shinta Ramadhani - Research and Development Division ISAFIS
“The whites” and “the colors” were the racial segmentation that people commonly used in the past time to distinguish one person from another. Set in Jackson, Mississippi, Kathryn Stockett tried to picture through The Help what it felt like to be a colored person in 1960’s. It was crystal clear to see the social stratification between the colored people and the whites where in most of the time, the colored people were inferior to the whites. The Helpwas narrated from 3 women’s point of view; Aibileen, the colored maid who’s been raising 17 white children; Minny, the other colored maid who hardly put trust in the whites; and Skeeter, the white woman who aspired to be a writer.
The story narrated about Skeeter’s long rocky road in pursuing her ambition to be a writer. She also had to winning trust from the colored maids, urging them to voice out despite the fact that she’s shunned from the elite bridge club and publishing a book to reveal the truth of serving as the maids for the whites despite it would violated the local law. Skeeter’s presence could convince the readers that when there’s a villain, there’s a hero. Through the brilliant and witty way of Stockett telling the story, the readers shall find that The Help is page-turning, informative, and full of emotional engagement.
Relating the story to the real life, the colored people faced the dark days. At that time, the world was divided in two groups; for the whites and for the colors. Though, today, the presence of racial discrimination shrinks, in fact the whites and the colors are still worlds apart. The colored people are more likely to get unfair treatment in the country than the whites in many realms of life but not limited to dealing with the police, settling a case in the court, and mortgage or loan application. The research from Pew Research Center as of July 2016 stated 61% of the Americans believe that the country needs to continue making changes in order to achieve racial equality.
Oftentimes, people believe that it is ignorance, hatred, and unpatriotic minds that create racist ideas. But, an award-winning historian, Ibram X. Kendi in his book Stamped from the Beginning argued that the relationship was instead inversely-related. It is racist ideas created ignorance and hatred and not produced by unpatriotic minds. Contrary to the popular conception, he believes that during the history, it was the brilliant minds of each era who tried to justify and rationalize that the colored people are best suited for the confines of slavery, segregation, and mass incarceration.
Quoting Kendi, people no longer need the law and order of inequality, poverty and discrimination. People no longer need walls of racist ideas. People need the ordering justice that honors and protects the women and men in that unfailingly imperiled uniform – the uniform of blackness. Only then, I believe, will God’s people have a chance to live together in unity.
