The Help

"The Help," by Kathryn Stockett, is one of the best books I have listened to.

Though set in Jackson, Mississippi from 1962 to 1964, this novel relevant today to the racist ideals (though far more institutionalized) that this nation carries so dearly in the hearts of its people.

Here are the back noes from the sound recording:

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy until Skeeter has a ring on her finger.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk.

The project is a book with the stories of black maids in the Jackson, Mississippi. At first this didn't seem too risky to me. But then, as one is refreshed in the memories of the racism at that time (somewhat different than the racism of this time), people could lose livlihoods, be tortured, lynched or just flat out murdered for being a black person talking about the trouble white folk gave them.

Considering the new racism being promoted by the likes of Andrew Breitbart, Fox News, and the likes of the Tea Baggers and so many other white folk terrified of losing the privileged gained by suppressing and oppressing poor white folk, blacks, indians, and whatever other races they disapproved of at the time, just adds to the intensity and flavor of this novel.

[side note: I think the term "Tea Bagger" is one of the funniest political group names I have ever heard. Having seen the movie, "Pecker," and seeing that Tea Bagging as referred to in that movie, was when a male stripper bounced his testicals off the head of someone giving them a tip to do so. So, every time I hear the term, "Tea Bagger," I think of those strippes bouncing their nuts off the heads of other men.]

The new racism, instead of white folk being openly proud of their oppression of others and their privileges gained from such actions, they attack usually black people for being racist. Examples are what has happened with Shirley Sherrod thanks to the racist actions of Andrew Breitbart and Fox News, and with the Black Panther Part for Self-Defense thanks to the Tea Baggers (bouncy ballsacks), the NAACP thanks to the Tea Baggers (hee hee). Breitbart, Fox News, and the Tea Baggers (omg), claim Shirley Sherrod, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, and the NAACP practice racism against white folk. However, these white folk (Andrew Breitbart, Fox News, and the Tea Baggers [so funny]) never care about racism unless it is "perceived" racism against white folk from blacks or other races. Then they claim reverse racism, but don't really care about racism at all in the terms of how it effects other races. Now if that isn't racist, what is?

Kathryn Stockett did a fantastic job in writing "The Help", one of the best novels I have listened to. You need to read or listen to this book. It is so relevant to the times as well as those times. If you get the sound copy, it is read by Octavia Spencer, Bahni Turpin, and Jenna Lamia. These three women did a FANTASTIC job of portraying this story.

Go get a copy, now.