The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, is one of the best books I've read. It is a fun and touching story, well told. However, although it illustrates how far racial equality has come, as told through southern Black maids and the families they worked for in the ‘60’s, as I daily witness seething racism (of all ilks), I wonder how a world that claims to embrace Godliness, can be so full of hate?

My mom and dad evidently believed that Jesus loved all the little children of the world, "red and yellow black and white, they are precious in his sight," so I don't have much of a perspective on the “race” issue. But we have all been touched in some way by the ugliness of discrimination – jocks and geeks, rich and poor, thin and fat, city and country – it’s endless.

I do remember mother telling me that the reason that the only little Black girl in our community didn't go to school with me was because the school board wouldn’t let her. Even my little eight-year-old brain couldn’t compute how anyone could not let a child go to school!

I highly recommend that you listen to The Help on CD or iPod as the voices of the maids, and of all of the southern women, are just velvet - well, except for the arch nemesis, "Miss Hilly."

The Help will help you look inside yourself, and what I saw inside myself was that although I claim to be a non-racist, I am a discriminator. When I refer to “trailer trash” I am being just as self-righteous as the worst of us. I promise that I will try to judge less and love more - for myself, for my grandchildren, and for my world.

SueAnn