The Two Sides of Abortion

The NARAL-Prochoice America website is much more applealing than the National Right to Life website. Right off the bat, it provides the reader with information and evidence about their side of the debate without even having to click on any other links or pages. It draws the reader in by providing short and easy information about the issue at hand and what obsticles the "pro-life" group is putting in the way of women who want to get abortions. Both websites are clearly biased towards their side and are using their sites to sway people to agree with their oppinions and to think negitively about the opponent's point of view. There are very few images or visually appealing aspects the the National Right to Life website or specific quotes. However, they do have some very persuasive facts such as the stages of the pregnancy that each part of the baby develops. This also prevents people from feeling personally connected to the point of view that is being presented. NARAL-Prochoice America's website is full of easy to read information presented through short paragraphs and bulletpoints. I definitely think that the NARAL-Prochoice America website is much more effective than the National Rights to Life because it gets more personal and is easier to relate to as a young woman. It explains the many obsticles that are placed in the way of girls who are seeking abortion and makes a very strong argument for why woman should have this right to choose for themselves.

Personally, I am prochoice. I think it is a woman's right to do what she wishes with her body when it is her life that is being effected the most. Nobody should be able to make that decision for her. She will have to live with her actions, whatever path she chooses, and nobody should have the power to make that choice for her. I strongly disagree with the idea that a girl must tell her parents and have their consent in order to get an abortion. If her parents are pro-life, they can force her into parenthood and take away the right she is constitutionally guaranteed. There are also different dynamics between child and parent in every family and the state doesn't know how the parents will react to the news of their teenage daughter being pregnant. It could lead the parents to punish or abuse the daughter for her actions and this violence would be the result of the state supposedly "helping" teenagers. The pro-choice website only encouraged this opinion in me because it brought even more issues of control to the surface. There are far too many laws and restrictions set in place for women seeking abortions and this website elaborated on the problem even more.

I believe that the responsible thing to do in most circumstances would be to inform the father about the pregnancy, but I don't believe it should be mandatory and I certainly don't believe that the woman should have to have the man's consent to get the abortion. It is the woman's body that is in jeopardy. If the woman feels that an abortion truly is the only solution, then she shouldn't have to ask the man's approval to do what she knows is right. Additionally, if the woman was raped, she should never be forced to speak to the man who raped her again, and she certainly should not have to ask his permission to rid herself of his spawn. Because there is no way to prove what the exact circumstance is every time, the state shouldn't have the power to make these decisions for her.

I see that Illinois has several laws set in place to help low-income woman who seek family-planning assistance or who seek abortion. Illinois also requires all pharmacies to provide birth control for women. I think these are both very important and responsible actions that the state has taken to help protect woman and their rights. However, I strongly disagree with many of the pro-life or anti-choice laws. It is not fair for certain health service facilities to have the right to not inform woman of their rights to get an abortion, to not provide information on where they can get an abortion, or for certain doctors to have the right to refuse to perform abortions on the woman. Doctors should have the right to give their advice and opinion to their patients, but not the right to make the decision for them. I am most definitely pro-choice.

Death Penalty Abolished In Illinois

I could not agree more with the decision to abolish the death penalty in Illinois. Throughout this unit, we have heard  both sides of argument about the justice level of capital punishment and it has forced me to question my beliefs and changed my opinion several times. Before we began learning about the death penalty, I did not have a very concrete opinion that swayed me towards one way or another. The truth of the matter was, I was not educated on the highly controversial debate and was just going off of the opinions of my parents. They are both in favor of the death penalty and believe that an eye for an eye is only fair. I simply accepted this belief and went along with it without question. Soon after we began learning about the death penalty in class, however, my opinion quickly changed.
A life for a life is revenge, it is not justice. The United States sets an example of what is morally acceptable and is supposed to do what is in the best interest of all American citizens. The fact is, capital punishment does more harm and it does good. We learned that several decades ago, the death penalty was taken off the table completely. The country ruled that the current laws for it were too loose and allowed for too many people to be put to death without reasonable cause. Soon after this decision was made, many states began altering their laws for the death penalty and put it back into action. There was a handful of states, however, that continued to reject capital punishment and never reinstated the possibility for execution by the state.
There are two very popular quotes among people who are against the death penalty. Many people believe that "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." This is in reference to the lesson that capital punishment teaches. If we punish murder with murder, we are only causing more death in the country and going against our goal of protecting citizens. This brings me to the second popular quote which mocks the idea of capital punishment by saying, "We kill people to show that killing people is wrong." This makes it perfectly clear how ridiculous the idea of execution is and that it completely goes agains the moral conduct of the United States of America. Even family members of victims of murder agree that killing their loved one's killer will do them no good. It will not bring back to life the person that was lost, or fill the hole in their hearts where this person once was. But even Emit Till's mother, after her young son was brutally murdered by two racist men for no reason other than the color of his skin, can tell you that capital punishment will not help bring her closure or give her Emit back. It will only mean that she has done to her son's killers exactly as they did to him, and she does not want to be anything like the monsters that took her son's life.
In addition to the moral flaws in capital punishment, there are also several legal flaws which prove the injustice of execution by the state. Laws have been made to increase the standards for who can be put to death and who can not. Only a few short years ago, it was still legal to send a mentally retarded person to die. Finally, in the 2002 Supreme Court case of Atkins vs. Virginia, this cruel and unusual punishment was finally proved to be against the American Constitution by violation of the eight amendment. To further prove the injustice of capital punishment, a team of Northwestern journalism students and their teacher did investigations into the court cases of different men on death row in Illinois and eventually proved several different men's innocence. It is disgusting to see that these men spent had spent fifteen years on death row and been less than a couple of days away from their execution when a couple of college students proved their innocence and freed them from jail. With such inaccurate punishments and convictions of supposed murderers in this country, it is completely possible that innocent men and women will be sent to die. Whether it is a result of their race, economic status, or other outside factors, it is evident that the United States justice system is incredibly flawed and the only way to stop the injustice that occurs in execution by the state, is to ban the practice of execution by the state all together.

Death Penalty #2: Response to Deadline

Race and Class:

Statistically, people of color and low-income people are more likely to be sentenced to death. Why do you think this is? How might vestiges of legal segregation and historic race-based policies impact the modern U.S. justice system? What measures could be taken to ensure a fairer system of justice?

I believe that the jusice system is far more severe on people with lower incomes or lover status in society. If someone is one trial for murder and can not afford to pay great lawyer to fight for their defence, they will be less capable of proving their innocence or at minimizing the term of their punishment. Without a great lawyer prepresenting the supposed criminal in court, they will be less capable of creating a strong defence to present to the judge and jury and might be unable to do enough work and collect the right evidence neccessary to prevent the death penalty or possibly even prove the suspect to be innocent. Another factor, aside from income or class, is race. It has been proven that about 80% of people on death row are being charged for the murder of a white person. Even people who may claim that they are not racist may still be unconsciously basing their verdict on racist thoughts. For many centuries, whites have been thought of as superior to blacks in the United States of America. Even in modern day society, where racism is far less prevelent than even just a few decades ago, many people around the country still harbor unfair stereotypes about people of race that may sway them to think of the crime committed by a black person against a white person as worse than if it had been against a black person. Additionally, if there are many white people in the jury or making the decision about the punishment of the supposed murderer, they might feel more sympathetic to a white person who was murdered because they can more easily relate to them, and therefore, want vengence brought to the supposed killer. Any of these factors could lead to discrimination in the court room and more severe punishments being given to lower-income making people, people in the lower class, or non-caucasions. I honestly believe that the only way for these unjust biases to be prevented is to eliminate the death penalty. There is no way to ensure that all people on trial will receive the same quality of lawyers or be spared from racism or stereotypes that could potentially sway the decisions of the jury and judge.

Law and Politics:

The film frequently references the 1972 Furman v. Georgia decision that the death penalty was in violation of the 8^th Amendment of the Constitution. The 8^th Amendment states: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” How does this constitutional issue play a role in your opinions for or against the death penalty?

I think that the 8th Amendment is evidence that this nation was built to protect the safty and legal rights of all citizens. The Founding Fathers of the United States of America would not have approved of capital punishment because it could easily be condiered "cruel or unusual punishment." To sentence someone to death, especially when there is a possibility of the accused killer actually being innocent, would be an unfair punishment. Unfortunately, in this day and age in America, it can no longer be claimed that this is an "unusual punishment" in this nation, but if you look worldwide, there are very few countries that still condone capital punishment. Therefore, worldwide, this is actually an unusual punishment for a government to execute its citizens. If someone could explain to me how this form of punishment could not be considered to be going against the 8th Amendment of the Constitution, I would love to hear it because as far as I am concerned, this would be impossible.

The Bigger Picture:

What is your reaction to Stephen Bright’s quote about the exonerated prisoners?

“This was the third person released by the journalism students at Northwestern, and of course it doesn’t say much for our legal system when people spend sixteen years on death row for a crime they… didn’t commit. And that ultimately comes to light not because of the police or the prosecution, or the defense lawyers or the judicial system, but because a journalism class at Northwestern took it on as a class project to see whether or not these people were guilty or not. You know, if those students had taken chemistry that semester, these folks would have been executed.” Stephen Bright, Director, Southern Center for Human Rights.

It is appalling to me how flawed our justice system has been proven to be. The fact that a journalism class at Northwestern was able to uncover enough evidence to prove three men on death row to be innocent, proves how corrupt and biased this system is. At the time of the actual trial, theses accused men must have had very poor and lazy lawyers if they couldn't put together as much evidence to prove their client innocent as a class of college students did. This also forces the question, how many other accused men and women have been put to death despite their innocence, simply because their lawyers were too lazy to dig up enough evidence or because the jury and judge were too biased or discriminatory to believe their plea of innocence. To imagine that these three men would all be dead right now if these students had been given this assignment is horrifying. It only goes to prove how unfair this system of capital punishment is and that it should not be legal for our government to  execute citizens for crime they may or may not have committed. 

The Justice and Injustice of the Death Penalty

I am not convinced that the United States justice system is a completely just system after all. When a case is first introduced, the police or detectives working on interview witnesses or people who knew the victim to find suspects. Sometimes they show pictures of relatively random people in their society who already have a criminal record to see if they resmemble the criminal. In some cases, the witness will wrongly accuse a person who looks similar to the actual murderer or criminal. Once suspects are chosen, however, more steps are set in place to make a more reasonable and accurate decision on whether the person is guilty or not, and if found guilty, what his or her punishment should be. There are many stages to the trial which allow for the jury to recieve a plethera of information about the crime and the people involved, and to take their time coming to a decision. There are many laws set in place to assure that it a fair and proportinate punishment is given to the person convicted, but this is only true if you consider the death treatment to be a fair and reasonable punishment under any circumstance, which I do not. There is also a three week period after the person is convicted, for more evidence to be turned in that might prove them to be innocent. While at first this seemed like a great bonus that the attorneies could still prove their clients to be innocent even after the decision was wrongfully made, I realized that it is incredibly unjust for there to be a three week limit on this opportunity. If solid evidance is uncovered a month after the decision is made, no matter how strong the evidence is, it sounds like it is too late for it to be factored into the case to prove the man or woman on trial to be innocent. I greatly question how accuratly people are found guilty and if execution is a fair punishment.

Of all of these practices of execution, I believe that lethal injection is the most humane. It still has the potential to result in imense pain for the person being exectuioned if they do not have a useable vein or if the person who inserted the neeles did it incorectly. Still, the other forms of exectuion that have  been practiced in the United States, such as hanging, electricution, gas chambers, and firing squads are far more disturbing and really make the man or woman being exectuted suffer. It makes me question this nation completely, if our government will allow its citizens to be treated in such inhumane ways. The way that the executions were described were absolutely brutal and horrifying. They were tortured and died miserable deaths under different forms of execution. I know that some of these criminals committed atrocious acts of their own to their victims, I still can not understand using murder to punish them. I believe a more fitting punishment would be to force them to live lonely, miserable lives in jail, tortured over what the sins they committed and left to spend the rest of their lives in jail.

The number of people executed since 1976 plummeted greatly all across the country. It is clear that the country has under gone some major ethical and moral changes. Of all of the regions in the United States, it seems that the states that have had the highest number of citizens executed since 1976 were states in the deep, middle south, around Texas. Some states in the north have completely outlawed the death penalty (fourteen to be exact) but even some states that still allow the death penalty have very low numbers and rarely go as far as execution. Another point that I find interesting, is the number of people currently on death row in some states. Some places, such as California, have hundreds of people currently on death row, yet in the more than thirty years that the death penalty has been reinstated, these states have only gone through with executing a select few of these people. Only one or sometimes two digit worth of citizens in these states are put to death. The incredible decline in the number of people who have been executed in this country is also largely due to the changes made in the justice system over time. Many restrictions have been added to eliminate executions that would now be considered "cruel and unusual" punishment and found unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment.

The statutes for Illinois's old death penalty seemed fairly reasonable. All of the laws seemed to reasonably fit the punishment of death. They all revolved around murder and severe crimes of extremely violent nature. These laws seemed pretty similar to those of the other states in the US that enforce the death penalty. Laws have become a lot more strict, requiring the punishment to truly fit the crime.

This data shows that there are now 16 states that don't allow the death penalty, not 14 like the last chart said. There is also a chart that says how many people have been killed in the entire country since 1976, showing just over 1200 deaths. What is incredible, is how much this number has decreased. According to some of the previous charts I saw, a couple of states had over 1200 people executed in that one state alone before the year 1976. I find it interesting that while 35% of those tried for the death penalty, only 15% of victims of these cases are black which suggests that cases were a black person is murdered less frequently result in the criminal being put on death row. Overall, I think it is clear that America's reactions towards the death penalty have changed drastically over time and as the laws became increasingly more strict, less and less people condoned the death penalty.

The Difference Between Offensive and Predjudice

This week, we watched a video about school board officials and presidents debating how universities should react to students who try to take advantage of their freedom of speech. The teachers and presidents debated over the rights of students and when they should be allowed to speak freely on campus as well as when this freedom should be restricted. After hearing their arguments for each side of the situation, I came to the conclusion that if the students are not speaking in a way that truly encourages violence or prejudice, then they should be permitted to speak their mind and share their views with others. I do not believe that just because a student's opinion is unpopular or inconstant with that of the school's means that the student should be prevented from taking action and speaking out about his or her views. If the opinion is offensive, that does not mean much because anything can be considered offensive to just about anyone. If the opinion and speech is promoting violent action towards a particular person or group of people, however, then I believe it should be forbidden on campus. There is a fine line between speaking one's mind and targeting innocent people and turing others against them. I am not in agreement with the professors and university presidents who said that any offensive speech should be stopped at a college campus, but I also do not agree with those who said they could not put an end to any form of expression because it would violate the students' freedom of speech protected under the First Amendment in the Constitution of the United States. It is definitely a delicate argument, but I do think that there is a very important difference to notice between expressing an offensive point of view and expressing a prejudice and violent opinion.

Speech Codes on Campus

I believe that this kind of racist behavior should not be tolerated on college campuses. It promotes racism and discrimination against African Americans and is creates a negative and hateful attitude towards minoritites. It is absolutely dipicable to see college students, young adults ready to enter the real world, dressing themselves up as KKK members or black slaves. I do not understand how anyone could possible see this as humerous or entertaining. It is cruel and immature behavior and colleges must put a stop to it. However, I do not think that banning it is the right solution. I think administrators should do everything they can to explain to the students the implications of their actions and how they affects others. In The Freedom Writer's Diary, the teacher explains to her students how racism promotes hatred and leads to mass murder and genocides. She explained that a racist drawing one student in the class made was exactly the kind of propaganda that was circulating in Germany leading up to the Holocaust. If teachers and administrators showed college students how similar these actions are to those of the Nazis in Germany, I am confident that it would have a real affect on them and change their minds about throwing these kind of themed parties.

Many of the schools that I am applying to for college are in California. When I clicked the mouse on the California picture, nearly every school that came up was rated as a Red Light or a Yellow Light (though most red). While I suppose this might negatively influence some students' decisions to attend one of these schools, I see it as a possitive aspect of the university. I looked specifically at the University of Southern California because it is one of my top choices and was rated as a Red Light. After reading several posts about this college and reading some of the policies that the college has set in place, it only encourages me as a student and shows me that USC is a great learning environment and same community. Why wouldn't I want to attend a college that protects me from harrasment or punishes students who degrade and verbally attack my peers? How could I possibly see this as a negative? The only students who should be frustrated by these policies are those who make a habbit of harrassing others for race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. If these policies prevent these students from wanting to attend the university, I only see that as a possitive consequence to creating a safe and supportive learning environment. I highly disagree with the ideas posted on FIRE's website that make these colleges out to be infringing on their freedom of speech when all they are trying to do is protect students from harrasment or abuse by peers and I absolutely believe these policies are legal.

If USC were to hear about sororities or fraternities throwing the kind of themed parties depicted in the slideshow, I am confident that they would have severe punishments for those who participated in the party and who put it together. I am sure that they would, at the very least, put the house on probation and then possibly kick them off campus if they repeat the offence. I definatly believe this would be a reasonable punishment and reaction from the school because it is acting in favor of its students and all mankind as it protects minorities from discrimination and shows an example to others that this kind of behavior is wrong and should not be tolerated.

I fully believe in the freedom of speech and protecting the First Amendment when it comes to political beliefs and actions, but when students disriminate against others or show racist behavior simply for entertainment or just simply for the fun of it, the school should have the right to step in and punish them. There is no excuse for students to harrass each other based on race, religion, or sexual orientation. I strongly disagree with FIRE and its opinion on these schools.

Speech Codes- What is the Court's Problem?

I have always strongly believed in the importance of the First Amendment and am weary of any action the government might take that would limit a person's freedom of speech, but after reading about speech codes on college campuses, I have to ask myself, what is the court's problem? I usually do not believe in a school's right to limit a student's freedom of speech, but I have come to the conclusion that it really does depend on the matter they are speaking about. If a student wants to make a political statement and chooses to protest a certain law or policy of the government in a non-violent and non-aggressive way, the student should have every right to do so. However, if the student is abusing his or her freedom of speech by using it as an excuse to verbally or socially attack a certain group of people based on race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or political views, this should not be allowed on a school's campus. Intolerance of prejudice acts, such handing out racial fliers or burning crosses in front of where an African American lives, should be enforced and punishment should come to those who choose to personally attack an individual or a specific group of people. Fighting words are any form of speech that is expected to cause an immediate violent reaction from people, and this form of speech is not protected under the First Amendment. I strongly believe that prejudice actions and attacks on specific individuals or groups should be considered fighting words and therefore not be accepted on college campuses. Many schools have tried to enforce speech codes but failed because the court decided that the codes are unjust and that the school should not have the power to limit a student's rights to share an opinion, no matter how unpopular, unfair, or offensive the student's behavior might be. I can not bring myself to understand why a college would condone the mental or verbal abuse from one student to another and I hope to see this change in the near future.

Ten Years Later, It Feels Closer Than Ever

It has been ten years since terrorists attacked the United States by flying two planes into the Twin Towers in New York City. I always viewed this day as a horrifying tragedy, but after watching a documentary filmed on the day of the attack, from both inside the building and outside with the firefighters, it feels more personal than ever. It is no longer a historical event that marked the beginning of a war that has lasted over a decade, but I suddenly see that day for what it really is: an attack on humanity, an attack on America, and an attack on me. I truly believe that the fact that these two filmmakers were documenting the firefighters on that day, and were therefore able to capture the entire even on camera, was a miracle. It  allows the world to see that day from inside the towers, to actually live in those terrifying moments with the men that risked their lives to save others, and to see the tragedy with our own eyes. It became more personal than ever. I saw these young men running in to save my fellow Americans. I have friends whose parents were supposed to be on those planes. I heard bodies smashing to the concrete as they jumped from the burning building eighty stories up. I watched the stunned and frightened faces of our heroes as they stood in the lobby of the World Trade Center. This day is no longer stories that I hear from my parents or articles I read in the newspaper. It is a real, live, massacre that I can still see vividly in my mind, the footage of the collapsing building playing on repeat in front of my eyes.

With the severity and size of the attack, it is easy to let this day feel like a loss of thousands of lives, but after reading the article At Pentagon, No Words Will Fill Void from the New York Times, it seemed to finally dawn on me that it was the loss of a loved one, for millions of people. It seemed to be one enormous tragedy to me, because I did not know anyone who died in those towers on September 11th, but for millions of people it went beyond seeing there nation lose innocent civilians, but it was seeing their family lose a chair at the dinner table. It wasn't an event they were reminded of when they went to the airport and had to arrive two hours early for security, but it was a void that would never again be filled in their lives. It was a gaping hole in their hearts. It was the loss of someone's father, someone's mother, someone's brother or sister, someone's aunt and uncle and cousin, someone's grandma or grandpa, someone's best friend, someone's high school sweetheart and pregnant wife, someone's newlywed husband, someone's son, someone's daughter, someone's life long companion, someone's entire world. It was an attack on their country, but it was the destruction of their families too.

I don' know how to describe my feelings about this day other than to say that it made me lose a great deal of my faith in humanity. I understand that countries will disagree with other countries and try to bring about changes that they feel to be necessary, but I will never be able to bring myself to understand why anyone would see an act of terrorism such as 9/11, to be a solution to any problem. Re-examining this day has forced me to question what could possible drive a human being to commit a mass murder on thousands of innocent people. How could anyone have so much hate in their heart to commit such a crime? How could a human being ever justify these actions. The human race has divided and taken aim against itself, and I wonder how we have fallen so low that we destroy our own.

The American Education System: Learning to Be Silent?

As Americans, we have always been told to stand up for what we believe in and fight for what is right. As Americans, we have been told that we have the right to share our beliefs openly without fear of punishment for what we say. As Americans, we have been told that we have equal rights as one another and the freedom to live our lives as we please. Yet as students, we are told to act "maturely" and sensor what we say. As students, we are told to avoid discussing issues that might cause discomfort between individuals with different beliefs. As students, we are reprimanded for speaking our minds and taking advantage of the first amendment of the constitution. As an individual, I would like to know when students stopped being considered Americans, and lost the right to speak freely with others. As an individual, I would like to know why our school systems teach us that America is a marvelous country where all citizens are treated equally, while simultaneously restricting our freedom of speech and expression. As an individual, I would like to know why this injustice has yet to be changed.

Recently, I learned that there have been several court cases in the past few decades that have challenged this censorship of what students are allowed to say in school or at school functioned events. After hearing different cases and the points made from each side of the argument, I have realized that there are different circumstances that would make different outcomes more reasonable than others. It is not always black and white. The specific details of the case make a difference. The intent of the student is significant  in determining if they were simply expressing their views or if they were violating school policies. In some instances, students are making political statements and that is definitely protected by the first amendment of the constitution. There are other instances, in which the student is, in fact, speaking out of term and breaking school code of conduct for reasons that are not specifically intended to make a political statement or stand. Looking at two cases in particular, made this difference clear.

In the case of Tinker v. Des Moines,  two students were trying to show their opposition to the Vietnam War by wearing black arm bands to school. They were suspended until they agreed to remove the armbands because the school was concerned with it disrupting classes or making other students uncomfortable. The case was taken all way to the Supreme Court, where it was ultimately declared that the students were expressing a political opinion and this action was most definitely protected by the constitution, even in a school setting. They were not threatening people who did not agree with their opinion, nor were they doing any harmful behavior. They were simply declaring that they did not believe in war by use of symbolic speech. In the case of Morse v. Frederick, however, the students' actions were not protected by the constitution because they were not speaking about a political view. A group of students ran across their pep-rally with a banner that read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus". The main teenager who organized this banner was suspended for breaking school rules by promoting an illegal drug at a school event. The court ruled that the school had correctly punished the student because his actions were clearly in violation of school rules. In addition, his comments about illegal drugs were not referencing the opinion that marijuana should be legalized, it was only making a crude joke about a harmful substance. Clearly, there is a vast difference between these two cases due to the students' intentions and whether their actions were for political reasons or not.

After learning about these two court cases about students right to freedom symbolic speech in schools or at school functioned events, I realized that the circumstances are very important in determining if the student should be allowed to make their statement or not. While it is important for for students to have the freedom to express themselves no matter what setting they are in, it does make sense that if they are referencing illegal drugs or harmful behavior, there are places where this would be inappropriate and a school would have to step in. If the student is making a statement about his or her political views, it should one hundred percent be protected by the government.

The Help

One of the greatest movies I have seen in theaters recently was the film The Help, staring Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, and Allison Janney. Director Tate Taylor adapted it into a screenplay, based off of the novel written by Kathryn Stockett. The movie was an inspirational story about Emma Stone's character who pays a young journalist named Skeeter. Disregarding the judgmental attitudes of the other young woman her age, Skeeter fights the pressures of racism in her Southern town by writing a novel about the cruel behavior of whites towards the African American help. This story takes place at the time of the civil rights movement and the social inequalities are undeniable. With the help of two of the maids that work for families in her community, she embarks on a risky journey of revealing the truth behind racism in the south. Despite the pressure to conform to the behavior and attitudes of those around her, Skeeter and a group of women who work as maids in their Southern community stand up for what they know is right. The stories of racism that these maids tell about their personal experiences working as 'the help' is enough to make you sick. The Help is an outstanding story of bravery and standing up for what is right no matter what obstacles stand in the way. With amazing performances from all of the actors in this film as well as a wonderfully written script, this film is already receiving Oscar buzz.