The Help, Post # 1: Turning On Those Who Raised Them

Kathryn Stockett's novel, The Help,  shows racism from an interesting point of view. The story is about a circle of irony that creates the habits of how the white people treated the colored people in their towns. These black maids devote themselves fully to the white families they work for. They raise these white men and women’s children and come to love and cherish them as if they were their own children. These white children, in return, come to love their colored maids and start seeing them as family. The children love and idolize these black women who spend more time raising them than their own parents do, yet as they grow up, they begin to look down upon the maids. They begin to develop the same prejudice beliefs that their parents harbor and look down on these women as if suddenly being white makes them superior. It’s a disgusting cycle of racism. In The Help, the character of Aibaline is a colored maid who works for a white family. She is the one who cares for Mae Mobley because the sweet little girl’s parents want nothing to do with her. They neglect her, yell at her, and spank her, leaving her beating herself up for believing that she is not being good enough before she even fully understands what it means to be “not good enough.” It's heartbreaking to believe that these women can dedicate eighteen years of their lives to raising these girls but the day they become women themselves, they hold their role in society higher than their maids' suddenly. A clear example of how these maids cared more for these children then their parents did sometimes was in the relationship between Miss Leefolt and her daughter, Mae Mobley, compared to the relationship between Mae Mobley and their maid, Aibaline. When Miss Leefolt refused to change her daughter's diapers, she blamed the little girl and yelled at her for crying through the night. It wasn't until Aibaline got there in the morning and changed the girl's diaper that Mae Mobley stopped crying. And the little girl was so disapointed with herself because her mother was mad at her that she sadly looked up to her nanny and said "Mae Mo been bad," (15). Aibaline had to try to sooth the girl by rubbing her hair and giving her the constant love she needs with such neglectful parents as hers, telling her "No, baby, you ain't been bad," and goes on to say , "You been good. Real good," (15). It is clear that this little girl is needs love and the only one who's giving it to her is her colored maid. And throughout it all, her maid knows that no matter how much love she gives this little girl, when she grows up and doesn't need a nanny anymore, she will most likely join her parents' way of thinking and see herself as supperior. She will neglect her children just as her mother did and treat the nanny awfully just as her mother did. It's a cruel cycle or racism that is  brought to the surface in this amazing, heartbreaking, and moving novel.