Standing up for oneself is not an easy task in any situation. But a black woman standing up for herself in the racist atmosphere of the south just a few decades ago, that takes more courage than almost any situation I could imagine. In Kathryn Sockett's novel, The Help, Skeeter is trying to write a book that will tell the first hand accounts of the colored women working as maids for white families in the South. She is a young, white girl with a great ambition and honorable motives, as she explains that her reasoning for wanting to write the book is because "everyone knows how we white people feel, the glorified Mammy figure who dedicates her whole life to a white family, Margaret Mitchell covered that. But no one ever asked Mammy how she felt about it," (106). She feels horribly for the black women who are forced to work for these cruel and demoralizing white families. She sees the inequality and the cruelty of it as she explains their relationship with these maids. Skeeter says that "they raise a white child and then twenty years later the child becomes the employer. It's that irony, that we love them and they love us," (105-106), and still the white people "don't even allow them to use the toilet in the house," (106). She sees the injustice and even though it's not her that is being mistreated, she knows that it is her obligation as a decent human being to put an end to it.
Elaine Stein, the woman Skeeter is trying to pitch the idea of this book to, however, sees the nearly impossible challenge of finding women who are willing to take that chance and stand up for themselves against the white families by sharing their personal stories of being mistreated at work. Stein points out the unlikely-hood of finding a woman to share her story in this racist town when she says, "I read your outline. It's certainly… original, but it won't work. What maid in her right mind would ever tell you the truth?" (106). She further pointed out the rare chance of a colored maid standing up against the white families when she questions Skeeter by asking, "this Negro actually agreed to talk to you candidly? About working for a white family? Because that seems like a hell of a risk in a place like Jackosn, Mississippi," (106). Stein, like most people living as bystanders in an unjust society, believed that there was no way around this cruelty and no way to end it. She did not believe that anybody would take the risk of standing up against it.
Later on in the story, however, several maids do agree to actually take part in these interviews. The question is, what is the breaking point that makes someone who was always terrified to take a stand finally find the courage to do so? I believe it was when they felt circumstances simply couldn't get much worse than they already were. They became completely fed up with how the white citizens treated them and decided that they had finally run out of options. It was time to reveal the cruelty they endured from their employers. It was this desire to humiliate the men and women they worked for who treated them like garbage that drove these maids to take a stand. It was the need to unveil the racism that was surrounding them in hopes of finally making a change. Taking a stand is generally done with the intention of creating change. I suppose that's the answer to my question then. It is the desire to see improvement, to see equality, and to see a real change that drives a person to risk their own lives and everything they have in order to take a stand.
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