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Examples Of Racial Prejudice In The Help

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The Help: Racial Prejudice
The Help, written by Kathryn Stockett, offers the views of Black maids, during the time of adamant racism in the south, including what the black women had to suffer through. This is still a relevant issue in our media today.
Aibileen, a black nurse/maid struggles with trying to raise the white children she cares for to be kind and unprejudiced children in a world and environment where racial prejudice is accepted as the norm.
Miss Skeeter, a white upper class woman, has lived with the racism all of her life. Now she is struggling to accept it as every other white woman has. She feels that black maids should have the chance to have their stories shared with the world. This proves to be very difficult because of the social shame that would/will be put on …show more content…

Many people today still hold the opinion that people who are different are somehow less than them. Take into account this ad by the Chinese washing detergent brand - Qiaobi ( Play ad here) This ad shows being different - in this instance African American - to be a bad or negative thing. To ‘fit in’ and be accepted by those around you, you have to be the same - the chinese laundry lady. This has a unmistakable similarity to the way black people were portrayed in The Help. (Aibileen slide) Racism is this whole idea that one person is better than another because of the colour of their skin. Abilene’s life tells the struggle of raising white children to respect everybody despite the colour of their skin. “I want to yell so loud that Baby Girl can hear me that dirty ain't a color, disease ain't the negro side of town. I want to stop that moment from coming – and it come in every white child's life – when they start to think that colored folks are not as good as whites.” (7.80) Abilene is trying to tell Mae Mobley the truth about skin colour. “Everybody know colored people and white people ain’t the same. But we still just

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Racism is one of the main subthemes that is evident throughout the book. The treatment of the African American race showed how the White race felt about the African Americans. The Whites were afraid their “blackness” would rub off on them. An example of this behavior in the book was when Hilly says, “ It’s just plain dangerous. Everybody knows they carry different kinds of diseases than we do” (Stockett,10).

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The Help by Kathryn Stockett Segregated bathrooms, lunch counters, and schools. Being treated like nothing more than dirt. For many African Americans living in the South this was part of their everyday life. The Help, written by Kathryn Stockett, is the story about the problems with racial prejudice and the mistreatment of the African Americans, many of which worked underneath whites. The bitter seed growing inside of Aibileen is a symbol of how she feels about her mistreatment of blacks.

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Zora Neale Hurston’s essay “How If Feels to be Colored Me” is a piece that is directed towards the stereotypes about race. An example of this is in the opening statement: “... I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother’s side was not an Indian chief.” This analysis of this statement is that colored Americans fallaciously believe that they have Native American ancestry. This statement also reveals how the racial identity is a factor that is discovered through our interactions with each other. Another statement that reveals this is Hurston’s observations about her “white neighbor” and how different people and maniacal racism against the colored is detrimental to other races as

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The Supervisor of Liberty Paints, Kimbro, sees the paint as pure white, even though it has a shade of gray. From the narrator’s perspective he sees it differently. “I looked at the paint slab. It appeared the same: a gray tinge glowed through the whiteness, and Kimbro had failed to detect it” (205). In American society “racism” is typically seen as black vs white.

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Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, attests to the hateful and cruel reality that is the life of African Americans in Jackson, Mississippi circa the 1960’s. Stockett writes many anecdotes surrounding the relationship between Constantine, an African American maid, and the child she cares for, Skeeter. Skeeter reflects upon a memory of Constantine and

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This concept is commonly seen in childhood, as children do not yet grasp the concept of race. Janie’s childhood is a prime example, as she states that, “Ah was wid dem white chillun so much till Ah didn’t know Ah wuzn’t white till Ah was round six years old” (Hurston 17). Janie was unaware that she was different from the white children she was surrounded by, showing that race did not play a part in the children’s decision to play together. Although race was unimportant to her in childhood, once she discovers her race, the harsh reality of the world sets in. She must face ridicule from black students at school for living in a white family’s backyard (Hurston 18).

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In the novel, The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, there are many characters that can be identified as an antagonist throughout the story. However, Hilly Holbrook is the most significant of them all. With her attitude towards colored people, her controlling personality, and the methods she uses in order to have her way, it is obvious that Ms. Hilly is a definite villain of this novel. In the novel, many white families, including Ms. Hilly’s, had hired African American maids to help them around the house.

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Moreover, demonstrate consequences are taken to oppress racial and ethnic minorities to keep them in a subservient position. Overall, this film has provided me with a visual depiction of how stereotypes are a mental tool that enforces racial segregation and self-hate. The label of “White” became a necessity for Sarah Jane to achieve in society. To attain it she needed to move to a new city, change her name and deny her mother.

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(The Help, 2011) Inspired by this, Aibileen amends her fear and becomes the first of the maids to disclose her story to Skeeter. She realizes the danger that could result from her decision, but she embraces the risk and relies on her faith for guidance. Aibileen wrestled with just how much courage she would need to do what Skeeter had asked her to do, despite the "bitter seed" planted inside of her. The convergence of Skeeter and Aibileen is a result of the courage demonstrated by Aibileen. Subsequently, Aibileen muses to herself, “God says we need to love our enemies, it hard to do, but it can start by telling the truth."

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The social groups focused on in this novel are white housewives, whose group consists of Skeeter, the privileged daughter of a farmer, who just returned from college, and “the help” or a group of maids who are of course of African American decent. The help is forced to obey their irrationally needy bosses, cooking for them, cleaning for them, and even raising their children, only to be treated inhumanely and unfairly by petty housewives. For example, one of the housewives, Hilly Holbrook, a seemingly conflicting character alone, was very suggestive of a bathroom act being enforced, which made it mandatory that every home have a separate bathroom for its help as a “safety precaution” because they could transmit diseases through their bodily functions. In situations like these, African Americans were very alienated, and it really displayed the gap in reality for the two groups. This in turn caused conflict between them, as African Americans were looked down at by whites and the whites were seen as threatening and wicked minded by African Americans.

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In the novel The Help, Stockett writes about the lives of the African American women working for the prominent white families and the trial and tribulations that they have encountered. The African American women are the people who are taking care of the white families home and children while being disrespected and unappreciated by their boss. “I’d like to write this showing the point of view of the help. The colored women down here.' I tried to picture Constantine's face, Aibileen's. '

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