The Help: The Past and Not So Past

The Help, the newest Hollywood release based on Kathryn Stockett's civil rights era novel, has struck a particularly sensitive note with me due to my own experiences as a child of the South--the divided South and not-so divided South, the South that so many of us hope has evolved.  Central to The Help's plot is a young socialite's motion to enforce that White households install a separate bathroom for Black help. It would be so easy for me to toss the idea aside as ridiculous, to claim no one would ever have thought such a thing. But I know better--there are enough reminders that we still struggle where race is involved.

I live in a house that I rent from homeowners who so judiciously refer to one of our bathrooms as the gardener's toilet. At first, I was struck with a little confusion as to why this home--one that has two baths up and one more down, would need yet a fourth toilet, especially considering the modestness of this little 1960s faux-colonial that was built among homes a bit more gracious in style. Foolishly, I had once asked my husband why any toilet would have been built in a laundry room--mud room, really--with a make-shift beadboard wall thrown around it (we ended up removing the wall so that we could do our laundry, long story short). This toilet, this porcelain bowl that sits so close to the washer that one would have to spread your knees in order to sit or stand to use it, was for the help.... the help that was not allowed to use the more private toilet in the rear hallway of the home, a bathroom only steps from this one.

My own childhood household, when my mother's back started to trouble her, had the help of Ella Mae, who came at first to clean, but later was kept just for ironing what my grandmother had called "all those big damn shirts". Ella Mae was a luxury for us, but somehow my parents afforded her. She lived in Fauborg Marigny, a New Orleans neighborhood that had been a mix of comfortable middle class and low class in the 19th century. By the 20th, it was far from an okay place to raise children and was riddled with poverty. Not far from her lived Albatine, who helped my great aunt in her home nearby--that formerly gracious Italianate home was sinking into decrepitude and decay by the time I was born, an old way of life sinking into oblivion by the time I reached school age. That home, by the way, had a separate bathroom for the help.

There are many stories to be told here. I certainly don't recall my parents ever teaching me to be anything but kind and fair to the help in our household, and I was well aware that those ladies led a harder, less educated, and more limited existence than my own. There were, despite all the tenderness we exhibited with Ella Mae and Albatine, invisible boundaries. Perhaps, their families noted those boundaries with more clarity than we did. I certainly recall the absolute despair in my father's voice when he had learned that Ella Mae, who had long grown elderly, had passed and had her life celebrated in a funeral; we had not been invited, much less told. Perhaps, it did not dawn on Ella Mae's family that we would want to be there.

At one point in my youth, it dawned on me that I should ask Ella Mae about who she really was, and she took the time to tell me about riding the mule home across the fields on her father's farm when she was a child in rural Mississippi. True to her African roots and generations of repeated dialect, she had a tendency to shove Ns in unlikely places, such as when she said Nyew Nyork. She described having lived on a street that she shared with a host of family as neighbors. She would continue to iron for us, clean for others. I would grow up and go away to school. When I returned, Ella Mae would have long passed.

My father and I recently discussed Ella Mae. He remembered his mother teaching him to be gentle with those that  helped keep our homes, mind the children. He remembers giving Ella Mae rides home when possible, paying for her bus fare, and providing her lunch. Ella Mae told us stories about crazy people she worked for--such as the reptile lady, if you can imagine that story--but she never did discuss the nature of her work where her dark skin and class differences were concerned. Apparently, my grandmother treated her as a confidante, sharing family issues and discussions of holiday plans. My grandmother isn't here to divulge the details of their friendship; something else that I consider sad.

Times have changed since the era documented in The Help when the lower class minorities feared for their jobs and lives if they were perceived as anything other than gladly subservient. I see that my neighbor's help across the street is a crew of Latin American ladies whose kids probably attend school with mine. My "gardener's toilet" goes unused for anything other than to hold the super-sized box of laundry detergent my husband buys. In fact, we wedge a garbage can in front of it. The Black yardman we hire on occasion drives a very nice truck and wields a Blackberry to organize his client list. He isn't afraid to price-gouge me (as he has in the past). And my son was the minority race in his classroom last year, the mothers of his African American peers holding jobs ranging from low-paying customer service fields to more-than-comfy-lifestyle-supporting careers as lawyers.

We still have a ways to go, as I have been reminded--I have known Black mothers that still teach their teenage sons to be very careful when they drive as they are easy targets for being pulled over. I see a minority still struggling in schools across the city in the tougher neighborhoods. I listen to the stories that my husband tells after his encounters at his university with young Black women trying to fight their way up and out to a better life. It's one step at a time, steadily forward I hope, and further away from "gardener's toilets", signs marked "colored only", and other reminders of a difficult and ugly past.

Primary Lessons With Race

Apparently, it's never too early to learn how to get along with others who may appear different from yourself.

My son attends a pre-school with a high minority enrollment. It's a wonderful place and has been the best learning environment that he has experienced to date. One of the benefits of his attendance at this pre-school is that, due to the number of minority members in his class, he has become friends with many kinds of kids. Children here range from low-income to upper middle class. They reside in the beautiful historic district and the modest ranch homes on the edge of the city. Their parents span the labor range--from house painters to lawyers, regardless of race. Families also come from all over the world--not just the States, but Mexico, Asia, and Western Europe. I love seeing that this group, with its diverse dynamic, works together.

One day, I sat with my son at school breakfast. Across from him sat two little children, one lean little blonde haired fair-skinned boy and a chubby, taller girl of African American descent. The two children could not appear more different. Nor did they share the same accent or dialect. The little girl flung her arm around the boy's neck.

"He's my brother!" she announced proudly.
"Of course he is! I can see the family resemblance!" I said.

Later, I took my son's teacher aside and shared the story. As we stood there laughing, she said that this place taught the children one of the finest lessons--there are obvious differences, she said, but we are all friends here. So this past weekend, another classmate, Briana, asked my son to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. My husband happily escorted our little fellow to see his friends, but because my spouse is not in the school as often as I am, he does not know the little faces and names of all these wee children.

"Which one is Briana?" my husband asked Tiny.
"The brown one," answered our boy simply. My husband laughed and sent me a picture, my sandy haired son happily engaged with a dozen brown faces. I hope these days of getting along stay within the hearts of all these children forever. I wish it were always this simple, too.

The following day, I took the children roller skating at a rink in a predominantly black neighborhood on a different side of town. While we were among the few white folk there, what I noticed most of all was the enormous number of families skating together--moms and dads with children. I loved watching my little almost-five-year-old son, who could barely skate himself, stop to help other children that had fallen. He made friends with a number of moms and dads who coached their kids from the safe outskirts of the rink. My daughter clung to the rink rail and giggled with other kids who tried to scoot past her without falling themselves. We had a delightful time.

When we left, a gentleman stopped me for conversation, passed me his business card, and invited me to an adult skate night that the rink holds weekly. I ended up contacting him later. He emailed me to say that had he thought of saying so when we met, he would have recommended a rink in a neighborhood where we "might feel more comfortable" (as he so eloquently stated). I responded that my children and I are comfortable anywhere people are polite and welcoming, and that frankly, I thought it was important that my little ones experience city life, a place where real people exist, not just one socio-economic dynamic.

I am not blind to cultural differences, to problems relating to race or income levels, and I don't tout the phrase, "It's just color." History is deeper than appearance alone. Neighborhoods are still segregated in a rather unspoken way.  Children of  less-fortunate families and neighborhoods are bused into the better districts in hopes of providing better environments for one group and providing a well-rounded social education for all. (Busing--a difficult topic, and one for another day). My son, being so young, so unselfconsciously discusses color, while my daughter hesitates and expresses concern. My hope for my children is that they recognize they are ambassadors for all they represent, not just their own fair skin color, but their family history, their home, their schools, and for crying out loud, their mother's hard work to rear them with manners, education, empathy, and social graces. I hope that their ability to be at home in a variety of social settings and environments comforts not just them, but those around them.