The Help

I watched the movie The Help tonight. I'd heard such good things about it, had been looking forward to it for several weeks, and it certainly did not disappoint. I laughed and I cried. Most of all, I began thinking again about racism, something I haven't considered in a while.

Racism is something I never have understood. I can still remember the first time I heard about an incident, although I didn't understand it at the time and certainly didn't know the term "racism". My uncle, newly enlisted in the Navy, had returned home for a visit after being stationed for a brief time down south. I was very young and it was in the early sixties. He'd offered his seat to a pregnant woman on a bus. Both of them had been thrown off the bus for this transgression and the woman had been mad as hell at him because, far from helping her, he'd caused her to have to walk home. I didn't understand it at the time, of course. Not any of it. I only even remembered it because he was one of my heroes and I couldn't imagine what the big deal was or how he could have gotten in trouble for anything. It was many years later that it finally made sense to me, when we learned in school about the civil rights protests and about blacks having to sit in the back.

I guess I should state that I'm white. I grew up (and have returned to) a predominantly white town. But I had black friends growing up and, when I lived in London, I had a lot of them. Black teenagers came to my house, at least two of them did. I never went to theirs. I was never invited. I don't think I even noticed that then or if I did, I didn't relate it to race, which it may not have been. My house, or at least my front porch, was the place many of my friends congregated. A lot of people came to my front porch whose homes I never visited.

But there was this one boy. Not one of the people who hung out at my house. He was a football player. I think he was a quarterback but I can't honestly remember for certain. I was never into "jocks" in the way some girls were. But I do remember that he played very well and people talked about the possibility of him turning pro. He was a year older than me and we sometimes flirted in the hall at school. I thought he had a great sense of humor and, to be honest, I flirted with a lot of boys but didn't date much. I'm not sure why; perhaps the subject of a future blog. Anyway, one day he asked me out. As usual, I politely said no. He looked hurt. Disappointed. And he said, "I didn't think you were one of them."

Which rocked me for quite some time afterwards. He was black, you see, and I was white. It wasn't the reason I hadn't gone out with him but his comment made me question myself. I wasn't "one of them", never had been. But, because he said it, I worried about it. I finally decided that, just as his being black was no reason not to go out with him, the fact that he was black was equally no reason to go out with him. I hadn't ever questioned my reason for not accepting a date with anyone else. I never wondered if I'd declined because he was tall or short or Jewish or Mexican. But then, no one else had ever said to me, "I didn't think you were one of them."

I've lived in several cities in America, three in Ireland, and one in England. In my opinion, people are pretty much the same wherever you go. There are racists and there are normal people who, if they notice color at all, at least don't judge by it.

Although my husband and I tried hard to care for our children ourselves as they were growing up, there was a period of three years when we had to place our oldest son in the care of a childminder. We just couldn't afford during those three years for me to stay at home. We were careful about selecting a childminder. We finally chose a woman who seemed very nice and who had six children of her own (very experienced), all in school (so our pre-school son would not be neglected in favor of her own children while we were at work), and was registered with Social Services. Another factor in her favor as far as we were concerned was the fact that she was white, her husband was black, and their children were mixed-race. My son wasn't growing up with racism in our home and he wasn't going to be influenced in her care.  Or so I thought.

One evening my four year old was telling me about his day. "Christopher is evil," he said. (Christopher was one of the childminder's children.) "Why?" I asked him. "Did he do something to hurt you?" "No," he replied. "He just is." "I don't understand why you think he's evil," I said, "if he didn't do something to hurt you." "Just look how dark he is," my child said to me, "the darker, the more evil." "Why would you think that?" I asked, trying not to show my alarm. "Tracey said so. The darker, the more evil."

I asked for a conversation with the childminder the next evening, as Tracey was Christopher's older sister. She sent the children off to play and she and her husband sat down with my husband and I. I told her about the conversation, a little embarrassed to be raising the subject, but expecting them to be upset and to do something about it. Neither of them batted an eye and in fact didn't seem to understand why it had upset me.

"Oh, you get that all the time," her husband said. "Tracey's lighter so she annoys Chris about it."

I was speechless, so he continued.

"You'll hear the West Indians talk about the Africans and the lighter mixed ones talk about the darker. It's always been that way and you're not likely to change it."

I have always learned lessons from people in my life. Three very wonderful women taught me a lot about racism. All black. One is Ugandan but was living in London when I knew her. Another is British, of West Indian parents. The third was born in the West Indies, grew up in London, and recently returned to a different part of the West Indies. All three are intelligent, strong, articulate women. All three have experienced racism from both whites and blacks. And all three speak out about it, wherever they see it and from whomever it comes. I don't admire these women because of the color of their skin just as I know they didn't befriend and teach me because of the color of mine. I admire them because of their courage. I aspire to being more like them.