To Be a Skeeter

A few months ago I finally read The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  Correction: a few months ago I finally downloaded and listened to The Help on audiobook, and Mike and I recently watched the movie version.  (Those commercials about audible.com being super awesome are dead on, by the way. Cheap audiobooks are the only reason I've "read" any fiction at all in the last year.)  I loved the book and also really enjoyed the movie; the story touches something in me that's hard to describe.  While the ending comes off as a triumph for the protagonists, so much of the plot gnaws at me, disturbs me, and makes me feel very unsettled and self-doubting.

If you haven't read this book, you should.  It's about women living in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s, some of whom are rich white ladies, some of whom are black maids that work for the rich white ladies.  One of my main characters, Skeeter, is constantly being shown in increasing juxtaposition with one of the side characters, Hilly.  Hilly is a friend of Skeeter's who seems to be the big kahuna in their particular social circle.  She is head of the local women's league, organizes bridge games, and seems to be every other girl's best friend, all while making the most ignorant, spiteful comments about everyone around her, but especially the maids.  Hilly is an absolutely awful human being who presents no redeeming qualities whatsoever.  The confusion and lies surrounding race that have been thrust on her and her friends by their surroundings and upbringing is exacerbated by Hilly's intense desire for control and superiority, so she comes off not only as racist (because pretty much all the white characters in the book come off as racist to us) but as vengeful, vindictive, and just plain old deplorable.  Skeeter, on the other hand, ends the book looking like something of a hero, having stood up to the status quo despite the isolation it has caused her.  I'd argue the only heroes in this story are the maids; Skeeter faces friendlessness for her defiance but the maids risk their very lives to speak out about the unfairness that comes with being black in the 1960s deep South.  But that's beside the point.  The point is that by the end of the story, the reader (listener) sees Hilly and Skeeter on opposite sides.

It's easy for us to look at Hilly with contempt and anger, wondering how anyone could be so stupid and so mean.  When I think about the story of The Help I find myself praying with all my might that, had I been alive in such a time and such a place, I would be a Skeeter.  This is the root of why the book really sticks with me, the unsettling notion that I am, in any way, like Hilly Holbrook, that I am in with her lot.  I can't be an Aibileen, and much as I'd love it, I can't be a Minnie.  No matter how much I try to understand it, I'll never feel their struggle, and I'll never be as honorable or as strong as they are.  So while I abhor everything Hilly stands for, I have to face up to the fact that I am in with her lot.  I am white, I am privileged, I am lucky.  I face no challenges in life because of how I look or who I love.  I can choose to use my privilege wisely, compassionately, and humbly; I can be a Skeeter.  Upon recognition of my unfair advantages, I feel guilty and uncomfortable and a little ashamed.  So I keep trying to understand the struggle, with no firsthand experience of it whatsoever.  I continue to feel guilty, but that seems a pretty small cross to bear, comparably speaking.

Here's the thing: if you think history won't look at our generation's own malicious forms of bigotry the same way we scowl and cringe at Hilly, you are deluding yourself.  So, you have to stand up for your choice.  Hilly or Skeeter?  Yesterday or tomorrow?

...Which brings me to my final point.  Though none of us can say for certain that we would have been on the right side of history then, it appears that our President has {finally} picked his side now, and I am so whole-heartedly with him.  Obama/Biden(/Skeeter) 2012.

Crazy Embodied

Twenty-twelve is just around the corner, and the number of emails I've received from the Obama campaign for re-election has exceeded absurdity.  I delete indiscriminately.  I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to contribute to our President's bid, read his staffers' long-winded sales pitches, or support the impotence of the democrats in general.

The disappointment I feel with Barrack is nearly insurmountable.  That being said, I continue to be appalled by the the right wing in our country, and I am truly afraid of some of the people the Republicans somehow consider normal and/or mainstream.  Case in point: Michele Bachmann.  Michele Bachmann?!  I say it twice because it is surreal.  They have got to be kidding.  I don't really know how this woman has remained an elected official since 2003, and the fact that she is a legitimate potential for the party nomination says so much about our current political state, and it's a sad tale to tell indeed.  Let's review some of my favorite Bachmann tidbits.  She thinks Americorps fakes volunteerism but actually runs "re-education camps" that recruit and indoctrinate our youth to be crusaders of political-correctness and government agendas.  (read: her son was accepted into and joined Teach for America shortly after she said this.  Props, Harrison Bachmann.) During the healthcare debate, she declared that the extremely watered-down version of "Obamacare" as well as its inceptor sought to annihilate us through acorn and the healthcare legislation.  Her statements have frequently crossed the line from nutty into dangerous.  In 2010, she encouraged her constituents and the American public to boycott the census because she felt that it was unconstitutional.  Forget the fact that the census is directly sanctioned in the first article of...wait for it...the constitution. (duh) She preaches to the government (right after cashing her congressional paycheck) to stand down and stay completely out of her life and her business, yet her family's farm receives tens of thousands of dollars each year in subsidies.  Meanwhile, she deems all government programs designed to help people less fortunate than her as full-on socialism.  Apparently government handouts to rich white people is capitalism at its finest, but anything else makes us a bunch of communists.  By the way, those same farm subsidies, mostly in the form of corn subsidies, are directly responsible for famine after famine all over the developing world, but that's an entirely different story.  So, not only does our national agriculture policy prevent people all over the world from feeding themselves, it also lines the pockets of the bootstrap slinging, government-hating {fill in the blank}s we continue to elect into public office.  Outrageous doesn't begin to cover it.  

My main question is essentially this: how can anyone take her seriously?  It's true that all politicians are just that, a bunch of politicians, but Bachmann is a fringe figure at best and she is really being considered as a possible presidential candidate.  She's an extremist, there's no getting around that, and as the tea party amasses a death-eater-like mobilization (their policy agenda is based on fear and ignorance, and I'm convinced that their leadership is pure evil), Barrack continues to marginalize the left.  If he loses the general election it won't be because of the swing voters, the tea party, or any other group that they say matters in the news.  It will be because of the disenchanted libs and young people who have stopped adding to his coffers and, dare I say it, may not bother to vote the second time around.   For the love of God, Dems, try to pull it together.  I don't want to live in a country where this woman is considered half-way normal.  There's no nice way for me to spin it; she's nuts.