Author's note: Judging. It isn't the best path of life to follow. Years ago it was that you practically had to judge people on their skin color. You had to stay away from people with dark skin because everyone said that they had "diseases." There was no way you could change the way people thought. You were alone, but people tried and it cost them their lives. In "The Help," by Kathryn Stockett, a group of people get together and write a book about their lives working for other people, and they have to keep it a secret so they won't be killed or go to jail.
There are people in the world that just aren’t fair. They judge people by how they look or how they act. If someone sees someone that walks into the room with torn, faded clothes, they automatically think that the person is weird or mean. If someone walks in with bright, new clothes on, they think that the person was cool, or rich. In the book "The Help," people are judged by their skin color. If they have dark skin, they have to live in the worst part of town, with rickety houses and have to work hard for food to feed their family. The woman have to work as maids in the white people’s houses. They cook, clean, babysit, and run errands. The people that own the houses are very cautious about their maids, they had to make sure they didn’t steal anything, or destroy something, or use their bathroom. Yes, the people with dark skin had to use a bathroom outside the house. People back then didn’t have many rights.
Minny, a maid with a husband that beats her and have a bunch of children, was fired from many jobs. She had many stories to tell, of how she used the guest bathroom, or how she sass-mouthed the owners. Her white friend, Miss Skeeter, was a writer. She wrote in the newspaper about cleaning tips. She wanted to write a book on how maid’s lives are working for other people. Not many people are interested in their maid’s lives. All they care about is that their house is clean, their child is alive and healthy, and that they have food in the fridge. The maids have to do everything perfect, or they’re fired. People these days don’t generally think that because of our freedom. We are free to get the job we want, and who works for us. We shouldn’t judge people. It’s like saying people with red hair can’t eat a certain food. What if that’s their favorite food, but then they can’t eat it? It would not be fun. So we shouldn’t judge people. Miss Skeeter sells the book of many maids in the area without people knowing who or where it took place. It would be cool to read a book about the lives of maids around me, to know how they feel about working for other people, not to mention the funny things that they do.
Minny’s stories are so clear to the people that she worked for, they figure out that it was their city that they were talking about, and people got mad. But so many copies were sold, they all got a fair share of money to support themselves and their families. It would be amazing to have someone write about your life and earn tons of money from it.
Kathryn Stockett, the author, made the main point of the book is to tell people that all kinds of people can do great things, not just the people that think they can do anything. Everyone can do something amazing eventually in their lives. The different maids in the book take care of many different children in their careers. Aibileen, one of the maids in the story, took care of a little girl that thought of her as her mother. The little girl didn’t even like her real mother, just the maid. That was Aibileen’s story in the book, along with other people she had worked for, but the last child she cared for was the most special in her opinion. Again, and opinion. In this case, it is kept to herself, so she isn’t going to get into trouble for it.
Another point that was in the book was that the maids didn’t really show that they cared how other people thought about them, they didn’t make any comments about it. So when Miss Skeeter asked them to tell her how their lives were working for other people, they poured out their feelings, emotions. Stories. It is good to tell people your opinion about someone, but at the same time, it isn’t because you might get in trouble. In The Help, it isn’t good to tell your opinion about someone to their face because you could go to jail for life, or get shot in front of your family. The book is a fantastic book to read if you like suspense and learning about people’s lives back then.
Thinking about how people these days judge each other is different than back then, we don’t have people work for other people because of the color of the skin. People shouldn’t judge people on how they look, they were just made that way, and that’s how they should stay.
