Preview

Examples Of Injustice In The Help

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1053 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Examples Of Injustice In The Help
Injustice in Jackson
“You should never be fearful about what you are doing when it’s right” (newseum.org), this was once said by civil rights activist, Rosa Parks. When a white passenger on a segregated city bus asked Parks to move, she refused to do so. She did what was righteous, not looking at the repercussions. A novel that explores this concept is The Help, written by Kathryn Stockett, and set in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960’s. This book is about three different women – Eugenia ‘Skeeter’ Phelan, Minny Jackson, and Aibileen Clark – coming together to write a book and start a movement that changes Jackson, and the way the people view division of race forever. Stockett mimics Parks’ views with the evolution of Skeeter’s character: one should always do what is right, no matter the consequences. This is demonstrated by depicting Skeeter’s journey during the book: she
…show more content…
Although people may get hurt in the process, it is important to do what is right no matter the ramifications. The book, Help, written by Skeeter Phelan with the help of Aibileen Clark, Minny Jackson, and other maids was dangerous to write, let alone publish. For all these people to put their lives in jeopardy to bring justice for coloured people is incredibly magnanimous. The issues with injustice are still seen in society today, victims like Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown Jr., and endless more, have been killed by the police because of the colour of their skin. Because of this injustice, The Black Lives Matter Movement has thousands of people who currently protest police brutality in streets all over North America. Just as Skeeter and the housekeepers who helped write her book, these people are doing what is right knowing the consequences can be deadly. As a leader of the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr. once said “the time is always right to do what is right”

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    “Let’s stop believing that our differences make us superior or inferior to one another”- Don Miguel Ruiz. The novel “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett is a controversial and heart-wrenching story that depicts the cruel brutality and inequality that African Americans faced in Jackson, Mississippi during the early 1960’s. In the novel, Stockett shows the inequality between races, how Caucasian Americans believed they were superior, and the bigotry between social classes through the characterization of the main characters and bringing forth facts from that time setting. These issues have changed over the years but are yet still here in a more subtle way.…

    • 102 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    We foster and celebrate practices that nurture living and learning in an atmosphere of caring, respect and mutual accountability.1 The cover of the book itself is the epitome of what a community should be. On the cover, there is a picture of a young black boy in the middle of the street, who no one seems to be paying any attention. Although the picture is fixated on him, behind him seems to be a rally of some kind with thousands of people. As they march through the streets holding signs, it is a truly poignant photo. It is a sincerely inspirational sight, which Dr. Hill also describes in his book. After eighteen year-old, Michael Brown, was shot and killed by police, “...crowds of protesters appeared in Oakland, Los Angeles, Dallas, Denver, Washington, Minneapolis, Chicago, Atlanta, and New York [stood] in solidarity” (Hill 12). People were outraged about Michael Brown’s death, and most of them never even met him. It is beautiful to think that all of these people care enough to get together and try to make a change. There is a strength in numbers and those numerous protesters prove…

    • 462 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first thought that comes to mind when talking about racism is the separation of two races based on skin tone. “In 1960, when a six-year-old girl enrolled in a white school in New Orleans, parents withdrew their white children in her class. She was the only child in her classroom for over a year.”(Baughman et. al.). In the 1960s, African Americans were mistreated in the US, mostly in the south. Kathryn Stockett, the author, assumed that society wouldn’t be as understanding in her writing The Help, because many wouldn’t clasp the fact that the nation was discriminating.(Stockett). For her, though, it was convenient to write about the other side of the situation in this era. “I don’t have to think about the dialect. It wasn’t hard for me to get that musicality on the page because I started writing the voice of Demeitre and she sounded exactly the way I wrote her.”(Stockett). Growing up, she had an African American maid,Demeitre, in which she got close with, and being accustomed to her always being around, it later got her to write Aibileen’s parts in the…

    • 248 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jackson, Mississippi is widely known as one of the most racist areas in America. The Help, directed by Tate Taylor, is set in 1964 Jackson, Mississippi and is based on the segregation and racism towards the African American maids in America. An idea in The Help that I thought was interesting was racism. I thought this was interesting because of how different it is to today’s society with the laws against racial discrimination. Taylor portrayed the idea of racism through the use of film techniques and dialogue.…

    • 831 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    It all began with Trayvon Martin, a young black man who was shot and killed by officer George Zimmerman. Trayvon was a 17-year-old student who lived in Miami Gardens, Florida. He was fatally shot by Zimmerman back in 2012 and according to CNN, the U.S. Justice Department declared that federal civil charges were not brought against the crimes of George Zimmerman. This being said Black Lives Matter is often misinterpreted by others as a terrorist group that believes that black lives are far more important than any other racial group. The black lives movement is to raise awareness for the equality of the lives of these visible minorities. “Police killed at least 346 black people in the U.S. in 2015” (Mapping Police Violence). This clearly demonstrates how privileged white police officers use their authority to kill defenceless and harmless African Americans. Why should members of the black community have to walk down the streets in fear? Why should members of the black community have to protest for equality in 2016? Why should members of the black community be labelled as “violent” and shot even when unarmed? Modern society has…

    • 740 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A rising problem in our world today is police brutality. It is happening everywhere and little to nothing is being done to stop it. Then what is being done to help is being undone by rival movements, damaging media coverage, and violence against innocent people. The “Black Lives Matter“ movement was created to bring awareness to the atrocities facing the African American population today. But due to the reasons mentioned previously, their efforts aren't doing much or anything to help, and as more and more people of color are being executed the more tension builds between minorities and the police, which continues the vicious circle.…

    • 772 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    People of color do not feel safe when law enforcement is around, they feel as if they’re constantly being targeted. The perpetrator George Zimmerman, had the law enforcement on his side. Nationwide hundreds of people went against Zimmerman and the fact that he is a free man who gets to walk away with murder. The injustice and uncertainty that a family goes through after a loss of an innocent loved one is unfair, and should not be held accounted for. The victim now lost a life and leaves behind his family, with unanswered questions. After the death of Trayvon Martin, the million hoodie march occurred in Manhattan NY, in memory of the young unarmed teen. People stereotype individuals that look, dress and come from a certain ethnicity. Martin’s clothing at the time led Zimmerman into having suspicious thoughts because of the hoodie he was wearing and because the color of his skin. Millions of people marched in hoodies in the streets of Manhattan, to put an end into racial profiling. Racial profiling occurs because usually, people look for suspects who are dressed a particular way that might categorize them into crimimals. The ending result of this march was to find justice for Trayvon Martin (Staff, 2013). An innocent life was ended because of the color of his skin and wardrobe. Regardless of what society might do to find justice for an…

    • 2047 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Racism is an important ethical issue facing the United States. Although the 1960s Civil Rights movement denormalized racist behavior and discrimination against African-Americans and other minorities, racism never truly disappeared. Thus, the Black Lives Matter movement surged as a response to the “extrajudicial killings of Black people by police and vigilantes” and serves “to re(build) the Black liberation movement.” Despite BLM’s good intentions to heal race relations in the country, the movement is met with criticism and questioned for its legitimacy.…

    • 677 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Even though racism is and has always been an issue, we don’t often think about all the ways it can affect people of color. One example of this is environmental justice and racism, this is where corporations dump environmentally hazardous or degraded elements, such as toxic waste, pollution and urban decay near low-income or minority communities (Environmental Racism 2012, 1). It’s another unjust way African Americans have been and still continue to be treated. Many families have grown up in danger of being affected by these harmful substances and haven’t had a fair say when it comes to the accumulation of waste proximal to their area. From the early 1920s-1978, more than 80% of Houston's garbage landfills and incinerators have been located…

    • 646 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Black Lives Matter movement is a notable and remarkably important social movement for the recognition of significant issues and concerns of African Americans. The Black Lives Matter movement has been considerably successful in disassociating themselves from an oppressive society which had previously forced them to live strained and expected lifestyles through strong advocacy. With the year coming to a halt, the BLM movement has set the groundwork for a modern social change movement. Today, the BLM campaign plays a crucial role in shaping American society and the people in it; they have an active social life and participate in various social and cultural structures.…

    • 105 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Child interviewing techniques derived from transcripts of the McMartin Preschool case were found to be substantially more effective than simple suggestive questions at inducing preschool children to make false allegations against a classroom visitor. Thirty-six children interviewed with McMartin techniques made 58% accusations, compared with 17% for 30 children interviewed with suggestive questions. Social influence and reinforcement appeared to be more powerful determinants of children's answers than simple suggestive questions. The SIRR model is proposed to explain how false statements may be elicited from children or adults. Categories identified in the SIRR model are suggestive questions, social influence, reinforcement, and removal from direct experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]…

    • 2090 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Help Racism

    • 1926 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Racism is an issue that has affected African Americans, of all shades of color, for centuries, and although it is less noticeable, it continues to do so. Less than 100 years after the abolishment of slavery, the 1960s was a time where racism was prevalent, but not openly discussed. Schools, lunch counters, and buses were segregated in the effort of peace between the races, but consequently, things became worse. Slavery may have ended but a new version of domestic servitude has taken its place as depicted in The Help by Kathryn Stockett. In the novel, black women who are solely dependent on their white employers are trapped within a cycle of injustice in the workplace. Despite both races' individual attempts to achieve equality as depicted in…

    • 1926 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    “Blacks are presumed to be up to no good, to be no good. Black lives are flippantly extinguished, not least by cops, by state representatives, by law and order” (David Goldberg). As days go by blacks will always be looked down on, the lack of respect that is showed by authority and courtrooms are ridiculous. The law enforcement thinks killing, hurting, and brutality beating blacks will get them to stop acting in a disrespectful manner. In order for police officers to have the respect from blacks they must treat them with the same respect. Movement focuses on the fact that black citizens have long been far more likely than whites to die at the hands of the police, and is of a piece with this history. Black people have endured for struggles then white people. The lack of indisputable acts towards blacks does not democrat who they are as people. the lives of black citizen in this country has a historical background to why blacks act a certain way. Blacks have been discounted, Misunderstood, and understandably uncomfortable with their skin because they are living in fear that police officers will take there life away from them at any second. Being in a world where black will never gain the respect for police is hard to live by. typically African Americans fear for what the future will look like. As time goes by police do not notices how many lives they have taken from the black community. To see that racial discrimination is continuing through generation after generation is hard to deal with. As blacks want to be able to lend cops there trust, it's kind of hard if police officers are just going around killing blacks for the pleasure and feeling some type of towards their action and the percussion that they have to make. As young black lives are being taken, and more are…

    • 1436 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The Help the Jim Crow laws are mentioned a lot throughout the movie and black people are reminded that everything is separate but equal. Lynchings were finally abolished in the 1960s, but that didn’t stop the KKK from taking lives, and African Americans faced prejudices every day. The Civil Rights Movement was taking place during this time, which eventually lead to initiatives such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. In To Kill a Mockingbird and in The Help there are good people who don’t see the color of someone’s skin and will treat them like a person, such as Atticus Finch, and Skeeter, who try their very best to do what they think is right. Atticus Finch doesn’t succeed in his story, but the family and friends of Tom Robinson were grateful for his hard work. Skeeter wants to show the stories of the maids and it ends up being a success, once she has to cut certain people out of her life, because they can’t see past their own ignorance. Aibileen, a black women, is the narrator throughout most of the movie, unlike To Kill a Mockingbird where Scout, a young white child is the…

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Injustices are present every day in the workplace and the community. There are several overlapping injustices between the two like lying, discrimination, and the mistreatment of people. However there are also injustices that are specific to each area. Some injustices are witnessed more than others, but each injustice is just as important. Injustices that are being committed can create frustration, unhealthiness, an overall hostile environment, and compromise your relationship with God. “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8 English Standard Version)?…

    • 913 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays