We Are Literally Slaves: Summary

“She's just upset because the nigger uses the guest bathroom and so do we.” That is a direct quote from Hilly’s mother about Hilly holding off on using the bathroom inside Elizabeth’s house. Hilly then proceeds to tell everyone about the Home Help Sanitation Initiative that she came up with, to prevent the help from using the same bathroom as them. “They carry different diseases then we do.” This is just a reenactment of one possible incident that the help went through with their boss’. Being told that they are not good enough, but then they are expected to care for the young while the mothers go off and play cards, not being able to use the same bathroom but being expected to cook excuivient meals.

Mrs. Aibileen knew that she would be a maid because both her mother and grandmother were both also maids. According to We Are Literally Slaves, this is a true statement. But not because they were born into it, it is due to the fact that two-thirds of women in the south work in the household in some area. Miss Aibileen also said that she makes a whopping $0.90 per hour. 8 Women Dream says that is equivalent to $7.21 in 2011 whenever the minimum wage was $7.25. These women worked themselves dry and would be exhausted to not even make enough money to live off of.
In the movie, there is a scene where Minny is coming home from work and she is on an all black bus.
All of a sudden, a police officer comes on and tells them that they have to get off, that the road is blocked because of the KKK. With fear setting in them all, they quickly get escorted off the bus and run home. A man asks Minny if she wants to be walked home because she was scared, but she refuses and then runs home as quickly as she could. Southern Poverty Law Center states that there were murders committed by the KKK in Mississippi during this time period, but no details were found on how the community
reacted.

Watching this movie at a young age, I found it purely as entertainment, my naive self did not like to think of America’s past time as this cruel. Rewatching this movie approximately five years later, I see the importance in this movie. Now I know that our past is far from perfect, and I think that this film portrays it very well. It shows the struggles, along with the bonds that some maids formed with their bosses. This film also shows the discriminatory slang that the maids and other citizens got thrown their way. I think that this movie is an accurate portration.

The Help is really an eye opening movie to watch. They are trying to teach us how bad things use to be, and if things keep going the way they are, some events seen in that movie might happen again.