The Ending Is Up To Me

Note: If you read this post, please also read post script

It is Saturday, shortly after 6:00 AM.  Like always, I awoke around 5:00.  Once again I awakened with a mental picture.  I was in some city walking alone just observing my surroundings.  There didn’t seem to be many people around.   That is, until I approached an intersection.   Around the corner a large flood of people came running.  They were headed in the opposite direction as I.  After the last few stragglers ran past me, I turned to see where they were all going.  All I saw was a mass of people running.  It could have been the running of the bulls in Pamplona.  People seemed to be that frenzied and wild. 

Since I wasn’t in that fuzzy, strange zone between sleep and wakefulness, I assume this was the beginning of a dream, interrupted.  And I know exactly why I was in this dream.  We watched The Help last night.  I had seen it with by book group friends when it first hit the theatres.  And I had read the book.  But Allan had not, so he ordered it from Netflix.  He was left wondering why some had criticized the book and movie.  But more importantly, he was stunned to be faced with a portrayal of the time in our history when some of our citizens lived under the Jim Crow laws.  He was touched towards the end of the movie when Michael pulled out the chair for Minny so she could sit and enjoy the meal Celia had prepared for her. 

As is usually true when faced with parts of not only our history, but that of the world, I was left wondering if I would have put myself at risk by doing as Aibileen did?  Would I have had that kind of courage?  But being Caucasian, I wonder more if I would have been a Eugenia?  Would I have had the compassion to take a good look at how others were treated?   I would like to think that, like Skeeter (Eugenia), I would take a look around and question.  I would like to know, without any doubt, that I would do my own thinking and not be so cowardly as to follow the crowd.  And certainly I would like to think I would not have allowed myself to be bullied into decisions by one nasty person, friend or not.  If not, I would like to think that I would at least listen to and be influenced by people like Eugenia. 

You know, I think what happened during the time depicted by this movie is similar to what is happening now.  Or at least that is how I see it.  I see people, especially fellow Christians, it seems, to be going with the crowd.  And  just like those who run in front of the bulls in Pamplona, they are frenzied, frightened runners.  They think they are running towards “safety”.  They think they are trying to outrace the evil of not being true to our founding fathers and what was intended by them.  (I have yet to figure out how anyone knows what men dead over two hundred years “intended”.  But some sound very sure they can.  They say with certainty how things should be, based on what these dead guys intended. )  They think they know exactly what the race is that they are running. 

Wait a minute.  I’m wrong.  I said they “think”.  But I’m not so sure that is the case.  I believe they are running and racing without thought;  just like that circle of women blindly following and allowing themselves to be controlled by Hilly Holbrook. Those women “thought” Hilly was right about “separate but equal”.  And about protecting their children from using the same bathroom as their Black nannies.  BUT they never questioned about disease being transferred to their children from saliva, for example, when kissed by those same Black nannies.  They never thought about or questioned if dangerous germs were also transferred to the children when the maid/nanny had a cold, did they?  And they never thought to ask themselves why they let one person have such sway over the lives of their families, did they?  So, like I said, thought never played a role in the decisions they made about much of anything.  One, just one, negative, nasty voice was more than enough to squelch any mindful, thoughtful approach to life.  In the land of liberty, they willingly gave up their freedom to make individual choices; their freedom to disagree with the powerful.  Sounds like the exact opposite of what the founding fathers did, doesn’t it?  They insisted on the liberty to make decisions independent of England.  They fought against the power that was England at the time.

So, I have concluded that today the race many are running is not against the evil of societal decisions that are in opposition to what the founding fathers intended.  Although I feel sure that many sincerely believe just that.  But, if you think about it, the evil Hilly railed against in The Help was not the real danger at all.  The true peril lay in the act of joining the running crowd without any consideration of or even desire to know where that crowd wanted and fully “intended” to go.  Today we have voices that are nasty, divisive, without respect for others, especially minorities.  And what a crowd apparently willing to chase after them!  But I wonder if, rather than running towards the moral, “Christian” high ground being lauded by those nasty but very loud, authoritative voices, they are not actually being chased.  And maybe by a pursuer far more dangerous than the bulls of Pamplona.  The bulls of Pamplona can only kill or harm physically.  These who are actually in pursuit of the running crowd today, all while appearing to lead the crowd, are much more destructive.  They are powerful in their knowledge of how to use fear.  It is used as a disguise for hatred, condescension, and love of power and control.  The Help, both the book and the film, illustrate this powerfully; in a way not to be missed by any reader or film viewer.  Hilly painted her hate as fear of disease and love and concern for the children to whose needs neither she nor her friends attended.   These pursuers can kill compassion and love for others, the very types of feelings that surely the founding fathers “intended”, since they were Christians.  (Everyone says they founded our country on Christian principles, right?)  Does history not abound with the resulting chaos once these identifying characteristics of a society are destroyed? 

Going back to my dream.  Maybe, just maybe it is a really good thing that it went unfinished.  This way, I can carry the image of standing very still at the intersection before deciding to continue in the direction I was going or to follow that crowd.  I didn’t see the bulls chasing the crowd. I have no doubt, however, that they were there.  And I don’t want the true life in me gored by such creatures.  Instead, I get to choose my own ending for the dream.  I think I’ll take inspiration from Skeeter and Aibileen.

PS  I am aware of criticism of The Help.  I know, for example, that the Association of Black Women Historians feel strongly that the book is not historically accurate as a portrayal of the lives and experiences of Black domestics.  However, even admitting that this organization if far better able to offer critic, I still see it as at least a basis for discussion and awareness.  I say this because the families of several friends had Black maids during their growing up years.  These are nice, compassionate, wonderful people.  They shared their reaction to the book with me.  In each and every case they were concerned about how those maids might have been treated.  To their knowledge they were treated well.  But they do wonder if there was a lack of awareness about them as people.  They all hope they, although having been just children, were kind and respectful.  But all say they just don’t remember much.