Professional race baiter offended.
News at eleven.

What a piece of b.s.

With Al Sharpton, Melissa Harris, Martin Bashir, etc. PMSNBC is having a competition to find the most racist person in America to host their new show.  The three of them are doing their best to win the prize.

Listen to this utter racist of a woman and her whole diatribe centered around race. She “knows” white men raped their black maids in the ’60s and that’s perfectly fine to spread around by skin and anecdote. But let me talk about the DOJ’s own statistics on rape, that show black men raping white women wholesale now and today, while white men show virtually no interest in doing such a thing to black women, and then it’s either irrelevant or that is in itself racist. I guess she never heard of Whoopi Goldberg funkifying nuns or movies where black folks put the “soul” in our otherwise lifeless, oom-pah-pah musical instruments or other dumb movies where a black character steps in to “keep it real” for clueless white folks. Joseph Goebbels in cornrows is all this woman is. Thanks for sourcing that rape nonsense “Joe,” maybe next time we can hear you exaggerate lynching out of all proportion to reality because to listen to people like “Joe,” it was as common and as fun as picnic.

I have always thought the whole premise of the movie is b.s.  Let’s see Viola Davis show off those good looks and hot body in a real movie, instead of some misplaced white-guilt trip that nobody but the popcorn set seems to like.

I saw the movie. The criticism presented in this segment is very harsh and mostly unjustified. The author of the book has the right as anyone else to capture her feelings of her past. I am not aware that she is claiming she had written a thesis. The success of the movie and the book raised the awareness for the subject and that´s def worse something.

a lot of MHP’s criticism of “The Help” is about what the film doesn’t do and what “hollywood” isn’t offering black actress and I believe that if judge “The Help” for what it is, you’ll come away more appreciative of it. MHP should stop focusing and giving more publicity to film she finds counter productive to the black community and give other non-Tyler Perry black filmmakers more publicity, who legitimately deserve and need it, like Dee Rees who wrote and directed last year’s great film “Pariah” which is about coming of age story about a lesbian black teenager that has to deal homophobia in her family and community at large.     

I entirely agree with Harris-Perry!

I’ve never seen a more condescending piece of crap movie.

Just wondering
.Someone said in the clip above mentioned the ” Disneyacation” of the south.
Have you ever wondered why Disney has never released “Song of the South” on video or DVD?
You know …..Zippity do da. Zippity eh….

Even though he had a dining room specifically  for his domestic help while he lived at Hyde Park, FDR would still make his black servants dine together in the kitchen by themselves.

We agree again!

If she were alive, Moms Mabley  would set these witches right. And ladies, who in the hell ever said one book could ever represent the entire experience of any group?

Next the group will explain who Superman did not accurately represent all the people from Krypton.

” had it been pitched as entirely fictional.”

Aaaah, it was a  on the NYT’s Best FICTION books list- get it?- that means it is fictional- what more do you need to be told. On the books cover, it says “a novel.” What do ya think that means?

Novel: “a fictitious prose narrative of considerable length and complexity, portraying characters and usually presenting a sequential organization of action and scenes.”

Exactly!!

Who cares what this race pimp ( or is it pimpette in the case of women) has to say.
She is a very devisive person…..MSNBC is a disgrace for giving a forum to racists like “Rev” Freddies Fashion Mart Sharton and Martin Bashir .

The good thing is that they have no ratings to speak of

Uh oh… I better start rethinking things.

I must be slipping…

So, if I understood what you’re saying, you’re envious of Dr. Harris-Perry’s relative affluence and her sterling education?

I don’t necessarily disagree with your review. However, I went to Georgetown, the very heart of Crackerville, picked up my aged aunt and took her to lunch and to see this film when it first came out. She enjoyed it thoroughly, and every Cracker was clapping. The movie may speak better to and even somewhat transform people of an older generation.

Somehow, I am not surprised. But, I may not be able to relate. In my part of Texas, all of the domestics were immigrants.

Do we have to go through this again, my paramour?

OK. And Washington owned slaves.
 So what’s your point?

It’s called Guilt relief.

this harris whats her name is the product of a mixed marriage of a white and black like obunny…they are born not knowing what they are and feel deprived…the Help,which I am waiting to read is a NOVEL,not fact,a work of fiction…harris whats her name needs to stop whining and glad she has been priveldged for a good education and should get a real job and get off the race issue,it has no validity..

It is always good to hear an Irishmans position on how African Americans should feel about their history and how they are depicted in a book or movie. I sure they care deeply how you feel.
Maybe we can get Spike Lee to to a movie about St. Patrick?.

Portnoy’s Complaint and Catcher in the Rye are also novels, but people have been worked up about them for years.

Mellisa Hyphen Harris Hyphen Perry Hyphen is absolutely not watchable!
AWFUL
This show is going to be another ratings disaster for MSNBC!
BUT
What else is NEW??
However, what I do want to know is
Where did Elton find that stingy brim hat?
I gots to have me one of those!!!!!

As soon as I read Obunny. It was over.
I can not take you seriously.

 Of course!

Well, in my family we didn’t call them “domestics”.

We called them Mr. and Mrs. Bay and they essentially raised us.

Hardly, though I DO love Charlottesville and its environs. Growing up as the child of a black professor of African-American studies at UVa and a white, formerly Mormon, mother who taught at community college, means that her p.o.v. was skewed to the far Left from the get-go, most particularly regarding relationships between the races. 

 To me is seemed the opposite. 

I thought the black characters were props to the white character’s consciousness raising.

As a young white girl of 14, growing up in Spokane, Washington it was on our first TV set that I was allowed to see children my own age trying to attend a white only high school in Little Rock.  Those scenes of rage/hate/fear and courage are permanent and vivid images some 55 years later. When the book “The Help’ came out, my first thoughts were that it would be something akin to ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’.  It is not, in my opinion, any where near. It reminds me of [1960's] Emmit Till, a young black boy visiting the south from his home in a northern state, who whistled at a white woman and was beaten into an unrecognizable deathly pulp….and in this novel, a black maid puts ‘her shit’ in a chocolate pie [oh, haha] and not only lets a white woman eat it but tells her what it is made of….and lives to help write down the story for everyone to read!!!  No, I agree with Melissa 110%…this book is popular today, in part, because too many don’t know the real history of discrimination be it Black, Native American, Chinese, Japanese or Hispanic…this is where  there are thousands upon thousands of true stories to be told…not made up falsehoods. The popularity of the popularity of this book and movie only saddens and discourages me.

Don’t be too saddened sweetheart.  At you’re age you won’t be around too much longer.  Enjoy the little time you have left.

I can’t believe you got 6 likes for that POS comment…seriously.

I am soooooooooooooo sick and tired……you cannot say one thing…give one opinion on ANY subject whatsoever without it being turned into a RACE thing or being called a racist. The word has no meaning anymore….because it is thrown around so casually. PSMESSNBC is a race-baiting un-watchable channel from beginning of the day to the end. Obviously…..they have no viewers..hence no ratings….killed by FOX ALWAYS!!!!! woohoo!!!!

This is clearly where the ignorant gather

I find it interesting that in my experience here at Mediaite,  the most scurrilous, vile, scatological, racist and vicious attacks come from the “compassionate” Left. 

This never-never land you grew up seems so idyllic.  I’m sure the Black women who worked for you felt lucky to have decent people to work for, but I don’t think it was like this for everyone .  I don’t think you know the whole story either.

Well don’t you think your point of view is skewed growing up the child of wealthy Southerners?

If their opinions are of no consequence, then why are you so butt hurt over their opinions on race?  Racism is real, just because people have the nerve to point it out doesn’t make it less so.  Oh ya, it’s a post-racism world…or better yet, a reverse-racism world, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Calling a Black person racist is the new in thing to do, doncha know?

Then it’s obviously appropriate that Foster is here.

How sad.

Ok…MHP was a tenured professor at Princeton University, and current professor of Political Science at Tulane. She also has a nationally televised two hour cable news program on the weekends.

 What’s your resume again, ladyeatle?

–Cobra

“they are born not knowing what they are and feel deprived”What are they?

Harris-Perry is author of the well received new book, Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America (Yale 2011) which argues that persistent harmful stereotypes-invisible to many but painfully familiar to black women-profoundly shape black women’s politics, contribute to policies that treat them unfairly, and make it difficult for black women to assert their rights in the political arena.  

I think she has some authority to speak on the subject, no?  What books have you written recently that can address this topic?

“Her panelists agreed”

Isn’t this line necessary in any coverage of a discussion on MSNBC. I mean Fox has its own echo chamber problem. But these guys take the cake every day.

She’s awful…….to you!  Do you really think you hurt anyone’s feelings when you talk about low ratings…or Faux’s fabulous ratings?  Really?   Really?  

I have always enjoyed her and her little lisp.  She’s so bright and I find her commentary so refreshing.  Go on now, the Blondes are waiting for you over at Faux.

What a nutjob.  Oh, I do so hope there is a hell…because of people like you.  Okay, I’m over it, go on with your sad miserable life.  You’ve probably been served one too many shit pies in your life.

Crackers !!  Cheetos !!  Cheez-itz !!

The South is still very ugly.  I wouldn’t live there. 

Oh, by the by, I apologize for my fellow human, if indeed he is human, as I have my doubts.

Please see my reply to whoyoukidding.  We have not stock in MSNBC.  We don’t care about their ratings.  If we like a show we watch it, it’s not a competition.  Yes, I know, it’s a good thing, because we would lose….blah, blah, blah.  You win, lots of idiots watching your shows and we have a select number of intelligent people watch our shows.

In a sense, SOTS is like Huckleberry Finn – except Clemens was making a deliberate point in his book, whereas SOTS comes off gratuitously howl-worthy due to the same sentiment that made Birth Of A Nation so popular. It should still come out, because it’s got value both as a work of art – among the best full-lengh cartoons ever – and as an historical documenting of obliviousness. 

Alright,let me assume you feel the need to defend this person,maybe you are a black citizen who feels the need to so.I do thought find it intersting that you list on a web page that you are a writer,songwriter,singer illustrator,etc,very pretentious….I will not dignify your question…Suffice to say I am educated,worked in the private sector which means I did not enjoy tenure where you may say anything and even work below par and not lose your job…As for her 2 hour cable program,anybody with a strong liberal bent could be,without any talent,on that network….so it tells me nothing other then she finds “boogymen”in every corner…

I recently met Professor Perry when she gave a lecture at my University. Had a nice conversation with her, got my picture taken, and she signed a copy of her latest book. Only problem I had was that when I looked inside my book, I found that she had inscribed the title page with “The Struggle Continues.” Weird because of how cheerful she was while signing the book while at least three quarters of a full auditorium was flocking to get her autograph and speak with her on the Monday before she started her own show on MSNBC (*cough* the struggle continues *cough*).

Regardless, I actually find Perry to be a cool drink of water compared to racial heavies like Sharpton, Bashir, O’Donnell, Dowd, etc. She at least seems patient enough to collect all information before coming to a conclusion, even if she is prone to injecting identity politics and her knowledge of Civil Rights history where they have no place, ex. the Brewer/Obama conflict connected to the Little Rock Nine Photo for some reason or other.

Here, though, I do agree with Perry. IMHO, “The Help” hails from a long line of patriarchial “blaxploitation” films starting with “Imitation of Life” in 1934 all the way up through “To Sir with Love” and “Guess Whose Coming to Dinner” up to films like “Glory,” “Driving Ms. Daisy,” most recently ”The Blind Side,” and even “The Long Walk Home” or “The Color Purple,” to an extent. Let’s face it – we have an African American man in the White House, and an African American First Lady, and we’re still glorifying films centered on romanticized views of the black servant lacking the will power to effect positive change on their own accord. We can do better – we deserve better, than “The Help” or the melodramatic soap that Tyler Perry churns out like butter. I never thought I’d end up saying this, but where’s Spike Lee when you need him?   

You are SO right, Titz – her father’s skin tone & her high achievement upbringing worked tragically to deny her the opportunity to become a bigot. 

“Maybe we can get Spike Lee to … a movie about St. Patrick” – which would really have to be named Snakes On A Castle; memorable line: ’Will someone please get these m**herf**king snakes off this m**herf**king Blarney stone?’

Yeah, it’s so easy for white folks these days to figure being a black slave couldna been all THAT bad. Look folks, it was deeply bad: it was people OWNING people, doing anything they wanted with their “property”.

Make That 7 !!

I actually thought this was a pretty terrific start to her new show. I have to say that I’ve never like Miss HP as a guest or guest host, because she comes off to me too preachy. But as ACTUAL host, she’s got the room she needs, & this was really quite good. I particularly liked the opening segment on libertarianism, with Matt Welch making one of the best appearances I’ve ever seen him make on msm – the two of them gave a terrific thumbnail sketch of the concept insofar as it relates to the American experience. That caused me to what all the OTHER segments, which were also a lot better than I’d have expected. I would argue now that msnbc may well end up with 4 ‘great’ shows in its current line-up: Maddow of course; Chris Hayes’ Up, so far at least; increasingly LO’Ds Last Word, which is still a bit spotty but getting stronger each week; & now MHP.  

But to me, you can keep the rest – they’re too dispiritingly superficial; more accurate than fuppets but a lot less entertaining.

Hey, go look at the other segments on her show today; you’ll have to change your mind – so you won’t do it.

That’ll work out just fine, there’s nothing available here anyway.  We’ll let you know if anything comes open.

Not a fan of roadkill, or Heehaw.

To my knowledge, this movie is not set in the pre-Civil War era.

As I said, get off the cross, Melissa Harris Perry, we do need the wood.

Whether you like it or not, many of the movies you mention are based on actual people’s lives. I have never watched all of “Driving Miss Daisy” because I didn’t need to- it was a story I’ve lived peripherally, with the African-American man who raised my husband. He began working for my in-laws when he was 18, and owns a farm and a beautiful home next door to Reverend KirbyJon Caldwell. He’s the only grandfather my kids have ever known and I treasure this man beyond measure. At family weddings, funerals and christenings, he and his wife always sat “within the ribbons,” as family always does. 

Do you grievance-mongerers “feel” the same “outrage” when you watch “Downton Abbey?”

If she’s had a “sterling” education make mine copper.

Skin color doesn’t endow genetic knowledge, knowledge does. You’re making a racist argument without thinking of the flip side. Are blacks then more knowledgeable about crime?

It’s 2012.

The same reason I don’t want David Duke being accepted as mainstream. Get this racist moron off the air.

I can’t believe Harris can get on national TV and congratulate Obama for liberating “black bodies” from the prison system and not only not get called out but protected by you. Have a white commentator say that during the Bush era about white bodies and see what you get. White folks don’t even say things like that on mainstream TV and still get called out. Your world is upside down and backwards and being black is no shield against being an utter racist as is this woman.

HItler and Goebbels wrote; so what?

Actually it does have meaning: it means anyone who distributes traits negative or positive by skin color. Ignoring the skin color of people who do it is apparently beyond the capacity of half the people here. Liberals. Any one who doesn’t understand Perry is a Goebbels look-alike is perceptually challenged. She distributes and connects morality and guilt by skin color and across generations but only in one direction. Her conclusion: white people bad, black people good. All things being equal one would think all things are equal but in Perry’s empty head they’re not.

@yahoo-UCQE6A7YKC3BOGL2HABPCVYE2A:disqus
wow, just wow….what makes it so important to you that things never improve?

I understand that, but Spike Lee’s ”Do the Right Thing”, which was released in the same year as Daisy but unlike Daisy got snubbed by the Academy Awards, also  has basis in reality. One might argue that things have gotten worse in urban New York, rather than better. Inner city violence is as real as anything else, but some film scholars act like the film doesn’t exist because it threatens them, unlike Morgan “Rochester Anderson” Freeman in Driving Ms. Daisy (don’t kill me, I’m just saying). Hollywood has always preferred subtle, progressive social critique as opposed to films that challeng the status quo and social norm directly, in the way that Do the Right Thing has.  

 Glory is based on actual historical events, but I find it to be a marginally patriarchial film told from the perspective of a Caucasian who views them through a certain lense which is never properly critiqued. Now, that may be subjective, but I feel the only decent one is Denzel Washington’s character, which was never as fleshed out as he could have been, at least compared to Broderick’s character. Washington has since gone on to do phenomonal jobs at a variety of roles much juicier than the one to be found in Glory.

 In short, a movie (like, oh I don’t know – “The Help”) can be based on a “true story” and essentially be crap, and a movie can be based on a complete work of fiction and be true to life. That’s how I see it anyway.

Some people are so backward, they don’t see the difference between an educated professor and the KKK.  I mean you.  There’s no help for you.  Keep on truckin!

They love to hate on MSNBC.  They love Fox though, unfortunately all their taste is in their mouth.

Uhm….fascinating.  I feel compassion….for your kin.

Not at all.  We had a ball!

顶顶顶顶顶顶顶

I WISH ::  

Touching rose-colored glasses, totally false relevance of a story u got there…Not every scenario is like yours.

I saw the movie and read the book, and saw it completely opposite – the black women are the ones who were strong, and who grew – they faced their fears, and fought back. They helped Skeeter, Skeeter didn’t help them. She wouldn’t have survived without Constance, Aibileen and Minny. She was raised by Constantine, she loved Constantine, she couldn’t do her job at the paper, she couldn’t write a book, she didn’t have a story to tell. She didn’t even get the idea for the book on her own, it was Aibileen’s son who had the idea.

The black women helped themselves, they did what had to be done to care for their families, they made difficult decisions, they faced their fears, they helped the incapable younger white women, they told their stories, and did so when they chose to. They are the ones who helped Skeeter grow, and shined a light for the others to see, as well. Skeeter was the vessel they used to tell their stories.

I saw it as a story about strength and how those women took great risk to tell their stories. I also thought there were touching moments between the black and white women, as well as showing some of the horrible racism they went through. There were horrible stories but there were also stories of friendship and kindness. 

The woman who wrote the book added her own personal story at the end of the book, and was writing from a place of her own experiences.

“the black woman working in a white household is there because she loves to be there”  - 

Some of them did. Some worked for families for decades, and formed close bonds, raised the children. But, there were many women in the book/film that obviously were not thrilled to be there, and I think that came across very clear. 

I hope Viola and Octavia win Oscars. I thought they were brilliant in the film.

Sorry. But to me it is like romancing a war story. Hemingway wrote beautifully about war and bull fights. Which are truly ugly in real life

That junk you just puked out is complete bullsh*t. You are either an uninformed ignoramus, or a big liar. I go for the latter. 
My mama was a maid for as long as I can remember back then, and yes we lived in the south. Everything MHP said is spot on. Mama had no choice but to be that white family’s maid. First of all for non college educated black women that and the fields was the job market. For college educated black women it was either teaching or LPN nursing. Second if mama refused to serve when “told” to work for that white family, we would all have been in grave danger for her “disobeying” that white woman’s demand. (My uncle refused to work one day when he had the flu, his “boss” demanded he get out his sick bed and go work. Uncle Jack said no, the white man slapped him, uncle Jack kicked his sorry ass real good. He had to immediately run and hide in the woods until he could hobo a train to the north. He was hunted for days by the local lawmen, other white men and dogs. He only had for his protection an ax handle and a pocket knife, a group a 5 white men found him, he cut them up and beat them down with the ax handle, went to NYC where he could not even come back for Granna’s funeral).
That white woman, nor anyone else EVER drove my mama to or from work any days. She worked 6 days a week, for two dollars a day. Mama had to walk, no public transportation in the small town I’m from, no matter the weather. A lot of days sick. The only time that white woman would drive mama was when that white woman had parties at night, mama didn’t want to go but had no choice. 
Mama had a special cup and plate to drink and eat from, she could not use the bathroom in the house, she had to use the one in the “help’s” sitting quarters in an attached room off the garage. Once the white woman’s washer broke, mama had to do many loads of very dirty cloths in the bathtub for weeks, bending for hours on her knees. Her knees were swollen and the skin was rubbed off her knuckles from scrubbing the filthy cloths. 
She was NEVER thanked or hugged by any of the family members, including the kids. Fact is the kids made fun of her, lie on her when they stole, broke something, or otherwise messed up and could blame mama. Of course the parents would attributed to misdeeds to her, knowing full well the kids were the guilty ones. 
In 1985 when that white woman was dying she called mama to apologize for the misery she put on mama and us, mama forgave her. 
I could go on and on with the “love” that family showed for my “forced” devoted mama, but that would be a 500 page book. 
As to the black “help” experience back in the day, I know the facts, I through my mama lived the life. Not a word of that fantasy you pecked out of your keyboard, or that dumb ass movie is true, and frankly you and it is an offense to all the the real “help” that went through what they had endure just to survive the times then.   

What is there about this woman’s career, preoccupation with race and disdain for white people don’t you understand? You are incapable of understanding the KKK has in the past included “educated professors” or the concepts of proportion or context. In short, this odious little Nazi has completely flim-flammed you. Close your eyes, forget her color, her jobs, listen to what she says, replace white with black. Bingo!

I’ve read her essays and followed her career. I don’t need to go to her “non-racist moments” to see context. If I had a website about peace and love on 9 pages and the 10th page said I don’t like black folks would that be cherry picking? Don’t be a fool. Any parent thinking of sending their kids to Tulane (Racism U) should have their heads examined. Congratulations America: you have finally institutionalized Nazism.

Black men aren’t raping all those white women that are hollering rape. Most of the women are giving it to them freely with wide open legs. They cry rape when they get caught in the act, or get knocked up. Just ask Erik Williams and Kobe Bryant. And before you yell “Duke lacrosse players” remember dear this is the google age, I’ll come back with the 17 other cases I found with a 10 min search, who knows how many i can give you with 15 mins of research. I cited those two frame-ups because the men are well known.
As for white men raping black women, hell white on black rape is ILLEGAL now, and it still happens, but oh the shame of whitey raping blackie. I think you just made that stuff up. The rapes I see in the news are white pedophiles raping loads of kids, white men raping mostly white women, or black men raping black women. I have not seen ONE case of a black man raping (un-falsely) a white woman, but of course those happen too.  
   

Hitler had a much more impressive resume than that. Sad to see someone who wants to be thought of as an artist who can’t separate job title from value system. By your thinking, any murderer who’s a teacher should get a light sentence.

she showed the ugly, but she showed the good, also. Perhaps that is why MHP is so pissed…. The film goes against her own deep seated racism against white people or anger about what she thinks life was like back then. 

“for black maids, the threat of rape was always a clear and present danger.”  

The idea that maids were “always at risk” of rape is pretty outrageous. There were plenty of people outraged at Trotta for saying what they perceived as similar comments, that men are incapable of rape. Were all white men just running around raping their domestics back then? I hardly think so. Were there scumbags who did it? Yes. But to smear every single family that had domestic help is pretty over the top.

You mother certainly gave her entire life, body and soul, in order to take care of her children.  I know you miss her very much. 

I’m fairly sure that you are a bit older than me, so I can’t speak with any first hand authority about what was going in our society during your childhood.  I do want to ask if you if your mother’s experience was a common one?  Where most white people like that?

I had a different experience than what is being related here. Our caretakers had a job and they worked for my father.  They cared about my brothers and me, as adult tend to care and feel fond of children in their care (or even children who are often around), but they were hired to do a job.  They were authority figures, not relatives.  They were caretakers, but they weren’t parents. Although they were always kind, they were never tender.  

Try as we might to subvert them, their allegiance was forever to the man who paid their salary. 

My brothers and I didn’t have the relationship with them that the young Titzyfitzensimmons had with the domestics cum family members who took care of her household. Certainly they were never treated as you mother was horribly treated, a reality that  Ms. Harris-Perry describes as being ignored in the movie.

I suspect that the relationship I experienced is likely the common one. 

It wasn’t the stuff of books or movies, It was an average, and ordinary relationship between average, ordinary and decent people.

I agree with this. The movie (didn´t read the book) was meant this way and it was understood that way. Nobody could feel anything else but great admiration for “the help” and disgust for the white racists and the racist society. 

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html#analogy
See extended analogy, it even has a Hitler reference.  Poor Jim, poor, poor Jim.

“Skin color doesn’t endow genetic knowledge, knowledge does.”

Yes, “knowledge” of how it is to be black in America. “Knowledge” of the stories passed down by my relatives who did lived through the “Jim Crow South”. “Knowledge”  of seeing the KKK march through the heart of town. “Knowledge” from hearing my grandfather recounting how it felt picking up the body of his cousin who “hanged” himself in a Mississippi jail, because, as the sheriff told him, “He must have been guilty of something for him to hang himself like that.”

Studies show that white people get probation, while black people get jail time for the SAME exact crime. Whites get a fine and slap on the wrist, and blacks get jail, which limits their chances to get a job, then people like you get to infer that all blacks know about is crime. How many terrorist Klansmen and those that supported them were prosecuted for any of tens of thousands of black people who were lynched, raped or murdered by theses white southern so-called “Christians”?

I guess people like you are more “genetically knowledgeable’ about “lynching” and presuming all black people are “more knowledgeable about crime” even as your ignore those that you commit or condone by omission.

Oh, you.

I read the book and was unexpectedly, profoundly moved.  It was plopped on me by a friend, well after the movie came out, and I read it as a popular culture gesture, not because I thought that it was going to be good.  Thought it would be just a shlock novel.

I look at it as a small snapshot for one story, not the entire story of the time.  It doesn’t pretend to tell the entire story and I think that it’s strange to ask that of a novel.  It’s not an epic dissertation of the life of black women in the south at the time.   I also felt that Skeeter and her peers were the weak ones, the ignorant, the uneducated, the cloistered and kneejerk culture followers.

Skeeter learned a lot over time, but it was the maid and the people in the black community that were wise and knew about the real world from jumpstreet.  The only thing that they seemed to initially lack was courage because of the societal oppression, but it turned out that wasn’t true…They had a deep amount of courage merely to live, and then transcend that life. They had a rich culture and community that created and supported that strength.

I loved most all those women by the end of the book (except for the obvious ones that you loved to hate).  I’m not one for knee jerk gratuitous sentimentality, but there were various parts of that book where tears were streaming down my face…one woman feeling the pain of others.  

I grew up on the coast.  Not quite old enough to touch the edge of the segregation era, and even then, because that area was such a melting pot, as a child never even saw remnants of it.  It was the subject of books, movies, documentaries, not my life.  It was outside of my reality.

So I have to take the word of others what their experience was.  However, life has taught me that the answer is rarely “only A” or “only B” but usually ‘yes, all of the above’.  It’s a guess but considering that there are good people and mean people that exist on the planet and that has always been true, no matter what the circumstances, you will see those who are evil and exploit others…and you will also see those who circumvent the societal circumstances and will love others, anyway.

It’s entirely possible that there were families who treated their ‘help’ like family, even if they were far outnumbered by those who didn’t.  It doesn’t make one story a ‘lie’ while the other is ‘true’, it means that one side is a lot more true at any given moment than it wasn’t.

One thing is for sure, the times changed for the better and thank God for that.  I think that The Help was a story of women in cahoots.  It was a story about the help. It was a love story between a woman and a child.  It was a story of pain and struggle on a micro and macro level. It was a story of ignorance transformed on a snapshot level.  It also illustrates just how much the nation has changed between then and now.  It’s a tiny piece of history.  It’s total fantasy.  And ultimately, it’s just a book and a movie.

And for me, it’s a motivation to want to read more about the subject, from ALL angles.  You have to get old enough to get that  history isn’t dry just because it’s in the past, it’s because historians tell dry factual stories, and it’s when they get human that people see that history is merely what happened to other people “yesterday”.  That people’s individual stories matter, too. History is the bucket that is filled with all of those stories.

It reminds me of the stories of the people who lived through the Holocaust.  That too was a nightmare and a blot on world history.  It was evil and bad also, what man can do to his fellow man.  But in it also are tiny pocket stories of individuals who did the right thing, or who loved and helped others, anyway.

Maybe what we need is not blathering about how this book/movie isn’t good enough, instead that someone needs to write that epic book/movie that those times deserved. Or more likely, several.  Humanize the times and you get more understanding.  Maybe Harris-Perry or those of like mind, could drive that.  For I think that Hollywood has been pretty lame in the past few decades in that area.  Don’t just complain that something isn’t or hasn’t happened, do something about it.

JMO

How dare WE black people complain about how WE are treated or about how WE feel? YOU keep telling US how good YOU treat US, but WE are just to stupid to believe YOU. It’s obviously “race-baiting” to talk about a movie about RACE relations in the south, unless of course you praise how good things were for blacks back in the ‘good ole Jim Crow days’. Only white people get to talk about other races without being ‘race-baiters’.

Whites complaining about Hispanics taking over the country via Spanish (aka “the language of the ghetto”) is NOT “race-baiting”. Whites saying that “Black people should start asking for jobs, not food stamps” is NOT “race-baiting”. Whites saying DAILY on Fox News that “Obama secretly wants to put all white people in FEMA concentration camps” is NOT “race-baiting”.

But ANYBODY complaining about a movie on RACE RELATIONS in the south during the Jim Crow Laws not being accurate according to THEIR experience or the experience of their RELATIVES… OBVIOUS RACE-BAITING!

”
 The film goes against her own deep seated racism against white people or anger about what she thinks life was like back then. ”
Goddamn, girl….you never fail to flabbergast me by showing how disingenuous and stupid you are…truly amazing.

Wow…..

Cecelia Thank you for the kind words. I’m 57 years old, born in 1954, I can remember from around 1960 when I started school mama working for that family. She worked until around 1971. My older sister (9 years older, 7 kids) had to get us younger kids ready for school because as I said mama was always working. My daddy worked the fields for the same family. I guess I shouldn’t have spoke for all the “help” back then, but that was our family’s experience.

“Disgust” just for the “white” racists?

“But let me talk about the DOJ’s own statistics on rape, that show black
men raping white women wholesale now and today, while white men show
virtually no interest in doing such a thing to black women…”

I see you talking about the DOJ’s statistics, but I don’t see them… I wonder why? Is it because that if you are white woman, despite the statistics that you didn’t site, it still shows that you are MORE LIKELY to be raped by a white guy that you know than this ‘mythical white girl raping negro’ that you conservatives have made up.

BTW, The DOJ only counts those who have been ARRESTED or are in JAIL. They don’t count all the rapes perpetrated by white Fraternities on THOUSANDS of white co-eds that go unreported or are covered up by the Schools or rich white Alumnae? They don’t count all the rapes that get get plea bargained down to a lesser charge (which the study shows is more likely if the rapist is white)? They also don’t count all the rapes of black prostitutes that go unreported or are ignored by the police (because no one rapes a prostitute, right)?

Well, why doesn’t the dear lady excoriate Tyler Perry, Spike Lee, Oprah Winfrey, et al, as to why THEY haven’t made the movie that she feels “The Help” is not. Not all blacks had the same experiences when working in such a domestic situation as depicted in The Help. We can’t have it both ways. First we complain about the lack of blacks on film, or the lack of acting awards for black actors, then we complain that the story depicted didn’t do us justice because it didn’t reflect all that was despicable during that time period? The movie wasn’t meant to be a history book.

I want to know how a reactionary flick like “The Help” seriously represents improvement.

Don´t try to suggest I said something what I didn´t say and was only said in regards to the movie I saw.

If she saw the film one way, I am merely speculating as to why. She may have deep seated racist ideas about white people, I don’t know. Do you know? Nope. (I should have put a ? after that sentence, since I was wondering, not stating.)

She may think she has a firm belief that she knows exactly how life was before she was born, but if she believes that no one  had experiences similar to the ones in the film, then she really isn’t being honest, I don’t think. Everyone has their own story, own experiences. 

And If she thinks all domestics were under threat 24/7 of rape, I don’t think she is looking at this in any way except through some sort of tainted view/anger/racism…. That’s a pretty big broad brush. Not only insulting to the men who were kind, and civil, but the women as well. 

I don’t think there is anything disingenuous or dumb over trying to figure her out. If she wants to hold onto her idea about how life was for everyone, and not acknowledge that there were some people (maybe a lot) who had positive experiences, then I believe that is possibly why she didn’t like the film.

very well said.

There was a lot of controversy about Precious, also. It was an excellent, heartbreaking, horrific, story about one girl. It wasn’t meant to tell anyone’s story besides Precious’, but it pissed off a lot of people.

There was controversy about The Cosby Show, too… You can’t make all the people happy, all the time. 

 Which crimes?

–Cobra

 Too late for that, sir.

“In September 1996, Duke competed in Louisiana’s United States Senate
“open” primary, placing fourth among 15 candidates, with 140,910 votes,
and carrying several rural parishes. Five years earlier, in March
1991, Duke launched a campaign for the governorship of Louisiana. His
bid attracted enormous publicity, and his long record of bigotry came
under heightened scrutiny. In response, Duke claimed to have discarded
his racist beliefs. His claim was belied, however, by a number of
recent anti-Semitic statements and the resignation of his campaign
coordinator, who claimed that Duke’s recent professions were a
political ploy. Duke lost the election but won nearly 700,000 votes. In
1990, Duke ran against Democratic incumbent J. Bennett Johnston for a
United States Senate seat. Although Duke lost the election, he gained
43.5% of the vote and a surprising 60% of the white vote.

Duke saw his only political victory in January 1989,
when he was elected to a seat in the Louisiana State Legislature in
Metairie.”

http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/david_duke/background.asp?LEARN_Cat=Extremism&LEARN_SubCat=Extremism_in_America&xpicked=2&item=david_duke

–Cobra

 Where would YOU place “White Guilt” if  you think it’s misplaced in “The Help?”

–Cobra

 what’s funny is her black heiness will grovel to the hollywood masters who throw money at her, like msnbc, where she works, that has no blacks in primetime show slots, but her sell out ass doesn’t seem to notice, she is nothing more than another race hustling poverty pimp
“tress” like all other so called “black leaders”

What condescending claptrap.

The woman who bore Strom Thurmond’s daughter was his family’s African-American maid. She was 16. He was 22. What’s the word for that kind of relationship? Oh, that’s right, statutory rape. That was in 1924.

I’m sure you treated your African-American mammy more politely than you treated you parents, until you were about 12, that’s the age at which Fredrick Douglas said that the white children on the plantation became aware of their superiority.

“Moreover, depending upon the employer and the employee (but in our social circle it was the case) the domestic help were treated with greater politeness than you would treat your own parents.” Really? Think back, was how they were treated at all up to the “employee”?

When you deigned to kiss all those “employees” did it ever occur to you that they didn’t want your kisses? I bet you initiated the kiss didn’t you? How would you have felt if you found their children kissing yours? You played with their kids, “sometimes”? Wow! That must have been the high point of their young lives.

“The help” could tell on you, but couldn’t you tell on them, too? Who would be believed if you lied? And what were the dangers for those valuable (as help) African-American women traveling alone at night? Was it dangerous to be out at night for African-Americans in a Caucasian neighborhood, in the south in, what, the ’50s and ’60s? Yeah, I’m sure they needed to be escorted home; something like the pass laws in apartheid South Africa.

What has Harris-Perry being half Caucasian and the daughter of intellectuals or Whitney Houston’s funeral got to do with anything? How would being biracial skew Harris-Perry’s perspective, in your mind? Your the one who’s view is terminally skewed.

You are obviously of the ilk of people who want references to Founding Fathers owning slaves removed from the history books.

History is all about who’s telling the story. That, I believe, is the point Ms. Harris-Perry was trying to make.

 Holy Poop Pie, Batman! Now I’ve heard it all. Jim’s comment should be framed and put in a display with pictures of “Whites Only” signs from washrooms and public places all over the South fifty years ago.  Yes, this northern white girl went through the South back then and took pictures because I could not believe what I was seeing. I loved “The Help” but I also realize that it is revisionist, fantasized account of a really dark period in American history.

Oh, I see. You mean her parents were not ignorant and, therefore, taught her to think. As to their political leanings, you don’t know anything about them. You think you do because you’re a bigot, who believes that racial relationships are better understood by crackers who know how to handle “negras” and don’t race mix.

I was watching The Loving Story. In it, the lawyer who argued for VA, before the Supreme Court, made the case that interracial marriage “damaged children”. Is that what you mean, that Harris-Perry is the inevitable victim of the result of mixing of the races? 

Come on, old girl, get on the right side of history, before it’s too late.

It has been my experience that most of the Northeastern liberals of my age group and older have more, not fewer, prejudices than those of us who were brought up in the South. Perhaps it is because they had no contact with blacks. It’s an interesting phenomenon. 

As far as Melissa Harris Perry is concerned- my opinion of her skewed p.o.v. is based upon her parents’ being college professors. Mrs. Perry seems to be the one who makes an issue of being biracial- just as Obama does. The grievance business is VERY profitable and seems to be infused with perpetual motion. Too bad we can’t harness it to run power plants, since it’s renewable and perpetual. 

Mrs. Harris-Perry doesn’t appear to think that there IS more than one story- the one that she decides to push.

Eric, the African-American community has not been helped by the Liberals “initiatives” and frankly, politicians like Lyndon Johnson never intended for them to be helped out of poverty- he just wanted to insure that black people voted for Democrats “for the next 100 years.” The women and men I knew who were domestic workers did an honest day’s work and made an honest living. Most of them think very poorly of the current crop of young people, whom they’d have called shiftless and the n-word for not working, having multiple children out of wedlock and using drugs. 

As long as you spend your energy in grievance mongering and make excuses for bad behavior, you can’t change your circumstance. Make people like Charles Payne, Hermann Cain, Clarence Thomas, Walter E. Williams, Thomas Sowell, etc. your role models, instead of spending your time and energy complaining about an era you weren’t even party to. 

Again, I say, who among you has the same sense of outrage over the characters in  ”Downton Abbey?” What hypocrites you are!

I already acknowledged you’re a master at spinning.
There is no point for you to do it again.
I can see right through your BS,so you probably should spin it to someone else.

I wonder what this dunce has to say about the movie called Red Tails…about WW2 Black fighter pilots????

This was one of the best movies Ive seen in many many years.

Melissa Harris Perry doesn’t need me to defend her. Her professional accomplishments alone render your petty criticisms inert.

 ”Pretentious?”  LOL…I suppose somebody who’s out front and open about what they do and believe in could be called that by some.  I’m comfortable in my own skin, and have no problem wearing passion on my sleeve.

I cranked out my latest one about 18 hours ago on Thomas Sowell:
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/421565_10150582259673589_6277368588_9291039_1240515315_n.jpg
  Got more in the pipeline coming.

 Perhaps in your circle, or “community” you’re not accustomed to being challenged on your statements. So it really must make you cringe when folks like me call you out on ludicrous, bat-shyt crazy statements like:

“As for her 2 hour cable program,anybody with a strong liberal bent could be,without any talent,on that network.”  

 Is your disdain for bi-racial folks so great that you’d turn this delusional, or did you expect applause for that statement from the Tea Party crowd that haunts this blog from time to time?

–Cobra
 

 Hey Titzy (you must’ve had it rough in middle school), I just did a piece on Walter Williams:

http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/396255_10150580904623589_6277368588_9284280_177743027_n.jpg

You’re absolutely right! I can’t find better models for my political cartoons. I’m working on Clarence Thomas next.

–Cobra

 So comparing her with David Duke wasn’t sufficient, huh?  You had to go the full Hitler.

 You know, the warning label on that medication says NOT to drink alcohol or operate heavy machinery while you’re on it.  IMHO Jim, a computer is “heavy machinery.”

–Cobra

 Well, you have to look at it in the full circle that is Cable News–MSNBC in particular.  It is unfathomable to believe that this is the same organization that fired Phil Donahue, its highest rated prime time performer at the onset of the Iraq War, and hired both Alan Keyes and Michael Savage to host their own programs.

 As far as the “we can do better” aspect of the portrayal of Blacks on film, you know the answer to your own question.  You won’t see a Hollywood that is not run, owned, controlled by or indebted to Blacks do much “better.”  When it takes George “I have as much power and influence in Hollywood as anyone” Lucas 20 years to get a film like “Redtails” done,and even HE gets denied studio backing, what does that tell you about this industry?

  The future for quality films about POSITIVE Black themes and images lies OUTSIDE of Hollywood among Indie Filmmakers. The technology is there.  We have to support them in their efforts.

–Cobra

You forget so easily that we live in the google age. 
http://bossip.com/545027/has-marriage-become-a-luxury-most-children-born-to-women-under-30-are-out-of-wedlock-births30346/ 

http://www.topix.com/forum/afam/TLCS77JFR8P5AI819 

 Actually, it would be great if Spike Lee did a film on St Patrick. I wouldn’t mind seeing his take on the saint.

 I actually felt like the white characters were the props. They seemed more one-dimensional to me than the black characters. I wrote about that here: http://fromthoughtsintowords.blogspot.com/2012/02/salvaging-help-film-worth-watching.html

Being lynched and murdered would be the same thing and even the Tuskeegee Institute says less than 4,000 black folks were lynched, 90% in the deep south, from 1882 to 1968. And those things didn’t happen to you and it’s 2012. Now, how many white folks have been killed by black folks in the last 8 years alone? Guess what, according to the DOJ it’s more than all those lynchings. You don’t care about justice or the greater good but about skin. Leave that greater good to the people who created the Bill of Rights and keep partying like it’s 1799. I feel sorry for you and for myself because I share this country with you. I laugh at your utterly unsourced and false tens of thousands; your desire to exaggerate the “sins” of whites, play down the “sins” of blacks show the greatest single trait of your ilk today – self pity.

I don’t want anything removed from history books; unlike you I don’t believe in guilt by skin color.

So 1989 is eternity and Louisiana is America and all whites have to answer for Duke – why not Hitler too? It pains me to see people who literally need a person to dress up like a storm trooper and start marching around to see a racist. This woman is one.

Go to the United States Dept. of Justice website where they make up stuff; around 30,000 black on white rapes a year and “statistically insignificant” white on black rape each year. Even if it’s wildly wrong, let’s say 10,000 to 5,000, given the population disparity, it’s still a monumental difference.

Who ever said such things never existed? And any dark period is the fault of those who contributed to it. Does that include central Minnesota and Wyoming? It’s the exaggeration I object to and the idea the white folks were fully on board with Jim Crow when many may have hated it. And here’s a stunning fact you ignore – it was white folks who died to the tune of 350,000 that ended slavery and 80% of Americans lived in the North. Give credit where credit is due instead of only talking about the dark side. 3 out of 4 lynchings outside the deep south were of white guys. Ignoring that like all America was Mississippi is stupid. Also, it’s 2012. What is there about a calendar you don’t get? If you really feel that way, then the Democratic Party was the greatest enablers of racism not the Rep. Oh wait, things change, no, oh wait, they don’t, yes they do, well sometimes. I mean…

You’re the one who brought up resume’s or fame as the deal breaker not me. I go by actions not diplomas. So an utter racist has a diploma – so what? Rev. Wright served in the military, so did Timothy McVeigh. An artist is supposed to be able to pierce perception not be befuddled by it and construct a one-sided stereotype factory.

 I see. So if you get cold fries at the drive-thru tonight, you’re gonna justifiably compare that fast food server to Hitler.

 Gotcha, Jimbo.

–Cobra

 As I pointed out upstream….It took George “Star Wars” Lucas 20 years to make that film, with studios turning him down left and right.

Critics of MHP should ask themselves why that is.

–Cobra

Exactly. The Cosby family wasn’t “representative” enough of black people’s plight, supposedly. “George Jefferson” fell victum to this way of thinking, as well.

 Remarkably ignorant statement from a remarkably ignorant person. Slavery was legal and practiced until 1965.

My point is that FDR treated his black servents as badly as “The Help” portrays others treated their maids.

 You are an imbecile.

i try to discuss the topics. you? not so much. you do like to name call, though. here’s an idea, why don’t you just stop reading my comments and/or addressing me, since you obviously never want to discuss, and the name calling is oh so very old.

As I said in my earlier post a large percent of those women are eagerly giving it up. The rape charges come when the gig is up, and they have come clean and admit they are, let’s say, showing their affection for black men. And of course the white men in law enforcement are all to eager to believe them. Can you post the DOJ findings.

Have not seen the movie.  I lived in New Orleans during law school, and the city has a history of slavery and shocking poverty, especially after Katrina.  I grew up in a poor neighborhood and remember going over to play stick ball in an an adjacent black neighborhood even worse than ours.  Went into their homes.  Nobody cared.  I remember segregated facilities around that time.  It was shocking. 1956-57.  Anyway, I detest the idea of white people celebrating their racial sensitivity for political cred.  Look at me.  I think Quincy Jones is wonderful.  And until you’ve sat in a group of black men and passed the Tanqueray bottle, don’t worry about my white guilt.  It’s there.  But that stuff is boring now.  Let’s see some boo-tay!

 She teaches at my alma mater.  Go Green Wave !

 Have you read the Carlos Baker bio?

 I know he did do a bio on Hemmingway.
But no I have never read it. Is it good?
 I’ve read most of Hemmingways classics over my lifetime. My children have also read them(My old copies) as well for book reports when they were in high school.I even own some 1st printing hard covers I bought a yard sales!

Official Slavery ended after the Civil War. However, blacks were re-enslaved in through various legal loopholes and the lack of political will until 1941.  Read a book called Slavery by Another Name.

Wow. You are the perfect example of why cultural studies should be required from elementary school.  

But it was a white author writing about the experience of her black maids. So, how the author who didn’t live life of a black maid during the Civil Right movement describe what black maids felt?  It is like when former Gov. Haley Barbour described his experience at University of Mississippi and tried to make a generalized claim about no one had a problem with the integration of the campus. When the reporters tracked down one of the first black students at University of Mississippi, her story was completely different than Barbour.
The problem with “The Help” is uninformed people are presenting it as the actual historical document-even though the movie did a cursory job of addressing major events in the Civil Rights Movement  and the daily lives of black maid. 
Finally, your premise about book and movie raising awareness for the subject is bull. The problem of domestic workers is well know among people of color. Are fans of “The Help” organizing to improve conditions of domestic workers? No. Is there a push to included domestic workers into Social Security, protected them from abuses among the fans of “The Help” 

Amen to that.

Kathryn Stockett said this on the topic: “I’ll never know what it really felt like to be in the shoes of those black women who worked in the white homes of the South during the 1960s and I hope that no one thinks I presume to know that. But I had to try. I wanted the story to be told. I hope I got some of it right.”

Claiming that writers only are allowed to write about something they have experienced personally would be the end of literature as we know it. That´s an absurd perspective and would mean no man could write about the feelings of a woman or a woman about the feelings of a man. I could come up with a very long list of other examples. Nobody owns anything exclusively when it comes to storytelling.

She did what many authors do. She was inspired by true events, observed, researched, interviewed people and made a novel out of it. Perfectly legitimate.

The problem is that people are accusing “The Help” absurdly for not meeting academic standards. It´s a novel and a movie. It´s not difficult to understand, is it.

Of course the book raised awareness for the subject. Without the book and the movie nobody would be talking about it and even the critics of “The Help” wouldn´t talk about it.

The problem is with your statements here:
 
“Nobody owns anything exclusively when it comes to storytelling.”

and…

” Without the book and the movie nobody would be talking about it and
even the critics of “The Help” wouldn´t talk about it. “

1. The gatekeepers of media–Studio Executives, Entertainment V.P.’s, Corporate Boards of Directors….are the “exclusive owners” of mass media story telling.  They decide whether a movie or TV Show gets the green light, and what that content is going to be. According to the back story on “The Help”, it was only friendship connections in Hollywood that got it done.  Could “The Help” have been done as a college production, straight to DVD, or You Tube? Sure, but it wouldn’t have the distribution reach.

2. Oh, those Black maids would’ve been talking about it with their families and online. The “popularity” is more or less because the protagonist is White , like the target audience for both the book and film.  

–Cobra

Context matters. I wasn´t talking about copyright nor the gatekeepers. You are correct on that, but still they don´t own the rights to any subject or theme which can be made into a movie, book or tv show.

You can sit down and just as well write your own novel about the situation of “the Help”.

I strongly oppose the notion that only certain people are allowed to write about certain topics. That criticism against any author is ridiculous.

You are interpreting talking here literally. I meant it, obviously, in a broader, general sense as in being a topic in the mass media. So, to clarify: Without the book and the movie the subject wouldn´t be discussed in the general public and critics wouldn´t have something to criticize.

Jim please post the DOJ 
statistics  you found. I can’t find any statistical reports anywhere on the DOJ”s site. 

“..sterling eductaion…” Harris-Perry was passed over and booted out of Princeton and Tulane…sorry that is not representative of credibility amongst her peers.