Slavery in the Movie The Help

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Recommended: Gender/race discrimination

The term “The Help” according to dictionary.com means the action of helping someone to do something. Which refers to the duty of a person that helps keep a household clean and organized. Back when racism was still openly accepted by society, black women were the only candidates available for this type of job, because it was very difficult for them to find jobs. The job of being “The Help” in the house for rich white folks includes taking care of the kids, the house, and worry about preparing 3 meals a day for the white family they work for. The term of “The Help” doesn’t exist anymore in today’s world, well at least nobody uses that team for it anymore, instead in today’s society it is refer to as a Nanny. And instead of it being just an occupation for just one race, it has taken a turn and now it could be any race.
Even though slavery was over and the black people were trying to create a decent living for themselves and their family, it was still hard for them to find a decent job that pays good and enough for the bills that has to be paid for. The most impact was on the black women of the black communities. They weren’t able to get jobs in offices or stores like the black males did, so they had to find any means necessary to find a source of income. At the end of the day, they turned around from being free to kind of becoming slaves again because the black women started working as “The Help” to rich white households. Where they were treated like they were slaves because they weren’t allowed to use the exact same thing as the white people they worked for.
For example, the movie “The Help” presented to us audience the reality of what black women went through back in the days when they had to work for the rich white fo...

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...llegal immigrant. The Indian woman when asked what her duty was, she said she had to “overstay her visa and then had her cook, clean and care her six children (while sleeping in a closet in one of the kids's bedrooms).” (Johnston, 2012).

Works Cited

• Asento Rita (2014, March 10). Interview by AA Awoyele []. Job description
• (Director) (2011). The help [DVD].
• Johnston, G. (2012, March 12). Illegal Maid Says She Was A Slave In A Gold Gilded Mansion. Gothamist. Retrieved March 3, 2014, from http://gothamist.com/2012/03/02/illegal_m
• Slamia, S. (2014, March 10). Interview by AA Awoyele []. Job description
• "We Are Literally Slaves": An Early Twentieth-Century Black Nanny Sets the Record Straight. (n.d.). "We Are Literally Slaves": An Early Twentieth-Century Black Nanny Sets the Record Straight. Retrieved March 2, 2014, from http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/80/

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