Lately the women I respect in my life, my mother, my grandmother, etc., have been telling me I should read The Help.  Put down all those long science-fiction and fantasy novels, they say, and get some “real world.”  Read The Help.  It is such a great book!  And I say I will but that I have a fairly long list of books in my Kindle waiting to be read, so I’ll get to it eventually.  But, really, I probably won’t.

Because, here’s the thing, I find the whole idea of The Help a little terrible and, well, racist.  And since nobody wants to hear me say or explain my feelings in a short phone call or a Skype conversation, I figured I’d put them all out on my blog, so any and all awkward conversations could be avoided in the future.

I currently work for a prominent African American artist who grew up in Greensboro during the 1960s.  She lived in the projects and witnessed the KKK murder several people at a civil rights rally right outside of her house.  Her mother was a maid.  When I mentioned to her that my mother told me that I should read The Help and if she had read it, she looked at my like I was crazy and said: “I don’t want to read that shit.”

I don’t want to read that shit.  That statement got me thinking.

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