The Help

I read the wildly popular book "The Help" the other day.  It's really good!  It's written in three different voices: two black maids and a white writer from Jackson, MS in 1962-1963.  It's a fascinating time and an even more fascinating viewpoint, and it's written very well so I recommend it highly.

But I looked up at one point while reading and smirked to myself at the irony.  I was sitting in a bar (pool hall, actually, but not a skeezy type of pool hall), listening to rap music requested by the white patrons who were dancing and posing like the "gangstas" they wish they could be.  It's nearly forty -- ack, FIFTY --  years after the times written about in "The Help" and there are still racists and bigots, and minorities still have an unfair disadvantage in many ways -- but now it's "cool" for white kids to act black or Hispanic or anything other than the preppy "Biff" and "Muffy" ways the white kids acted in "The Help".

I just found it an interesting juxtaposition.  (I'm pretty sure Miss Hilly would not approve.)

And yes, I'm that weird girl at the bar, reading a book.