Hacker Cinema
The Help
2011 · Film · 146 min
Directed by Tate Taylor
Aibileen Clark is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson is an African-American maid who has often offended her employers despite her family's struggles with money and her desperate need for jobs; and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is a young white woman who has recently moved back home after graduating college to find out her childhood maid has mysteriously disappeared. These three stories intertwine to explain how life in Jackson, Mississippi revolves around "the help"; yet they are always kept at a certain distance because of racial lines.
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3 comments on Hacker News
The middle class are moving out. The upper middle class already left. The wealthy already left.
The very wealthy enclave of people who are keeping the barbarians at the gate of Eastover are staying, but not for long. Even though these people own houses that are 100+ years old - many of them family homes - they know it's only a matter of time until some drugged up lowlife stumbles into their yard and causes trouble. I don't know what'll become of all those beautiful homes in Eastover, but if this continues, I guess they'll be sold on the cheap and written off as a loss?
Looks like it's already happening - https://www.trulia.com/p/ms/jackson/2733-quail-run-rd-jackson-ms-39211--2042108939
You'll know for sure it's bad when the Holmans move out of Jackson, if they haven't already. If you're wondering who they are, watch the movie The Help. Hilly Holbrook is based on Sondra Holman, although of course they'll deny it to their dying day.
If, when you said, "look who's moving out and look who's staying", you meant "black people are staying and white people are moving out," that's not really accurate, it's that there's a significant Venn diagram overlap with poor people and black people. Jackson has been around 80% black for a *very* long time now. It really is just coming down to "those with money" and "those without money".
You're right, of course, but as scottie_m points out, the main issue here is one around messaging.
The enemy of getting this fixed is complexity. Once we start targeting individual companies, types of internet connections, or hardware devices? We've lost. It's all over.
It's not these things don't need fixing, it's that we have about ten words or so to put into a slogan. That slogan needs to be repeated over and over again. I am a firm believer in Net Neutrality -- but that's not the right slogan to march under. If we get Net Neutrality and everything else stays the same, it's a complete loss.
By shifting the focus to each user, we can talk more directly about benefits. And by making penalties perhaps draconian, we can leave the management of the complexities to the vendors, where it belongs, instead of the public debate, where the lawyers win.
Privacy and anonymity are much bigger fish to fry than whether YouTube costs more than Instagram. If we could come up with a simple slogan to cover both of them, sign me up. Otherwise? We gotta stop everybody from putting telemetry on every detail of our lives.
Before the 60s in the U.S., there was pervasive and deeply-held racism, but most people didn't see it, even those who wanted to be morally superior to everybody else. (See the movie "The Help"). Many times I think of what that issue is for us. What will we look back on in 50 years as being barbaric and evil? What is our current equivalent to the Civil Rights campaigns?
It's storing tracking data about the minute parts of people's lives. We will either morally overcome this or we will enter a new Dark Ages. There's no middle ground. Here. Here is the moral battle.
America hates you because you're a moron who thinks that it's right to stop in public places and preach your Religion and before you go ahead and pull that you don't know about being a Muslim, I was born a Muslim, I still live in a Muslim Country and I know more about Islam than you ever will know. My family comprises of diehard Muslims and you know what, even though I come from a very religious background, I would still never do what majority of Muslims do. Cheat, lie and basically act like idiots or hate infidels or Jews.
I am honestly tired of this, you get the OMG angry stare because you deserve it, and you get bumped by people because you went out of your way to show everyone you're a Muslim. It’s not their fault if your fellow brethren are hell bend of bombing them, try coming to Pakistan with your white man attitude, everyone will be sizing you up and finding ways to exploit you or kidnap you for ransom.
If you're a Muslim it doesn't mean you're special, as much as you want to hide it, you hate infidels, you would cut them off given a chance. Sure we can say it's a religion that is peaceful, BS bro. Religion is great for guiding people, and it’s an amazing tool when used correctly, which in this case it doesn’t.
In short, America doesn't hate you, you hate yourself and you hate everyone else. I suggest you move to Qatar or Pakistan, you will feel at home here and before you begin to bitch about more, Christian in Pakistan are treated the same way maids in the movie The Help are treated. Muslims are racists as well.
I am technically a Muslim but I was lucky to be part of something else, something much bigger than one religion. For me everyone is equal, your race, your religion doesn't matter. If I hate you it's only because you did something that deserve my negative attention. That doesn’t mean Americans are awesome, no they’re idiots as well. Well, majority of them are idiots but you get that everywhere. Stop pulling the religion card, if you’re such a devoted Muslim, go in the cave and look for guidance there, leave the rest of us alone. Is that hard?