Why I Will Not See The Help: A Rant

[struggle4progress]

By Rosetta E. Ross

... When I was in seminary at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, I once heard now-deceased United Methodist Bishop Nolan Harmon justify enslavement to his Methodist Polity class by saying that “somebody had to do the work.” (The economic structure of the South depended on farming and 19th-century farming required vast human labor.)

Nolan Harmon was a signatory of the infamous letter from eight Southern white clergy saying Birmingham demonstrations were “unwise and untimely,” which prompted Martin Luther King Jr. to write his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” The fact that clergy wrote the letter criticizing Birmingham protests demonstrates a significant function of religions (and religious leaders) in social life; religions function as primary aids in structuring and sustaining social systems.

A predominant element of the Western imaginary, the idea that black persons ultimately exist as servants for white life, has long been supported by rhetorical constructions of Christianity. The most obvious examples, of course, were rituals such as catechisms about the necessity for <black> servants to obey <white> masters.

Less obvious examples include contemporary statements pairing assertions that the United States is a Christian nation with political opposition to universal health coverage, social justice, entitlement spending, and a whole array of benefits to all US citizenry.The subtext of these assertions is that such social benefits burden “real <read white> Americans” with taking care of those “other <read colored> people” living within the US borders. US airwaves present ample evidence of this as purveyors of ideas about the so-called “real American way” or the “really Christian moral order” daily decry all programs that enhance our common life as they advocate states rights and individualism ...

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/4991/why_i_will_not_see_the_help%3A_a_rant/



Rosetta Ross is associate professor of religious studies at Spelman College in Atlanta. She is author of Witnessing and Testifying: Black Women, Religion, and Civil Rights (Fortress Press, 2003).
http://www.religiondispatches.org/contributors/rosettaross/

[virgogal]

1. "The Help" is wonderful and just seeing Viola Davis' performance

makes it worthwhile.

[Gregorian]

2. It seems the act of organizing in itself causes religion to take on a misguided direction.

I find most who follow an organized religion to miss most of the major points of religion.

I can't put my finger on something I feel. It's like the seemingly inherent weakness in just being an individual. We form groups. But by doing so, we also form a direction. And that direction confines us.

It's very simple to see that Jesus had "love" as his main focus. It's pretty hard to have love as one's context, and come up with the Spanish Inquisition, or slavery.

[struggle4progress]

3. Then, again, Ross has written a book on "black women's civil rights activism as religiously impelled

moral practices," and it's published by an arm of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

[whathehell]

5. Maybe...but that didn't stop the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. from being a part of it.

Religions generally reflect human nature...some good, some bad.

Slavery wasn't "caused" by religion, it was caused by greed and commerce...The "justification" by SOME

idiots who called themselves "religious" was all very secondary.

[Gregorian]

That's right. It's easy for me to make generalized statements.

Thanks. It's funny because I was typing it I was thinking about the Stanford University Memorial church. Now that is one hell of a good church. But then it's populated by doctors in religious studies. Not like the crazy rural town church ministers I've had the displeasure of running into.

[whathehell]

7. I'm glad you recognized it..

but even the "crazy rural church ministers" you've had the displeasure of running into

aren't what Christianity, let alone ALL other organized religions are about.

Right Wing Fundamentalists, as much as we might hear about them, do NOT comprise

the majority of Christians in this country...The largest segment is Catholics, for one

thing, and the other would be the very mainstream protestant religions, which, like

Americans in general, are not "rural" or "crazy".

[trotsky]

9. About 80% of Protestants in the US...

believe in a literal creation story as outlined in Genesis.

And you think you're mainstream, huh?

[Name removed]

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[madrchsod]

8. that`s how i feel too...

raised in a very liberal working class home in the 50`s. went to the Methodist church till 8th grade and then stopped. my core values have only strengthened over time.

[Ruby the Liberal]

4. Melissa Harris-Perry live tweeted the movie and she was deeply disappointed

I had never heard of the movie before (not unusual for me), so didn't understand what she was talking about at first, but it was obvious that she was definitely not happy. You can see her tweets here. The #TheHelp hashtagged ones are the live tweets during the show.

http://www.twitter.com/MHarrisPerry

Here is her interview with O'Donnell about it.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/melissa-harris-perry-breaks-down-the-help-ahistorical-and-deeply-troubling/

[laconicsax]

6. And that's why I refuse to read the book or watch the movie.

It's a novel written from the perspective of a racist stereotype.

[Thats my opinion]

11. I will see the movie

We listened to a reading of the book while traveling. Perhaps we all read and hear things out of our own pre-determined mind-sets. I heard it as a diatribe against the bigotry which infested the south. It was an accurate portrayal of the devastating conditions of Black semi-slavery which existed long after the Civil War and the upper-class white bigotry that sustained that system.

[laconicsax]

12. Maybe you should read these.

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/08/11/black-women-historians-come-out-against-the-help/

http://www.youngclergywomen.org/the_young_clergy_women_pr/2011/01/interpreting-the-help-or-how-to-avoid-being-racist-in-the-way-were-being-not-racist.html

http://www.racialicious.com/2011/08/11/quoted-how-hollywood-and-the-help-screw-up-history/

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20516492,00.html

The Help: A novel from the perspective of a racist stereotype.