Realizing the good choices

Martin Luther King Jr.'s quote “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people” is an interesting statement that demonstrates the reality of many events in the past and in our present. Even today, in our modern and evolved society, we still have people that discriminate and stereotype other people. In the novel “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett, there are 3 narrators, Aibileen, Minny and Skeeter, two black maids and a white woman, who tell the story from different perspectives: being black or white in the 1960's in Mississippi. Relative to the quote by Martin Luther King Jr. we identify all of them as being good people, but Skeeter’s silence in the beginning of the novel makes us reflect about the reaction people have toward other's actions. Skeeter is a white lady that wants to be a writer. She is a dynamic character that changes her point of view about the black society when she decides not to be quiet anymore about the situation of descrimination with black people. As a writer her new project is to write a book anonymously showing the maids' stories about their lives in the white people's homes. Initially, Skeeter's silence shows acceptance of what other white people thought about black people, even if in her mind she knows that it is wrong. An example in the story is when Miss Leefot, Aibileen's employer, says that Aibileen can't use the same bathroom as her white guests. Skeeter is in the room and doesn't react to that, even if she feels guilty knowing it was humiliating and cruel to Aibileen. However, when she begins working in the local newspaper and Aibileen is helping her answer questions about housekeeping, she feels connected to her, reminding herself about her childhood with Constantine, the black woman who raised her. She then feels obliged to do something about the discrimination. With Aibileen's help, she wants to show Mississippi and the world that blacks and whites can live together, and she wants to show how life is for black women in Jackson, Mississippi. Skeeter realizes that being quiet is not the best choice, when you reconize the error on a situation even if you risk your self, like Skeeter is doing, risking herself protecting black people, she is doing the right thing, being good for the good ones.