The Help - The Mindset of Bigots

The boyfriend and I went an saw the movie "The Help" this evening and for those who have not yet seen the film, I recommend it highly. I have lived the last 41 years of my life in the South and although I arrived in the region not too many years after the time period depicted in the movie, believe me, the mindset of some of the most horrible whites in the movie remains alive and well in some circles and in some areas of the South more than others - i.e., Mississippi still deserves the picture of it portrayed in the movie as do parts of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana. etc., and, yes, most assuredly in parts of Virginia. Indeed, the mindset is, in my opinion, alive and well in some of Virginia's state wide office holders. And this mindset isn't just racist toward black citizens. It extends to anyone deemed "other," so it includes as it targets LGBT citizens, Hispanics, non-Christians in general and of course, Muslims.

It is a sad commentary, but some individuals seem to have a sick psychological need to feel superior to others or to take action so that those they deem as inferior to themselves do not have the same full rights of citizenship that they themselves enjoy. It's as if without someone to look down upon - or in the case of the Christianists (who seem all too often to be synonymous with the racists), someone they can point to as "sinners" - their fragile egos and sense of self-worth collapse. It is they, not the targets of their bigotry, who are the menace to society.

One thing that is striking in the movie is the manner in which to some of the white characters in the film, the black maids and other black citizens were not even seen as fully human. What is frightening is that the same dehumanization continues to this day. Perhaps to a lesser extent towards blacks than in the early 1960's, but its there in toxic pockets of the region - in Virginia, it's not surprisingly the worse in Southwest Virginia. Hence the irony/tragedy that far too many black pastors, whether knowingly or not, continue to be the water carriers for the very types of people as the racist whites in the movie. These racists and hypocrites - e.g. Tony Perkins at Family Research Council - use religion and the Bible to incite these black pastors to condemn the white racists' latest chosen targets who are all to often (but not exclusively) LGBT citizens.

That's right, we LGBT citizens in many states, especially in the South, remain second or third class citizens except that some of us can hide if we are willing to live a lie and hide in the closet. But, to me, that's not living one's life. And I'd rather face the slings and arrows of the hate merchants than let them win and control my life or dictate who I can love.