I Was There!

This past weekend, Judy and I went to see the move, The Help. I didn’t really think I would enjoy it because I’d heard it was a “chick flick” but went along anyway to enjoy the time with my wife. How wrong I was to find out that this movie was so much more than anything I’d imagined – it was entertaining as well as thought provoking. I had lived through that time period and remember well the “white only” signs of the past and how disrespectfully humiliating people of color were treated. But I never really saw how the better half of our society felt about and treated the people who cooked their food, washed their clothes, and cleaned their houses, and just how superior they felt to them.

Reconnecting with feelings I’d once held about those days, I marveled at how the times have changed and how much better I feel about those changes. But somehow my conscience still haunts me about why it took so long, and whether we are truly all that much better: Whether those who were forced to ride in the back of the bus, and were forbidden to eat in restaurants have forgiven those who trespassed against  them: And, whether those who bullied others have made the acts of contrition necessary to be forgiven well enough to finally forgive themselves.