Last week around this time, I made plans to go with a girlfriend to see the movie, The Help, we saw it on Friday, August 12, 2011. During its two hour and 15 minute run, I laughed, I cried, I became angry and I was amazed. I laughed with the maids for they found a way to smile even in the difficult circumstances of their lives. I cried for the pain that they suffered and for the tears that streaked down their faces; they were hated and dehumanized just because of the color God made their skin. I was angered by the cruelty and ego of the white young wives who were so insecure within themselves that they demanded that colored folk ‘yes mam” them into a place of superiority; out of fear colored folk obliged them. I was amazed at their strength to endure and still stay standing; their ability to love and nurture the children ot those that abused, degraded and emotionally enslaved their children; their ability to unconditionally love,and teach white children knowing that when they became adults they would continue the cycle of hate and discrimination.
As I sat through The Help, I thought of my beloved grandmother who influenced my life in infinite ways and of the Jackson’s, Goolsby’s Gentry’s and other white folk whose floors she mopped and toilets she cleaned. That was then and now in 2011 not but has changed.
During one scene in the movie, the main character played by actress Viola Davis is one of two black passengers on a public bus when they are asked to leave the bus by the white bus driver. No explanation s given to them, but when white passengers ask what is happening, they are told that some smart mouthed “Nword” has gotten himself shot. The “n” that the bus driver was referring to was Civil Rights Activist Medgar Evers. Evers was a field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Mississippi. Among his many efforts to help blacks in Mississippi was the boy he organized and led against the white merchants in Jackson> He demanded that they give black folk equal respect for the color of their green money. He also worked to help solve the brutal murder of a young 14-year old black boy whose name was Emmett Till. Like most confident, articulate, motivating, intelligent Black men Evers was considered a threat to the southern way of living. He joined a long list of people of colored killed by those that hate them for but the beautiful color of their skin.One the evening of June 12, 1963 as Evers returned home from work he was gunned downed as he exited his car, he was 38-years old.
On June 26, 2011, a 49-year old black man by the name of James Craig Anderson was standing near his car at the Metro Inn near Ellis Avenue in Jackson, Mississippi. He was taking in the freshness of the early morning air when a group of restless and bored white teenagers who had earlier decided that they wanted to “mess with some nwords” crossed his path. The mob of youth had earlier divided themselves into two cars and drove sixty miles from where they were partying in the upscale Rankin County area to Jackson where they exited in the black part of town; Anderson was the first black person they saw. John Aaron Rice one of the teens approached Anderson and began shouting racial slurs at him; he then began punching Anderson.
After the assault Anderson left the scene, leaving his car behind he started walking on the shoulder of a road near the exit to the airport. As he struggled to flee his attackers, another youth from the mob of teens, 18-year old Deryl Paul Dedmon, followed Anderson by car. Dedmon in his 1998 Ford F-250 truck jumped the curb so that he could run Anderson over. He then left the scene with two young female passengers and drove to a nearby McDonald’s, where he boasted that he had just “ran over that Nword: The entire confrontation and murder was caught on the surveillance security camera of the hotel.
Deryl Dedmon is said to have been angry that he had been robbed several weeks prior by a black man. It is 2011 and a mob of whites can still kill a black man and suffer no consequences. Rice the teen that initiated the incident that led to Anderson’s murder has not been arrested. Bond for Dedmon was initially only $50,000 but was raised to $800,000 when Judge Ali Shamsiddeen increased it to upon learning of the bragging allegations against Dedmon. The Attorney for Rice says that his client was in a separate car and was not at the scene when Anderson was killed.
It is 2011 and it amazes me that for the dollar bill if someone dies in the commission of a robbery all of those involved in the crime are held responsible and accountable for the death of victims of that crime. In 2011 black life still does not equal the value of the almighty dollar; as a result and a matter of social consciousness Rice, who initiated the randomness and senselessness of Anderson’s victimization has no criminal liability for his death. It is 2011, the maids in Mississippi now use the same toilets as the white folk whose houses they clean (see the movie, The Help to understand), but I say Help because not much has changed in Mississippi. The life of James Craig Anderson a black man in Mississippi can’t compete with the value of the life of white boys. Jim Crow still lives in Mississippi. Now what was it I was saying about The Help, oh I remember “May God help us all?”