The Impacts Of Segregation And Discrimination Reflected In Kathryn Stockett’s Novel The Help

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THE IMPACTS OF SEGREGATION AND DISCRIMINATION REFLECTED IN KATHRYN STOCKETT’S NOVEL THE HELP

A THESIS BY

RINI SIJABAT REG. NO. 100705070

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

FACULTY OF CULTURAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF SUMATERA UTARA MEDAN 2014

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THE IMPACTS OF SEGREGATION AND DISCRIMINATION REFLECTED IN KATHRYN STOCKETT’S NOVEL THE HELP

A THESIS BY

RINI SIJABAT REG. NO. 100705070

SUPERVISOR CO-SUPERVISOR

Dra. Martha Pardede, M.S Drs. Siamir Marulafau, M.Hum NIP. 19521229 197903 2 001 NIP. 19580517 198503 1 003

Submitted to Faculty of Cultural Studies University of Sumatera Utara Medan in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Sarjana Sastra from Department of English

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

FACULTY OF CULTURAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF SUMATERA UTARA MEDAN 2014

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Approved by the Department of English, Faculty of Cultural Studies University of Sumatera Utara (USU) Medan as thesis for The Sarjana Sastra Examination.

Head, Secretary,

Dr. H. Muhizar Muchtar, MS Rahmadsyah Rangkuti, M.A. Ph.D. NIP. 19541117 198003 1 002 NIP. 19750209 200812 1 002

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Accepted by the Board of Examiners in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Sarjana Sastra from the Department of English, Faculty of Cultural Studies University of Sumatera Utara, Medan.

The examination is held in Department of English Faculty of Cultural Studies University of Sumatera Utara on Friday, April 11, 2014

Dean of Faculty of Cultural Studies University of Sumatera Utara

Dr. H. Syahron Lubis, M.A. NIP. 19511013 197603 1 001

Board of Examiners

Dr. H. Muhizar Muchtar, MS ……….

Rahmadsyah Rangkuti, M.A. Ph.D. ……….

Dra. Martha Pardede, M.S. ………. Drs. Parlindungan Purba, M.Hum. ……….

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AUTHOR’S DECLARATION

I RINI SIJABAT DECLARE THAT I AM THE SOLE AUTHOR OF THIS THESIS EXCEPT WHERE REFERENCE IS MADE IN THE TEXT OF THS THESIS. THIS THESIS CONTAINS NO MATERIAL PUBLISHED ELSEWHERE OR EXTRACTED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FROM A THESIS BY WHICH I HAVE QUALIFIED FOR OR AWARDED ANOTHER DEGREE. NO OTHER PERSON’S WORK HAS BEEN USED WITHOUT DUE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IN THE MAIN TEXT OF THIS THESIS. THIS THESIS HAS NOT BEEN SUBMITTED FOR THE AWARD OF ANOTHER DEGREE IN ANY TERTIARY EDUCATION.

Signed : Date :

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COPYRIGHT DECLARATION

NAME : RINI SIJABAT

TITLE OF THESIS : THE IMPACTS OF SEGREGATION AND DISCRIMINATION REFLECTED

IN KATHRYN STOCKETT’S NOVEL THE HELP QUALIFICATION : S-1/SARJANA SASTRA

DEPARTMENT : ENGLISH

I AM WILLING THAT MY THESIS SHOULD BE AVAILABLE FOR REPRODUCTION AT THE DISCRETION OF THE LIBRARIAN OF

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, FACULTY OF CULTURAL STUDIES,

UNIVERSITY OF SUMATERA UTARA ON THE UNDERSTANDING THAT USERS ARE MADE AWARE OF THEIR OBLIGATION UNDER THE LAW OF THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA.

Signed :

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ABSTRAK

Skripsi ini menjelaskan tentang jenis-jenis dan dampak dari pemisahan ras dan diskriminasi yang terjadi di daerah Selatan Amerika pada tahun 1960 yang di analisis dari novel The Help. Tujuan dari penulisan skripsi ini adalah untuk menemukan jenis-jenis dan dampak dari pemisahan ras dan diskriminasi. Metode yang digunakan untuk menganalisis skripsi ini yaitu metode kualitatif deskriptif. Dari hasil analisis, ada empat jenis pemisahan ras yaitu di pemukiman, sekolah umum, transportasi umum dan rumah sakit.Hal ini terjadi karena kelompok yang lebih kecil percaya bahwa mereka lebih rendah dan tidak bisa berjuang melawan kekuasaan kulit putih. Dan akibatnya, lingkungan, sekolah, dan fasilitas umum lainnya untuk kaum minoritas dipisahkan dari kaum minoritas. Dan ada tiga jenis diskriminasi, yaitu diskriminasi di bidang ekonomi, politik, dan masalah sosial. Dampak dari diskriminasi adalah kemiskinan, pengangguran, kekerasan, penggunaan alkohol dan gizi yang buruk.

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ABSTRACT

This thesis describes the kinds and impacts of segregation and discrimination in the South of America in 1960s from the analysis of the novel The Help. The aim of this thesis is to explore the kinds and impacts of segregation and discrimination.The methods applied in this thesis are qualitative descriptive method. From the analysis, there are four kinds of segregation, they are, segregation in housing, public school, public transportation and hospital. It happens because the minority groups believe that they are inferior and cannot struggle against the whites’ power. And as the result, the neighborhoods, schools, and other public facilities for the dominant group are both separated from and superior to those of the minorities. And there are three kinds of discrimination, they are, discriminantion in economy, politic, and social issue. The impacts of discrimination is poverty, unemployment, violence, alcoholism and high disease.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank all who in one way or another contributed in the completion of this thesis. First, I give thanks to God for protection and ability to dowork.

I want to thank Dr. H. Syahron Lubis, M.A., Dean of Faculty of Studies; Dr. H. Muhizar Muchtar, MS, Head of Department of English; andRahmadsyah Rangkuti, M.A. Ph.D., Secretary of Department of English.

My deepest gratitude is to my advisor, Dra. Martha Pardede, M.S. I have been amazingly fortunate to have an advisor who gave me the freedom to explore on my own, and at the same time the guidance to recover when my steps faltered. Her patience and support helped me overcome many crisis situations.

My co-advisor, Drs. Siamir Marulafau, M.Hum, has been always there to listen and give advice. I am also thankful to him for encouraging the use of correct grammar and consistent notation in my writings and for carefully reading and commenting on countless revisions of this thesis.

Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude to my parents, family and friends for providing me with unfailing support and continuous encouragement throughout my years of study. This accomplishment would not have been possible without them.

Medan, April 23, 2014

Rini Sijabat Reg. No. 100705070

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

AUTHOR’S DECLARATION... v

COPYRIGHTDECLARATION... vi

ABSTRACT... vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT... ix

TABLE OF CONTENTS... x

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the Study ... 1

1.2 Problem of the Study ... 3

1.3 Objective of the Study ... 3

1.4 Scope of the Study ... 3

1.5 Significance of the Study ... 4

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED TO LITERATURE 2.1 Social Problems and The Quality of Life by Lauer ... 5

2.1.1 The Cause of Racial Discrimination ... 5

2.1.2 Social Structural Factors ... 6

2.1.3 Social Psychological Factors ... 7

2.2 Racial and Ethnics Groups by Richard T Scafaer ... 8

2.3 The Impacts of Segregation by K. Clark... ... 10

2.4 The Negro in the United States by E. Franklin Frazier... 12

CHAPTER III METHOD OF RESEARCH 3.1 Research Design ... 15

3.2 Data Collection ... 16

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CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

4.1 Segregation ... 19

4.1.1 Segregation in Housing ... 21

4.1.2 Segregation in Public School ... 23

4.1.3 Segregation in Public Transportation ... 24

4.1.4 Segregation in Hospital ... 25

4.2 The Impacts Of Segregation ... 26

4.2.1 The Impact of Segregation in Housing ... 27

4.2.2 The Impact of Segregation in Education ... 30

4.2.3 The Impact of Segregation in Hospital ... 32

4.2.4 The impact of segregation in Public Transport ... 33

4.3 Discrimination... 34

4.3.1. Discrimination in Economy ... 35

4.3.2 Discrimination in Politic ... 36

4.3.3 Discrimination in Social Issues ... 37

4.4 The Impacts Of Discrimination ... 40

4.4.1 Poverty ... 41

4.4.2 Unemployment ... 43

4.4.3 Violence ... 45

4.4.4 Alcoholism ... 50

4.4.5 High Disease ... 51

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 5.1 Conclusion ... 52

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REFERENCES APPENDICES

Kathryn Stockett’s Biography Summary of The Help

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ABSTRAK

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ABSTRACT

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1Background of the Study

Human beings are born in various kinds of race which are different each other. Those differences will be positive aspects of social life when it is followed by appreciative and tolerant act. But, racial differences can be a potential root of social conflict when it is followed by racism, an ism of a group that assume its group is superior and other groups are inferior. Racism can be a reason for a group of people to behave as civilized society and assume other groups as uncivilized society.

The problem in the relationship among various human races will always exist. Racial strains and disputes often occur, even in the United State which is highly considered as a country that respects human right. Problem in racialism cannot be separated from effects of the immigration. Thousands of blacks are brought to United State to become slaves.

The effect of immigration closely related to the problem of racial discrimination and segregation that occurred in the community. The subordinated groups become object of discrimination by white people because of the prejudice and stereotype. They assume that black people are stupid, rude, uneducated people and can be enslaved.

The social problem often occurs in literary works as can be found in the novel. The story in a novel describes the situation and the social problem happening in the society at a particular time. The social problem in the novel usually illustrates about poverty, gender, discrimination and social class, for example Kathryn Stockett in her novel The Help telling about the segregation and discrimination.

According to Thio (1991: 177) segregation means more than spatial and social separation of the dominant and minority groups. It means that minority groups, because they are

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believed inferior, are compelled to live separately, and inferior conditions and discrimination refers to the practice of treating different people differentially primarily on the basis of the color of their skin, nationality, and ethnicity. Discrimination and segregation have both had many impacts on society in the past and exist when individuals are treated unfairly because of their particular race, gender, age, and ethnic group.

The Help is a novel written by an American author, Kathryn Stockett. Novel The Help

published in February 2009. The novel takes place in Jackson, Mississippi during the dawning of the civil rights movement in the United States. Stockett's novel was partly autobiographical, it reflected the author's memory of growing up in Mississippi in the years following the civil rights era. Kathryn Stockett, who was raised in Jackson, Mississippi, was inspired by her close childhood relationship with her family's black maid to write The Help. Her novel tells the story of families in Jackson and the black women who work as maids and nannies for the families but live in a separate part of town and are segregated from whites in so many ways.

During the 1960’s, the era covered in The Help, legal segregation and economic inequalities limited black women's employment opportunities.The rising black poverty and high levels of racial segregation have interacted to concentrate poverty geographically and to create the social conditions leading to the crime waves experienced in the United States.

According to the explanation above, the reasons for choosing Kathryn Stockett’s The Help because this novel is interesting to discuss such as segregation, racism, and courage. It’s a beautiful story about friendship between women who were willing to cross lines and take risks in a time when it was dangerous to make waves or call for change that could result in violence.

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1.2Problem of the Study

From the background of the study which is described above, there are some problems that the writer will show:

1. How are the segregation and discrimination reflected in the novel? 2. What are the impacts of that event on black American?

1.3 Objective of the Study

Based on the problem of the study above , the objectives of the study are: 1. To describe the segregation and discrimination reflected in the novel. 2. To describe the impacts of that event on the black American.

1.4 Scope of the Study

The scope of the study is needed to limit the discussion in order to keep the focus on the purpose of the study. This thesis will discuss Kathryn Stockett’ The Help and focused on the kinds and the impacts of the discrimination and segregation in the novel that will be analyzed. This thesis also wants to answer does the racial discrimination and segregation reflected the historical reality at that time. The limitation of this thesis is only going to explorethe kind of segregation and discrimination and the impactsof the segregation anddiscrimination on black Americanreflected inKathryn Stockett’ The Help.

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1.5 Significance of the Study

The study will help the readers beneficially on:

1. Giving information to the readers about the impact of segregation and discrimination based on novel The Help.

2. Giving significant benefit in the form of information, especially for English Department students who manage themselves to increase their knowledge in analyzing a novel.

3. Providing a reference for another analysis relating to the segregation and discrimination.

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CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED TO LITERATURE

To help the readers in understanding this thesis, the writer would like to explore some literatures that relates with this research. The related literature explored in this chapter includes the review about the social problem, discrimination, segregation, the impacts of segregation and discrimination.

2.1.SocialProblems and The Quality of Life by Lauer

Social Problems and the Quality of Life focuses on the ways in which social problems affect the quality of life. It begins by defining social problems and discussing the tools needed to understand and respond to problems. It then moves on to an examination of specific problems in terms of: the nature and extent of the problem; how the problem affects people's quality of life; the structural and social psychological factors that cause and tend to perpetuate the problem; and what can be done to resolve the problem. Along with the discussion, a number of learning aids makes this text personal, practical, and an interactive learning experience.

2.1.1 The Cause of Racial Discrimination

The cause of racial discrimination is the attendance of racism of the belief that some racial group are inherently inferior to others. Lauer in SocialProblems & The Quality of Life

(2004: 222) said that this cause was supported by some factors, they are social structural factors and social psychological factors.

An important social structural factor that contributes to the problem of racial discrimination is institutional racism. Minorities are kept clustered in the lower levels of the

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stratification system and are exploited by the normal policies and practices of institutions, education, economy and government. Social psychological factors of attitudes, values, and ideologies of both the white majority and the minorities compound the structural discrimination. While the social structural factors lead to devaluation of minorities, the social psychological factors can lead to self defeating behavior on the part of minorities.

2.1.2 Social Structural Factors

The black as the minority occupies a low position in the stratification system. As minorities, they have some characteristics which the lower class has. Even they achieve higher socioeconomic levels still face various disadvantages and assaults on their dignity. The disadvantages are not always due to biased individuals. The term institutional racism was coined to refer to the fact that established policies and practices of social institutional tend to perpetuate racial discrimination. It means weather or not the people involved are prejudiced or deliberate in their discriminatory behavior, the normal practice and policies themselves guarantee that minorities will be short-changed. The portrayal of minorities in the media has tended to perpetuate various negative stereotypes.

The black as minorities still do not receive equitable treatment in the media like television and radio. In education, four primary and secondary education practice that perpetuate discrimination are segregated schools, so called IQ testing, ability grouping of children, and differential treatment of children based on racial identity. In economy, institutional racism has pervaded the economy in the three ways, they are exploitation of minority labor, exclusion of minorities from full participation in the economy and exploitation of minority consumers. And the government who are supposed to protect and help its citizens equally do notalways give its advantages to the blacks as much as the white are given.

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Thus, the social structure has tended to create and perpetuate superior and inferior partners of interaction because of the clustering of minorities in low status, low power roles in institutions. The minorities have lacked the power to exercise control over the institutions and have failed to receive the full benefits to participation in that institutions. The policies and practices of economic institutions, like government, tend to maximize and perpetuate the well being of those who are dominant.

2.1.3 Social Psychological Factors

Social psychological factor which support the racism becomes racial discrimination is prejudice. Prejudice is emotional attitude toward a human group. (Simpson and Yinger in Lauer, 2004: 227). Prejudice legitimates different treatment of group members and helps to perpetuate white dominance. Prejudice is an individual characteristic, but its causes lie outside the individual because no one is born with prejudice.

One consequence of prejudice is that it facilitates fallacious thinking. To the prejudiced person, certain fallacies of non sequiturs come easily, they are on welfare which caused them do not want to work, they have more children than they can properly care for, therefore they show themselves to be immoral, they do not speak proper English, therefore they are intellectually inferior.

Stereotypes that reinforce prejudice and discriminatory behavior also continue. The fact that virtually all whites hold some negative stereotypes and assumptions about African Americans and other racial–ethnic minorities called silent racism. Lauer (2004: 228) also stated that one of the most common causes of racism is stereotypes.

Through television, through radio, through the internet, through music, through books, and the like, the potential for stereo types to buildare a definite possibility. When a person, especially one that is very young, is exposed to stereotypes of a specific group for the

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first time, then that person will assume all are that way. Likewise, when a source is constantly displaying negative things about a particular race, then that will affect the overall opinions as well.

2.2.Racial and Ethnics Groups by Richard T Scafaer

Race and Ethnic Groups helps the writer to understand the changing dynamics of the U.S. population by examining history.

According to Racial and Ethnic Groups byScaefer“discrimination is an unfavorable action toward people because they are members of a particular racial or ethnic group” (2000:108).

Scaefer, in his book, Racial and Ethnics Groups he stated that:

Minority groups are subordinated in terms of power and privilege to the majority,or dominant, group. A minority is defined not by being outnumbered but by five characteristics: unequal treatment, distingusihing physical or cultural traits, involuntary membership, in-group marriage, and awareness of subordination. Subordinate groups are classified in terms of race, ethnicity, religion, and gender. The social importance of race is significant through a process of racial formation; its biological significance is uncertain.

Scaefer (2000: 3).

The dominant group becomes the superior class and hold the minority groups with their own ideas and regulations. The doctrine of White supremacy made by the “Whites” group says that “all members of the white race are superior to or “better than” all members of the nonwhite races” (Scaefer, 2000:83). The Whites claim their race as “higher” superiorities in the society and do not want to blend with others.

According to Scaefer, majority and minority are not merely based on the number of people. Majority groups are groups that have a main control or power and domination to other groups and believe that their group is better and right so indirectly they have a power to manage other groups in many aspects of their life. Minority groups are subordinated groups whose members have significantly less control or power over their own lives than do the

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member of dominant or majority groups. Minority groups are created because there are three situations that lead to the formation: Migration, Annexation and Colonialism while one of the results of the presence majority and minority occurring in Southern America in short stories is segregation(Scaefer, 2000: 6).

Racial Relation

Form of Acceptance Form of Rejection

Assimilation Prejudice

Accommodation Discrimination

Amalgamation Segregation Pluralism

The term “race relations” refers to all relationships which are capable of producing race conflict and race consciousness and which determine the relative status of groups in the community.” From the explanation above, the race relation should be noted that, in this case, differences in physical and genetic traits are important in contributing. to the economic, political, and social relationships which represent the issue of race relation. And the effect of contact is one of the most fundamental issues of race relations. The contact between groups

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from different races can cause a conflict. And when they have communicated each other, it can result in either greater respect (acceptance) or greater prejudice (rejection).

2.3.The Impact of Segregation by K. Clark, I Chein, and S. Cook

Clark et al. (2004) began their statement by acknowledging that racial and ethnic segregation was a serious problem facing the USA and that their social science statement served to summarise the contributions that social science could make toward it’s resolution.

The authors held that the demise of segregation would involve moral, legal and factual issues and that in their contribution they confine themselves to the latter from which certain conclusions could be drawn, given the available scientific knowledge at the time. The authors held that the ‘factual issues’ that they were pronouncing on dealt with the effects of segregation and the challenges that would arise in creating a desegregated society.

Clark et al (2004: 495) defined segregation as,

“...that restriction of opportunities for different types of associations between members of racial, religious, national or geographic origin, or linguistic group and those of other groups, which results from or is supported by the action of any official body or agency representing some branch of government”

There are a few note worthy points about this definition. First, the definition tells us nothing more than that segregation was a denial of ‘freedom of association’ between social groups that was enforced by some or other branch of government. Second, it carries no psychological or politically nuanced understanding of segregation. Third, it shifts accountability for segregation from the whole system of government (political, legal, economic, social etc.) to some unknown branch or agency there of.

Despite this narrow conceptualisation of segregation, Clark et al ( 2004: 495) acknowledged that segregation was located within “a social milieu in which ‘race’ prejudice and discrimination exists. They further observed, “The embeddedness of segregation in such

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a context makes it difficult to disentangle the effects of segregation per se from the effects of the context”

Segregation was a creation and assignment of lesser life conditions and chances. Black communities were created, through segregation, as the wretched of white society. Clark et al. (2004: 495) make this very point: “Where the action segregation takes place in a social milieu in which the groups involved do not enjoy equal social status, the group that is of lesser social status will be referred to as the segregated group” . The segregated group is, therefore, the group that lives in “a pattern of social disorganisation...reflected in high disease and mortality rates, crime and delinquency, poor housing, disrupted family life and general substandard living conditions”

As for segregation, Clark et al (2004: 497) want us to believe that it serves only as a major factor in highlighting difference in social status while they remained silent on the social difference itself. This view is held notwithstanding the fact that these authors recognised that “enforcedsegregation results from the decision of the majority group without the consent of the segregated”...and that “historically segregation patterns in the United States were developed on the assumption of the inferiority of the segregated”

Taken together then, what we come to at this point are the following realisations about the Clark et al. conceptualisation of segregation. First, it a conceptualisation emptied of its histo‐political context and over simplified as denial of freedom of association. Second, it fails to see segregation as a racist political instrument, process and product and therefore, ignores the injustices suffered by communities that were segregated and assigned to poor conditions of existence and life chances. Third, it reduces the social realities of the segregated to perception and finds fault with them and not the system of segregation that worked through white racism.

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2.4. The Negro in the United States by E. Franklin Frazier As noted in the book The Negro in the United States, Frazier said:

As a part of the plan to guarantee the rights of the negro as a citizen, the fourteenth amendment to the constitution was passed by the congress of the united states in 1866. The rejection of this amendment by the southern states together with race riots in the south during which hundreds of negroes were killed was evidence in the eyes of the northern radicals that the southern states were determined that the emancipated negro should not enjoy the rights of a free man (Frazier,1939:131).

That quotation represents that the Whites did not want to be blended with the Negroes and they think the Negro should not enjoy the rights of free men because at their first arrival to the United States, the Blacks become a slavery and low-paid workers. The Whites thought hard-work job is suitable for the Blacks and the Whites want to enslave them forever. Whereas, in the Declaration of Independence of America it iswritten “All men are created equal” so the minorities should get equal treatment and position in the government, live as free man, get their rights as citizen.

After the slave abolition era, Blacks people can live as American citizen but they still got unequal treatment in the society. The Whites do not want to blend with them. The Whites people create school segregation for Blacks and they make negative stereotype toward the Blacks.

This book was help to understand the African American history. Frazier discussed all the themes that have concerned subsequent students of the African American family, including matriarchy and patriarchy, the impact of slavery on family solidarity and personal identity, the impact of long-term poverty and lack of access to education, migration and rootlessness, and the relationship between family and community. Frazier insisted that the characteristics of the family were shaped not by race, but by social conditions. The book is both extremely well organized and engagingly written; not the least ingredient of its charm is the almost Biblical terminology of the titles given its parts and chapters.

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CHAPTER III

METHOD OF RESEARCH

The methods applied in this thesis are qualitative descriptive method, library research and sociological approach. Qualitative descriptive method will explain the result of analysis in the form of words and sentence since the result is not numeral data.Surakhmad (1994:139) said that a descriptive method is a kind of research method using technique of searching, collecting, classifying, analyzing the data, interpreting them and finally drawing the conclusion.

To find the data as reference of writing this thesis, library research is used to collecting the data from some books and many other resources that can be related to the subject matter being analyzed.There are some kind of researches to find the data such as library research, laboratory research and field research. According to Semi (1993:17) library research is a research technique that can be done in the study room or library where the writer can find all of data and information that are related to the thesis.

Sociological approach was also used to analyze the impacts of segregation and discrimination as reflected in that novel. Sociological approach is a kind of literary approach that focuses of on human problems and as a reflection of social life. Sociological approach of literary analysis starts with a conviction that the relationship between literature and society is vitally important, and the investigation of the relationship may deepen one’s response to a literary work. Ratna (2004:45) states that sociological approach analyzes human in society by understanding process about from society to individual. Basic philosophy of sociological approach is there is natural relationship between literary works and society.

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3.1 Research Design

Referring to the qualitativedescriptive method as the method, this thesis needs several data that related to the study discussed. The writer uses Kathryn Stockett’ The Help as the main source because the novel contents the important information for the subject matter that is being analyzed. Other material, such journals, books, or other online sources are also used as the support in finishing this thesis.

Researcher Source of Data:

The Help

Conclusion

Data:

Character and quotations from the text of novel The

Help

Method: Qualitative Descriptive Data Selected-

Interpret- Analysis

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3.2 Data Collection

In collecting data for this thesis, the library research was supported to find the data. Library research is the research in the library or researcher tries to get and collect data or information on the research object through books, journal, paper, and articles.

As Wellek and Warren (1977: 58) said, since the majority of student can find their source materials in libraries, a knowledge of most important libraries and familiarity with catalogues as well as other reference books is undoubtedly an important equipment of almost every student of literature. By using this technique, it can helps to get the information to write this thesis. The primary sources of the research is The Help, and related literatures as additional source and other sources are internet.

Here, some steps. These steps are done to make a systematical data and keep it’s validity. The steps are begun by reading and understanding novel The Help. From this step some general data relating with thekinds of segregation and discrimination and the impacts of segregation and racial discrimination happened in Kathryn Stockett’ The Help in form of paragraphs, phrases and sentences can be found. After this step, the next step is to choose the data which only deals with the problems of the study; it is about thekinds of segregation and discrimination and the cause of it and weather does or not the novel reflect the condition of racial discrimination in South of America in the last of 19th century.

To make the process of writing the result of study easy, in this step gives red colors to the sentences or paragraph which are used as data. The last step of data collecting is simplifying the data and to find the only appropriate data which can be analyzed to answer the problems of the study. Reading, collecting, and selecting related books, e-books, and online journals are the activities done to support the analysis as well.

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3.3 Data Analysis

Data analysis is applied when the data which concern to the social problem and it’s impact in 1960’s in Southern such as segregation and discrimination are collected and selected.The first step is to explore the data that found and analyze it according to sociology concept of segregation and discrimination. This step will help to find the data about segregation and discrimination in Kathryn Stockett’ The Help.

The second step is focused in analyzing the data to find the kinds of segregation and discrimination that happened in the society described in Kathryn Stockett’ The Help.

The third step is divided the impacts of segregation and discrimination, it is kinds and causes in the Kathryn Stockett’ TheHelp with some information or references. The last step is the conclusion based on the whole analysis. Finally, the conclusions are acquired to complete this thesis.

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BAB IV

ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

THE IMPACTS OF SEGREGATION AND DISCRIMINATION REFLECTED IN KATHRYN STOCKETT’S THE HELP

Based on those objectives of the study, this chapter is divided into two parts. In the first part is to present and analyze the data collected from Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. Second is to explain the kind of segregation and what is the impact of segregation on black people, and then then explain the kind of discrimination and what is the impact of discrimination on black people.

In the history, segregation and discrimination is one critical problem in Jackson Mississippi during the dawning civil right movement. Beginning in the late 19th century, state and local governments passed segregation laws, known as Jim Crow laws, and mandated restrictions on voting qualifications that left the black population economically and politically powerless. The sense of superiority among others created the concept of segregation; the legal or social practice of separating people based upon their race or ethnicity.

The segregation and discrimination does continue to affect the allocation of contemporary opportunities and contributes to the poor social and economic outcomes of minority groups. In dealing with the question of the impacts of segregation and discrimination, it must be recognized that these impacts do not takeplace in a vacuum, but in a social context. The segregation of Negroes and of other groups in the United States takes place in a social milieu in which "race" prejudice and discrimination exist.

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The imbededness of segregation in such a context makes it difficult to disentangle the effects of segregation from the effects of a pattern of social disorganization commonly associated with it and reflected in high disease and mortality rates, crime and delinquency, poor housing, disrupted family life and general substandard living conditions.

It happens because the minority groups believe that they are inferior and cannot struggle against the whites’ power. And as the result, the neighborhoods, schools, and other public facilities for the dominant group are both separated from and superior to those of the minorities.

4.1 Segregation

Segregation in Encyclopedia of sociology (1992: 1729) was originated to some Americans who seriously considered the idea of separating blacks and whites. As some blacks migrated to poor urban areas in the South, and as their number increased, some whites recognized that blacks were becoming a threat to the hard-won victories of higher priced White labor. For this reason, they insisted on a system of separation supported with a caste system that would deny blacks access to most jobs, social and government services, schools, public accommodation, et cetera. The impacts of segregation lead to having separate house, library, bus, and schools for black and white people. Segregation was fought and eventually desegregated places were developed.

Segregation leads to a blockage in the communications and interaction between the two

groups. Such blockages tend to increase mutual suspicion, distrust and hostility ( Frazier,

1949). Segregation not only perpetuates rigid stereotypes and reinforces negative attitudes

toward members of the other group, but also leads to the development of a social climate

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Because black people were considered inferior by most whites, and by the law, they were only allowed access to inferior living conditions, products, and services. And because the jobs and educational opportunities for black people were few, slices of that economic pie were hard to get hold of. Segregation negatively impacts every aspect of the lives of the black characters.

There were Jim Crow laws and other factors that lead to segregation in. The South was still segregated, forcing blacks to use separate facilities apart from those used by whites, in almost every aspect of society. Racial segregation was used to separate by race or more commonly skin color.

“I read through four of the twenty-five pages, mesmerized by how many laws exist to separate us. Negroes and whites are not allowed to share water fountains, movie houses, public restrooms, ballparks, phone booths, circus shows. Negroes cannot use the same pharmacy or buy postage stamps at the same window as me. I think about Constantine, the time my family took her to Memphis with us and the highway had mostly washed out, but we had to drive straight on through because we knew the hotels wouldn’t let her in. I think about how no one in the car would come out and say it. We all know about these laws, we live here, but we don’t talk about them. This is the first time I’ve ever seen them written down.

( Stockett, 2009: 173)

The quotation above shows thatJim Crow laws extended into almost every faced of public life. The laws stipulated that blacks use separate entrances into public buildings, have separate restrooms and drinking fountains, and sit in the back of trains and buses. Blacks and whites are not allowed to be served food in the same room in a restaurant, play pool together, share the same prisons, or be buried in the same cemeteries. Black Americans couldn't play professional sports with white teammates or serve in the armed forces with white soldiers. Black children are educated in separate schools. Black barbers couldn't wait on white female clients, and white female nurses couldn't attend to black male patients. Not every law applied in every state, but the Jim Crow laws are demoralizing and far reaching, all in the name of protecting white culture and power.

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There are four kinds of segregation that found in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help : 4.1.1 Segregation in Housing

According to the conception inspired by Marxist Sociology, segregation is the expression of social inequalities within the territory of cities, and reflects the unequal appropriation of land, goods and services by different social classes. Residential segregation is therefore thought to have characteristics that are specific to capitalist societies. It is also thought to be the result of the social struggle, which in turn accounts for the unequal appropriation of the territory, consumer goods, and housing in its different forms (Lojkine,1979).

The blacks in Mississippi live in their own part of town. The whites use pejorative terms to refer to the black characters, and public buildings such as the courthouse have separate areas for the whites and for the colored.In The Help, Aibileen as the main character live in the area of black population, her house is far away from white’s house. Skeeter's description of the layout of Jackson helps us understand the segregation in housing

Constantine lived about a mile from our house, in a small Negro neighborhood called Hotstack, named after the tar plant that used to operate back there. The road to Hotstack runs along the north side of our farm, and for as long as I can remember, colored kids have walked and played along that mile stretch, kicking at the red dust, making their way toward the big County Road 49 to catch a ride.

(Stockett, 2009: 61)

Six days a week, I take the bus across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge to where Miss Leefolt and all her white friends live, in a neighborhood call Belhaven. Right next to Belhaven be the downtown and the state capital. Capitol building is real big, pretty on the outside but I never been in it. I wonder what they pay to clean that place.

So Jackson's just one white neighborhood after the next and more springing up down the road. But the colored part of town, we one big anthill, surrounded by state land that ain't for sale. As our numbers get bigger, we can't spread out. Our part of town just gets thicker. (Stockett, 2009: 12)

These quotations describes that Aibileen and Constantine are lives in separate area with white’s house. Segregation appears in The Help where all physical facilities are separated

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between the whites and the black-americans. Both of them have different places and, of course, different facilities.Black people are living as second class citizen and they are oppressed by the existence of regulations that limit their access to public area. They lived separately with white people even though they lived together in one city.

The novel shows that segregation resulted from the fact that black Americans resided in distinct neighborhoods, stemming from insufficient income as well as a desire to live among their own people, as many ethnic groups did. However, blacks separated themselves not merely as a matter of choice or custom. Instead, realtors and landlords steered blacks away from white neighborhoods and municipal ordinances and judicially enforced racial covenants signed by home owners kept blacks out of white areas.

Most of the blacks live in the bad part of town, or the "slums." Even if they had the money, they wouldn't have been able to live in an upper class neighborhood like Jackson. Blacks are considered dirty and unsanitary therefore, people didn't want them next to their houses. Residential segregation by race remains a salient feature of contemporary American cities. Indeed, black Americans were as segregated from whites in 1990 as they had been at the start of the twentieth century, and levels of segregation appear unaffected by rising socioeconomic status (Massey & Denton, 1993).

4.1.2 Segregation in Public School

Segregation has been prohibited in the United States since the mid-1960s . All over America there seems to be painfully obvious difference in the school systems which cater to the upper class minority and the ones that serve the lower and middle class minority. America's school systems seem to be returning to their former state of segregation. The population of minorities who live in the United States is constantly increasing and their numbers can contribute to the success or the failure of the nation.

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Public schools are just one of the many public places which are segregated. The conditions of African-American schools were worse than white schools. They were usually run-down, one-room buildings with no air condition or heating, no water, and no electricity. There were few teachers, few books, and few supplies. There are some special ways or institutions which provide the education for white people and black people

There are some special ways or institutions which provide the education for white people and black people. But, the education for the white is not the same with the education for the black. The black will be never allowed to enter the white schools.

This unfair condition is explained by the following quotation:

But Miss Hilly shaking her head. “Aibileen, you wouldn’t want to go to a school full of white people, would you?”

My heart beating hard. And I say polite as I can, “Not a school full a just white people. But where the colored and the white folks is together.”

“Hilly and Miss Leefolt both look at me. I look back down at the kid. But Aibileen – Miss Hilly smile—“colored people and white people are just so...different.” She wrinkle up her nose.

I feel my lip curling. A course we different! Everybody know colored people and white people ain’t the same. But we still just people! Shoot, I even been hearing Jesus had colored skin living out there in the desert. I press my lips together. ( Stockett, 2009: 186)

The quotation above is the conversation between Hilly and Miss Leefolt. They are arguing that the black people and white should get education in separate way because they are different. Because of the little number of black schools, there are only little black people who have good education. Whereas the white has some schools more and better then the black’s. It means that there is no equality in getting education for the white and the black people

This is in reference to the segregation of regular, honors, or advanced placement classes where whites represent the majority of “high-level” classes where as blacks represent the majority of the “lower-level” classes.

The division of schools according to the race of the students is one kind of segregation in education. In more critical condition, the people can be segregated in getting their right to

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education and training for racial reasons, whereas education is regarded as right of all people without any exception, even for the racial causes.

4.1.3 Segregation in Public Transportation

Another example of segregation would be the fact that in the court scene the black people are made to sit separately from the white people and that they can not sit together and if a black man was sitting on a bus and there wasn’t any seats left he would have to get up to allow white parson to sit down.

I get number six bus that afternoon, which goes from Belhaven to Farish Street. The bus today is nothing but maids heading home in our white uniforms. We all chatting and smiling at each other like we own it—not cause we mind if they’s white people on here, we sit anywhere we want to now thanks to Miss Parks—just cause it’s a friendly feeling

I spot Minny in the back center seat. (Stockett, 2009: 12)

The quotation above is the statement of Aibileen. Black people have to sit in the back seat. The first seats of every bus are reserved for white passengers, and the blacks can not sit in them, ever, even if there is no white person on the bus at the time. The back seats on the bus are for the blacks and if there are no white seats left and the whites needed a seat the blacks are force to get up and stand. Some of the bus drivers has a practice; they would make the blacks pay at the front and then he will make them get off the bus and get on at the back of the bus. Some of the bus drivers will take off with out the blacks after they had paid their money at the front of the bus as they are trying to get on the back ofthe bus.

But this condition has changed by Miss Parks. Parks, known as "the mother of the civil rights movement," walked into history on December 1, 1955 when she refused to give up her seat for a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Parks was arrested for her defiance, and she agreed to challenge the segregation order in court. After this tactic failed,

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stayed off those busses. We did not return to using public transportation until the Supreme Court said there shouldn't be racial segregation ( Brinkley, 2000)

4.1.4 Segregation in Hospital

As late as the mid-1960s, hospital segregation was widespread throughout the United States and, in many jurisdictions, legally sanctioned. Segregation was expressed through denial of staff privileges to minority physicians and dentists, refusal to admit minority applicants to nursing and residency training programs, and failure to provide medical, surgical, pediatric, and obstetric services to minority patients. Many local hospitals across the U.S. openly segregated against black physicians, denying them the access to admit their patients to hospitals.

Do I really have to say it? I grit my teeth to get it out. “ Them doctors ain’t gone work on no colored person, Miss Celia.”

( Stockett, 2009: 304)

The quotation above shows the conversation between Minny and Miss Celia. This is show the segregation in hospital. The majority of white doctors treats only patients who are white. Black doctors are often denied the opportunity to practice medicine by hospitals and this caused white patients are choose white doctors because they has access to hospitals. The inability of people with lower socioeconomic status receive proper healthcare is a problem with it’s source rooted in the racial segregation by the government and citizens themselves.

4.2 The Impacts of Segregation

Separation began in residential areas, schools, buses, and hospital. Separation referred to the physical separation of the two groups and social function. The thought processes of white southerners were most likely hardened by segregation and contributed to a deeper level

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of racism. The whites where in control of the segregation and decided the rules of segregation in turn ruining the lifes of many black americans.

According to Williams and Jackson (2005), the residential concentration of African Americans leads to inequalities in neighborhoods, socioeconomic status and quality of medical care. The previous racial segregation in residential areas has maintained its prevalence, even through the twenty first century. It is a vicious cycle, as those who live in impoverished areas have less access to quality schools, are less likely to graduate and obtain well-paying jobs and therefore remain in poverty and in the same racially segregated residential areas. And as stated before, lower income is positivity related to poor and lower standard healthcare (Williams, 1999). This institutionalized racism and racial segregation within income levels has an indirect effect on healthcare and health outcomes of minority races.

The impacts of segregation blacks are segregation forced blacks into separate areas of the city. They were denied access to library, school and public transportation, segregation results in neighborhoods with high poverty, lower home values and poor job opportunities. High-poverty neighborhoods also have greater exposure to pollution and violent crime. The novel shows that communities with high proportions of racial and ethnic minorities also have less access to doctors.

4.2.1 The Impact of Segregation in Housing

The impact of segregation happened in housing. Many people of color have a little chance to choose where they live and pay higher rents for less adequate housing.

I LIVE ON GESSUM AVENUE, where I been renting since 1942. You could say Gessum got a lot a personality. The houses all be small, but every front yard’s different—some scrubby and grassless like a baldheaded old man. Others got azalea bushes and roses and thick green grass. My yard, I reckon it be somewhere in between. (Stockett, 2009: 16)

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The quotation above shows that Aibileen lives in a rent and small house. In Kathryn Stockett’ The Help, the black people are identical as the members of the lower class who are in critical poverty, and the white is identical with the upper class who are in the top of richness. This two race difference in economy is the indication of the discrimination happened. Although in the reality, it is known that not all of the black people are the members of the lower class, but the society still segregated them.

Aibileen is one of the black who became the member of upper class and who also in this poor condition. This fact is explained in the following quotation:

That evening, it’s raining hard outside. I pull out a jar a Ida Peek’s cabbage and tomato, eat my last slice a leftover cornbread. Then I set down to look over my finances cause two things done happen: the bus gone up to fifteen cents a ride and my rent gone up to twenty-nine dollars a month. I work for Miss Leefolt eight to four, six days a week except Saturdays. I get paid forty-three dollars ever Friday, which come to $172 a month. That means after I pay the light bill, the water bill, the gas bill, and the telephone bill, I got thirteen dollars and fifty cents a week left for my groceries, my clothes, getting my hair done, and tithing to the church. Not to mention the cost to mail these bills done gone up to a nickel. And my work shoes is so thin, they look like they starving to death. New pair cost seven dollars though, which means I’m on be eating cabbage and tomato till I turn into Br’er Rabbit. Thank the Lord for Ida Peek, else I be eating nothing.

(Stockett, 2009: 16)

From this quotation, it shows black women in that novel is not enough money to pay rent. If they had a job they only made enough money to barely pay the rent and enough food to live on. One of the main constraints on having money for food is having money to pay the rent. In Jakson, Mississippi, most of the rural working classes do not own their own homes. The South side of the city is over populated with many blacks. They alike are forced to live in miserable circumstances without proper living conditions or enough food. This situation, known as poverty. They are monopolized on their rent and are not able to advance themselves, just try to survive.

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There is a limit that makes the black cannot live together with the white. The impact of segregation also happened with Aibeleen that she can not use the white people bathroom, even at home they have to live separately.

She smiling big now. She dont have no teeth showing, just a lip smile, kind you got to watch. “ Mister Leefolt and I have decided to build you your very own bathroom.” She clap her hands together, drop her chin at me. It’s right out there in the garage.”

( Stockett, 2009: 29)

The quotation above is the impact segregation that are presented to the reader is the whole incident of Aibileen having to use a special outside restroom built just for black people.

As president of Jackson’s Junior League, Hilly makes it her mission to see that every white home in Jackson has a separate toilet outside of the home for the housemaids. She calls this mission the “Home Help Sanitation Initiative”. Hilly writes the following advertisement for Skeeter to publish in the Junior League newsletter:

Hilly Holbrook introduces the Home Help Sanitation Initiative. A disease preventative measure…

Ladies, did you know that:

99% of all colored diseases are carried in the urine

Whites can become permanently disabled by nearly all of these diseases because we lack immunities coloreds carry in their darker pigmentation Some germs carried by whites can also be harmful to coloreds too Protect yourself. Protect your children. Protect your help.

From the Holbrooks, we say, You’re welcome! (Stockett, 2009: 158)

Hilly’s ideology of racial segregation plays a productive role in her initiative, and it is endurance depends upon the ability to establish and fortify clear physical and mental boundaries that separate racialized bodies.

The novel shows that segregation doesn't just mean that black and white people must live apart. It means that they can only interact in certain situations (mostly in which black people are serving white people in some capacity) and there are strict rules and norms about how they can act toward each other. If they break the rules it could result in violence.

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Louvenia is my fifth interview. She is Lou Anne Templeton’s maid and I recognize her from serving me at bridge club. Louvenia tells me how her grandson, Robert, was blinded earlier this year by a white man, because he used a white bathroom.

(Stockett, 2009: 257)

The quotation above describes that Robert is blind because he uses a white bathroom. The novel shows all the white think that the black are dirty who can spread many kinds of disease. The diases are caused by the black people. This problem makes white people get worried about their healthy. Because of this difference, the prejudice comes and makes the people build the space which separates the white and the black.

4.2.2 The Impact of Segregation in Education

Segregated housing directly affected the education and employment opportunities. The quote below is Aibileen’s story, even though she is a smart person but she don’t have opportunity into high school. She have to help her mother and work as a maid like black people usually do.

I been writing my prayers since I was in junior high. When I tell my seventh-grade teacher I ain’t coming back to school cause I got to help out my mama, Miss Ross just about cried.

You’re the smartest one in the class, Aibileen,” she say. “And the only way you’re going to keep sharp is to read and write everyday”

So I started writing my prayers down instead a saying em. But nobody called me smart since.

( Stockett, 2009: 22)

The quotation above describes that the black people have limited work opportunities than the white. From this quotation, it is known that there are unequal economic conditions between the white and the black. Most of the people are living in prosperity while in the same time most of the black are living in very poor condition. This difference produces the economic competition which is not equal.

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This economic competition then causes the racial segregation toward the black who are in fact economically in the lower position then the white. It is shown clearly that the people say that white and black people are different. So, in the other word, this case shows that there is segregation in getting education for the black in Katryn Stockett’ The Help.

The impact of segregation in school also affect to library. Separate and unequal access to knowledge is the antithesis of library ideals. During the civil rights movement libraries were a popular target for protests because libraries were symbols of democracy and opportunity for all. Under segregation black people were generally denied access to public libraries in the

“Go down to the State Street Library. They have a whole room full of Southern writers. Faulkner, Eudora Welty—”

Aibileen gives me a dry cough. “You know colored folks ain’t allowed in that library.”

I sit there a second, feeling stupid. “I can’t believe I forgot that.” The colored library must be pretty bad. There was a sit-in at the white library a few years ago and it made the papers. When the colored crowd showed up for the sit-in trial, the police department simply stepped back and turned the German shepherds loose. I look at Aibileen and am reminded, once again, the risk she’s taking talking to me. “I’ll be glad to pick the books up for you,” I say.

Aibileen hurries to the bedroom and comes back with a list. “I better mark the ones I want first. I been on the waiting list for To Kill a Mockingbird at the Carver Library near bout three months now. Less see . . .”

(Stockett, 2009: 154)

Aibileen is a smart person wants to enlarge her knowlegde but she cannot borrow the book from the white library because she is black. The impact of segregation can be seen in the library as one of public service that made separate between black and white.

4.2.3 The Impact of Segregation in Hospital

The impact of segregation in hospital can be seen in the novel The Help. When Aibileen works in another white lady house, a white boy get accident. Then she decides to bring him to black hospital, but the doctor refuses him because he is a white.

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“. . . so I go on and get the chiffarobe straightened out and before I know it, that little white boy done cut his fingers clean off in that window fan I asked her to take out ten times. I never seen that much red come out a person and I grab the boy, I grab them four fingers. Tote him to the colored hospital cause I didn’t know where the white one was. But when I got there, a colored man stop me and say, Is this boy white?” The typewriter keys are clacking like hail on a roof. Aibileen is reading faster and I am ignoring my mistakes, stopping her only to put in another page. Every eight seconds, I fling the carriage aside.

“And I say, Yessuh, and he say, Is them his white fingers? And I say, Yessuh, and he say, Well, you better tell em he your high yellow cause that colored doctor won’t operate on a white boy in a Negro hospital. And then a white policeman grab me and he say, Now you look a here—”

(Stockett, 2009: 151)

This is show that the black people have seperate hospital from the white. The white can not enter black hospital, if they do, the black people will deny them, because when black doctor helps them, it could result in violence. Racial hostility and segregation was the reason that most African- American doctors had to practice medicine in poor communities. Segregation does not only indirectly affect healthcare of African Americans, but segregation is directly seen within the actual field of medicine in patient care and interaction.

4.2.4 The impact of segregation in Public Transportation

Not only in hospital, the impact of segregation also happened on bus (as was common elsewhere in the South) with specific areas on a bus reserved for white passengers and other seats for black passengers.

Bus come after while. Ain’t but four people on there, two colored, two white, all mens. I don’t know any of em. I take a window seat behind a thin colored fella. He got on a brown suit and a brown hat, be about my age.

“What happen up there?” colored man in front a me call to the driver.

Driver don’t answer. He keep backing up. The flashing lights is getting smaller, the dog barking fading off. Driver turn the bus around on Farish Street. At the next corner, he stop. “Colored people off, last stop for you,” he holler in the rearview. “White people lemme know where y’all need to get to. I’ll get you close as I can.” (Stockett, 2009: 193)

Aibileen and her black friends get segregation when there is a riot on the street. There are four passengers, two black men and two black white on the bus. Suddenly, the bus stops

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in the middle street and the driver asks black people to go out from the bus because he just want to take white passangers. This quotation shows the segregation on the bus. The white driver keeps the white passenger and leave behind the black people.

In 1960, the rule on the buses in Mississippi was that ‘coloured’ passengers must sit at the back and leave the front seats to white passengers.There is an unfair segregation law which segregated bus passengers by race and asked black passengers to move when there were no white-only seats left. At that time, many of the black people were ousted by the bus driver and forced to walk a long way back to home when the bus was full.

4.3 Discrimination

Discrimination has been generalized, for well over a century, as any harsh words directed at another race. This is merely the facade of discrimination though. Discrimination can be embodied in a variety of ways. A man's creed, his or her color of skin, musical or artistic inclination and a person's sexual preference are only fleeting examples of a much larger picture. In discrimination, there are no right sides to arguments fought over superiority, only a massive population of fools blindly pointing at each other and judging each other's essence of what makes them unique.

Discrimination itself stems from ignorance, which occurs when unfocused hatred is spewed forth, its aim, certain minority groups, or majority groups for that matter. In many situations, the oppressor's bigotry is merely a product of a deranged up bringing in which other groups of people were slandered and maligned.

The cause of racial discrimination is the attendance of racism of the belief that some racial group are inherently inferior to others. Lauer (2004: 222) said that this cause was supported by some factors, they are social structural factors and social psychological factors.

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An important social structural factor that contributes to the problem of racial discrimination is institutional racism.

Minorities are kept clustered in the lower levels of the stratification system and are exploited by the normal policies and practices of institutions, including social issue, economy and government. Social psychological factors of attitudes, values, and ideologies of both the white majority and the minorities compound the structural discrimination. While the social structural factors lead to devaluation of minorities, the social psychological factors can lead to self defeating behavior on the part of minorities.

Here is some kinds of discrimination that found in The Help: 4.3.1 Discrimination in Economy

In Kathryn Stockett’ The Help, the black people are identical as the members of the lower class who are in critical poverty, and the white is identical with the upper class who are in the top of richness. This two race difference in economy is the indication of the discrimination happened.

The United States is often referred to the land of opportunity. It is the place where many foreigners come for the chance to make their lives better. They openly speak about the ease of obtaining a quality education, a well-paying job, a home and overall economic stability.

However, African Americans, who are long-time inhabitants, are still struggling to acquire a fraction of these benefits. Many whites quickly agree that blacks are not working hard enough to change their situation; asserting that their plight of poverty is chosen. Yet, with careful examination one quickly realizes that these foreigners, although minorities, represent something a little different.

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Massey and Denton (1993), demonstrated that even affluent minorities have been found to live in communities with higher poverty rates, lower educational attainment, and higher shares of single-parent families.

The general actions to discriminate people economically based on the race are the discrimination on the rights to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work, to protection against unemployment, and to equal pay for equal work.

In The Help, Aibileen as a maid of Miss Leefot works in a whole day. But she is paid with minimum salary.

Take a whole day just to clean toilets. Miss Leefot don’t pay but ninety-five cents an hour less than I been paid in years. But after Treelore died, I took what I could.

( Stockett, 2009:4)

Aibileen has a son named Treelore who past away at the age of twenty-four years old. He has a little apartment over on foley street and working in Scanlon-Taylor, Treelore is to small for that kind of work and too skinny but he needed the job. The quotation above explains that black people lag in their ability to get and keep good jobs because of racial discrimination

But one night he working late at the Scanlon-Taylor mill, lugging two-by-fours to the truck, splinters slicing all the way through the glove. He too small for that kind a work, too skinny, but he needed the job.

( Stockett, 2009: 2)

While the white workers can get good works with good facilities for their own selves, the black in the other hand cannot get it. It makes the black people condition worse day by day, but they have no effort to change it for helping their own selves.

4.3.2 Discrimination in Politic

Discrimination in politic covers many actions which are done by state or government. Discrimination in politic makes the black got the inhuman treatment. It is because the

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Because of some reasons, the black are got the inhuman treatments for there are not specific laws for help them. Other fact which shows the discrimination which limits people’s right to equal treatment from society is that there are some laws which regulate for people according to their race. This condition is supported by the following quotation:

“ The booklet is simply a list of laws stating what colored people can and cannot do, in an assortment of Southern states. I skim the first page, puzzled why this is here. The laws are neither threatening nor friendly, just citing the facts:

No person shall require any white female to nurse in wards or rooms in which negro men are placed. It shall be unlawful for a white person to marry anyone except a white person. Any marriage in violation of this section shall be void.

No colored barber shall serve as a barber to white women or girls.

The officer in charge shall not bury any colored persons upon ground used for the burial of white persons.

Books shall not be interchangeable between the white and colored schools, but shall continue to be used by the race first using them.”

(Stockett, 2009: 173)

What Skeeter said in the quotation above is the evidence that the tradition has

treated the black differently from the white. As far as the people have the differentrace from other people, they cannot be the part of them. Here is the discrimination has limited people’s right to have equal treatment from society.

During Jim Crow, each of these representing societies in which the laws and cultural institutions manufactured and enforced systematic inequalities based on group membership. Although the vestiges of Jim Crow have long since disappeared in the contemporary United States, there remain features of American society that may contribute to persistent forms of structural discrimination (Massey, 2007).

4.3.3 Discrimination in Social Issues

There is one fact in Kathryn Stockett’ The Help that shows that racial discrimination limits people’s right to equal treatment from society. It means that the society in the novel has different assumption in viewing white and black people. Something that is done by white people is valued differently compared with the same thing is done by the black people.

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The Help has quite a few sections where there’s unequal treatment of the races. One subtle example of discrimination the reader sees is the treatment of Constantine, a black woman, the housekeeper/nanny for the white family. Although she is treated fairly, it is obvious that she is considered to be on a lower social level than the white people.

“ Being Negro with white skin....in Missisippi, its like you belong to nobody. But it wasn’t just hard on the girl. It was hard on Constantine. She....folks would look at her. White folks would stop her all suspicious what she doing toting round white child. Policemen used to stop her on State Street, told her she need to get uniform on. Even colored folks....they treat her different, distrusful, like she done something wrong”

( Stockett, 2009: 358)

The quotation above describes the forms of the Whites racism faced by Afro-Americans dealing with prejudice. Prejudice always appears when there are dominant and minority group. There are some phenomena that tell about prejudice to minorities group that have different race with the Whites. If there are phenomena which argue about race still continue repeatedly in the next, the equity of different races will never be reached successfully. Thus, two different groups (dominant and minority) are needed together to realize an egalitarian community.

Prejudices against poor people of every color and background are obvious, as are the prejudices of minority groups who have bad feelings about other minority groups, as well as minority groups who harbor prejudice toward the perceived majority culture. Other prejudices include stereotyping, discriminating against, and even attacking, people based on their sexual orientation. Not only happened for Constantine, another maid like Minny feel the same way. While working in Hilly’s house, she has a few rules to followed.

“Mama turned me by the shoulders so I’d look at her instead of the cake. Mama was a crack-whip. She was proper. She took nothing from nobody. She shook her finger so close to my face, it made me cross-eyed.

“Rule Number One for working for a white lady, Minny: it is nobody’s business. You keep your nose out of your White Lady’s problems, you don’t go crying to her with yours—you can’t pay the light bill? Your feet are too sore? Remember one thing: white people are not

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your friends. They don’t want to hear about it. And when Miss White Lady catches her man with the lady next door, you keep out of it, you hear me?

“Rule Number Two: don’t you ever let that White Lady find you sitting on her toilet. I don’t care if you’ve got to go so bad it’s coming out of your hairbraids. If there’s not one out back for the help, you find yourself a time when she’s not there in a bathroom she doesn’t use.

“Rule Number Three—” Mama jerked my chin back around to face her because that cake had lured me in again. “Rule Number Three: when you’re cooking white people’s food, you taste it with a different spoon. You put that spoon to your mouth, think nobody’s looking, put it back in the pot, might as well throw it out.

“Rule Number Four: You use the same cup, same fork, same plate every day. Keep it in a seperate cupboard and tell that white woman that’s the one you’ll use from here on out. “Rule Number Five: you eat in the kitchen.

“Rule Number Six: you don’t hit on her children. White people like to do their own spanking.”

“Rule Number Seven: this is the last one, Minny. Are you listening to me? No sass-mouthing.” “Mama, I know how—”

(Stockett, 2009: 39)

This quotation shows that the black and white is not same, black maid have a few rules when working in white house. Since the whites think that they are different from the black americans and make a far distance with them, there are many race riots happen. Discrimination can be practiced by an individual or an institution. Institutional discrimination occurswhen some large organization for example, a government engages in practices that are unfair to members of some groups and puts them at a disadvantage. Individual and institutional discrimination differ in the following respects. Individual discrimination is carried out by people acting on their own. Institutional discrimination occurs when an institution makes laws or rules that affect the behavior of large numbers of people.

4.4 The Impacts Of Discrimination

Discrimination is an action that treats people unfairly because of their membership in a particular social group. Discriminatory behaviours take many forms, but they all involve some form of exclusion or rejection. Discrimination leads to an angry society that is always in conflict with one another and this may progress to outright violence.

(51)

Macionis (1987: 56) said that discrimination is the result of class conflict in society. This conflict is the engine that drives social change. Sometimes societies change a slow, evolutionary rate. But they may erupt in rapid, revolutionary change. In the struggle to change the social life and status, the discrimination is often happens.

As the result of class conflict, discrimination is nothing new. It has close relation to prejudice. The people usually think that these two are the hateful ideas or actions of specific people. These two are also reinforced each other. Discrimination also has the relation with majority and minority as the patterns of people interaction.

In the history of United States (Encyclopedia Americana, 1998: 545a), it is stated that black people have been particularly being the victim of racial discrimination, either individually or institutionally. They are often in inequality and low status, and become the object of racial discrimination done by the white people. This racial discrimination toward the black people happens in many times and places and it also has taken long time period. It is done by the white people or other people who are not included to the black people, originally or culturally.

Discrimination produce impacts in the social, political and economic domains. Whether intended or not, the impacts are compounded by loss of self worth, a sense of alienation from the wilder society, political disempowerment and economic inequalities. 4.4.1 Poverty

Racial discrimination creates this inequality, which directly contributes to poverty. Change is indeed possible but only through discussion and understanding of the cultural dominance preserved and afforded to whites.

Poverty can be caused by many different problems. One cause of poverty is that people who have a lower than average ability to earn income are more likely to be poor than those

(1)

In a review for Entertainment Weekly, Karen Valby remarked that "Stockett jumps effortlessly between her women's voices. She has created a world of memorable supporting characters--from the bitch in the Junior League to Skeeter's oilman suitor--to surround them." Mary Emrick, in a review for the Mississippi Business Journal, dubbed Stockett's effort "a poignant novel that gives us hope for a brighter future of mutual love and respect between the two races." Rebecca Kelm posited and then answered an excellent question in a review for Library Journal: "Is this an easy book to read? No, but it is surely worth reading." A Publishers Weekly reviewer found the book to be "a superb intertwining of personal and political history."

(2)

Summary of The Help

The Help, a first novel from Kathryn Stockett, is the story of a young white woman in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s and a group of black maids who work for the families of her friends. Stockett writes about the struggles the women face as they chafe against the written and unwritten rules that limit their lives.

The Help is set in the early 1960s i first-person perspectives of three women: Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter. Aibileen is an African-American maid who cleans houses and cares for the young children of various white families. Her first job since her own 24-year-old son, Treelore, died from an accident on his job is tending the Leefolt household and caring for their toddler, Mae Mobley. Minny is Aibileen's confrontational friend who frequently tells her employers what she thinks of them, resulting in her having been fired from nineteen jobs. Minny's most recent employer was Mrs. Walters, mother of Hilly Holbrook. Hilly is the social leader of the community, and head of the

When Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan returns to her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi fresh from college with a diploma, her mother dismisses it as “a pretty piece of paper.” And so the novel THE HELP truly begins, for its Skeeter’s story that drives the pages. It’s the age old story of a child now grown, still hoping to appease an unyielding parent. In this case Charlotte Phelan, who in Skeeter’s eyes is pretty, petite, in short everything a Southern belle should be while Skeeter is not.

Skeeter thinks of herself as too tall, with whitish blond hair that’s too kinky, a nose flawed by having a slight bump along the top and fair skin that’s “downright deathly when I’m serious.”

(3)

Although Skeeter enjoys the monthly bridge games with childhood friends Hilly Holbrook and Elizabeth Leefolt, she runs afoul of Hilly when she jokes about the former’s mission to see that all the white residents of Jackson, Mississippi have separate bathrooms outside of their homes for the black help. For as Hilly believes, “everybody knows they (blacks) carry different kinds of diseases than we do.”

Aibileen Clark, the maid waiting on the ladies as they play bridge, overhears Skeeter’s flippant reply. “Maybe we ought to just build you a bathroom outside Hilly.”

That sets off Skeeter and Hilly’s battle of wills throughout the novel. Not only does Skeeter have to endure her mother’s constant criticisms, but also Hilly’s attempts to run her life. Hilly fires the first warning shot, when she threatens to remove Skeeter as the editor of their Junior League’s newsletter for her untimely joke. For Hilly is hell bent on having her Home Help Sanitation Initiative bill placed into law.

A somewhat dejected Skeeter tries to engage Aibileen in conversation once they’re in Elizabeth Leefolt’s kitchen by themselves. Skeeter notes the radio station Aibileen’s listening to, telling her the preacher’s sermon reminds her of the station her childhood maid, Constantine always listened to. Skeeter also tries to broach the subject of Hilly’s sanitation bill, and wonders aloud to a woman who’s lived her whole life under segregation “Do you ever wish you could…change things?”

To which Skeeter covertly attempts to do just that.

Though she’s landed a job giving out housekeeping tips for the local paper, Skeeter longs to be a writer. One day, after hearing Aibileen talk about her recently deceased son’s idea to write about his experience as a black worker, Skeeter is encouraged when a New York editor likes her premise of writing about the female domestics in Jackson, Mississippi. For as

(4)

Skeeter implores “Nobody ever asked Mammy (From Gone with the Wind) how she really felt.”

She enlists the help of Aibileen to gather up more maids so that she can write a manuscript about their experiences as the Help. Aibileen brings along a friend, the sassy Minny Jackson. Minny has lost a number of jobs because of her sharp tongue, yet with a bit of cunning from Aibileen she lands a job with Miss Celia Foote, a woman who’s an outcast in Hilly’s society circle because she ‘s white trash. Minny and Celia begin a wacky relationship, partly because Celia doesn’t want her husband to know she’s enlisted a maid to help her around the house.

As Skeeter’s manuscript on the domestics takes shape, she also finds progress in her love life once Hilly sets her up on a blind date with a state senator’s son. Stuart Whitworth appears to be the answer to both Skeeter and her demanding mother’s prayers. Because by now Charlotte Phelan has been diagnosed with cancer. Skeeter retreats to a time when she was most comfortable, under the care of the loving maid Constantine. So while she peppers Aibileen with questions over Constantine’s rather abrupt departure, Aibileen silently mourns her son’s untimely death. To compensate for her loss, Aibileen develops a strong, loving bond with Miss Leefolt’s daughter Mae Mobley, and her attempts to teach the child how to potty underscore the absurdity of having an outhouse strictly for the Help. In one scene, Mae Mobley refuses to use the toilet, insisting that Aibileen go first.

There are several relationships woven throughout the novel. Skeeter and her mother, Skeeter and Hilly, Skeeter and the black maids, Skeeter and Stuart Whitworth. Though she dare not tell Stuart what she’s working on, he appears supportive of her quest to become a writer. Stuart even tells her she’s pretty, something Skeeter has waited all her life to hear. The other relationships include Minny and Miss Celia, Minny and her abusive husband Leroy,

(5)

and Minny’s friendship with Aibileen. Aibileen in turn develops a growing admiration for Skeeter, a close friendship with Minny, and motherly affection for the love starved daughter of frazzled housewife Elizabeth Leefolt, two year old Mae Mobley.

When Skeeter misplaces a satchel filled with research information crucial to her novel, Hilly finds it and demands to know what she’s up to. Because she has to grovel in front of Aibileen, Skeeter gets a taste of what the black help go through. Skeeter lies and pretends her literature is nothing of importance and turns the conversation back to Hilly’s stress over her husband’s political ambitions. But with each lie and hidden meetings with her African American confidants, Skeeter is drawn more and more into seeing how unfair the system of segregation is.

As the novel ends, Skeeter learns the part her mother played in Constantine’s decision to leave their employ. And once her book, apply titled Help is published, its thinly veiled descriptions of actual residents causes a ripple effect, enveloping everyone who reads it. Minny’s husband is fired from his job because of her participation in crafting the book. She finally decides to leave him after he takes his anger out her one too many times. Skeeter and Stuart’s engagement is called off the very night he finally gives her a ring, after she reveals the project was her doing. And Hilly threatens to not only sue Skeeter, but to enact revenge on all the maids whose stories are included in the book. In order to dull her bluster, Aibileen counters with the special pie Minny fooled Hilly with. Its seems Minny, a woman well revered as the best cook by far of all the local help was able to prepare a pie which included her own feces in the mix. And unfortunately, Hilly ate two slices.

While Skeeter’s book becomes a best seller, enabling her to finally break free of a still ailing mother and the strict social norms of her town, Aibileen is let go from Elizabeth Leefolt’s household at Hilly’s insistence. Though her heart is heavy at leaving Mae Mobley,

(6)

Aibileen is comforted by a new position as the unknown cleaning advice columnist, a position that Skeeter relinquished for a job in New York City. Aibileen, along with all the other maids who contributed to the novel have royalty payments to look forward to, though the amount is not enough to live on. Still, the novel ends on an oddly hopeful note, as Aibileen leaves with her head held high, convinced that she’s not too old to start over.

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The Impacts Of Segregation And Discrimination Reflected In Kathryn Stockett’s Novel The Help

Parts

Dokumen yang terkait

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Morphological Process in F.Scott Fitzgerald’s Novel “The Great Gatsby”

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Materialism Viewed From Phillipa Gregory’s Novel The Other Boleyn Girl

Amy’s Successful Screwy Plan by Flynn in Gone Girl Novel

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