Do you know if rich whites in the American South still employ black women for nanny/housekeeping positions, and to what extent has it improved from conditions in the book The Help?

Some rich people have nannies and housekeepers, but they don’t treat them like crap, and if they do, it would be an isolated incident. I don’t even think an adult would stand for that type of abuse nowadays, but it is possible, because money will make people take things they wouldn’t normally take.

A woman I dated had parents who had some housekeepers, and they were very nice to her. She even had her own key, and she would just stroll right in and start cleaning. There was a lot of trust there.

@Blackberry: I know women who employ housekeepers, including myself. I am very nice to her, also, as are the people I know who employ various housekeepers. However, I don’t live in the South, where prejudice may be part of the culture.

I have known white people who are from South Africa. From what I understand, things have changed a great deal since those days.

@jca I wouldn’t dismiss it, but it is very possible down there. There’s an entirely different culture there. I don’t want to ignorantly label the south, but if this is still happening, I would initially think it was down there in Alabama or something.

Well, I haven’t read the book, but I can say from my personal experiences growing up in an upper middle class Southern family, that hiring a housekeeper (of whatever race) is common practice and that good long term housekeepers are generally viewed more as part of the family than they are as slave labor.

Of course rich white people still hire black women as house keepers, just as they also hire “domestics” of pretty much every race. Frankly, I really don’t see how race is really a factor. Black women have just as much right to hire themselves out as housekeepers as anyone else does.

FWIW, while growing up we had several housekeepers (aka. “domestics”) that were hied to do light cleaning and keep up with the laundry. The one I remember most and was with us the longest was a white woman. Although throughout the years we had a black woman, a hispanic woman, and a couple of other white women that just didn’t work out as long term employees.

@YoBob: Why the attack? I am asking if conditions and treatment are better than they were depicted in The Help. Did I say that they should be excluded from hiring themselves out? Do you know me? What “twisted pre-civil war perception or racial relations” are you talking about? I am from the North. I am shaking my head at your post, as I don’t understand where the hostility comes from.

@jca – I did rephrase my response to be a bit less reactionary. However, at first glance the question seem to be to be one of those “have you quit beating your wife” sort of items with a slight dash of Southern bashing thrown in for good measure.

My “galactic translator” (perhaps incorrectly) translated the question as something like: “Hey, are y’all southern rednecks still hiring black people as slave labor and abusing them for kicks (like this book says) or have you at least evolved to the point where you treat the hired help like human beings?”

@jca I interpreted this kind of the same way that @YoBob did. Especially after your comment: “However, I don’t live in the South, where prejudice may be part of the culture.”

I live in the South, and frankly I resent the fact that everyone associates the South and Southerners with prejudice/racism/bigotry. These ain’t the slave days no more, and we’re no more racist as a whole than any other part of these here United States.

That being said, I’ve never had a housekeeper, but my grandmother did for quite some time. Her housekeeper’s name was Evelyn, she just so happened to be black, and she was much more to us than just a housekeeper. Evelyn was part of the family, we all loved her, and I cried like a baby when she died.

But then, I’m from the South, so I probably secretly disliked her because she was just an uneducated negro, and the only reason I cried when she died was out of relief that we wouldn’t have to deal with her and her kind anymore.

My boss is a very rich man that lives in Birmingham, Alabama. And i can tell you from first hand experience, their housekeeper was treated like family. And when she retired they bought her a house, first house she ever owned

Please remember also that those events took place almost 50 years ago in the infancy of the civil rights movement.

@WillWorkForChocolate: I should have put (and I meant) that “prejudice used to be part of the culture.”

@JilltheTooth: I know that they were almost 50 years ago. That’s why I am curious if things have changed and if so, how so? (I thought I put that clearly when I said “present day conditions”)

@jca – “prejudice used to be part of the culture.”

It is important to note that such prejudice was not unique to the South.

Take this little quote from Abraham Lincoln, for example:

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.”

@YoBob Lincoln was a total douche, lol.

@jca : Sorry, the “present day conditions” part slipped by me. And I try to be so good about the details! :-/

I’m from the South and have lived in 7 states. I have found racial prejudice in Montana, Minnesota, Arizona, DC, Florida… it’s ALL over and the most blatant prejudice seems to happen in more rural areas than in urban areas regardless which state it is. I’ve seen more Confederate flags in rural Minnesota than I’d like to see, and I know in Minnesota, it ain’t “heritage.”

As for nannies and housekeepers, I’ve actually seen more Hispanic nannies and housekeepers than African-American. They’re treated well, but the rich women I know did look down on them, like ‘my cute little housekeeper.’

My thought for you is—the housekeeper in “Crash” was Hispanic and the rich white woman treated her like shit—she was in LA. If the story involves the South and African Americans, yes, there are a lot of connotations and history so people assume the worse, but the Cambodians and Hispanics are being treated worse than African Americans in the service professions right now…

@YoBob: I understand predudice is world-wide. (by the way I am a history major, specializing in US history, not that it makes me an expert but I do know that prejudice is not limited to the South).

I just realized what this question was about. I did the dyslexic thing and thought it was about South Africa! LOL Boy do I feel stupid.

So disregard my comment about that. Now on to reality. I have never read the book “The Help”, so I cannot speak about that. This is what I can say. I grew up in Utah, and after I married I moved around quite a bit, but never lived in the Southern US. I know there is prejudice in Utah, but in Indiana and Delaware it’s over the top in my opinion. My thoughts are that if it’s as bad as all that in those states, surely it isn’t better down South.

Many race scholars and activists have condemned the movie for its limited portrayal of how it really was since the maids in the movie were not portrayed as involved in a movement for their rights (though, admittedly, not all were, in reality) and because some of the actual people involved in interviews for the book or the movie were not sufficiently paid, as usual given that this movie is to make profit off white people feeling good about how much they’re learning. I also saw an interesting perspective here. As to your question, it doesn’t have to be rich people, middle class white people here in Brooklyn almost exclusively employ women of color as their nannies and are none the wiser about what a pattern the entire thing represents. I’m planning to do a study on said pattern for one of my PhD classes.

Wow, a lot of prejudicial bias against all us ignorant, racist southerners being expressed here. For shame, y’all.

Guess what, not only are there black folks employed as maids and nannies and other kinds of domestic help south of the Mason-Dixon line, but also white, Hispanic, Asian, native American, and Indian. For that matter, there are even (gasp!) men that perform in those roles, too. It’s called a “free market”, not “indentured servitude” and it’s equal opportunity for all. There’s always someone somewhere who’s a jerk, whatever their role, but let’s not get carried away with stereotypes from two centuries ago.

Now please, if y’all be so kind, get back up on your high horses and galavant on home, I’d like to take my ease with a tall glass of ice tea (sweetened, naturally, as God intended) and watch some NASCAR.

@robmandu Lol.
@jca I think native southerners would get a little upset for the same reason I may be surprised at someone making generalizations about Oregon. When I tell people I’m from Oregon, they make a comment about hippies, tree huggers, or some comment about how there’s no black people there so I’m lying lol.

I don’t get upset, but I can see how some people might because they are tired of defending their region against bad streotypes. Just trying to mediate there.

Burying our heads in the sand does not eliminate history. OK, things are better now but that does not mean they were always like this, and it also does not mean that prejudice does not still occur, and the OP did not say that it only occurs (or occurred) in the American South.

I just re-read my question and I think I worded it in a very unoffensive, vague way.

Perhaps it would seem inoffensive to someone who is not used to being attacked and constantly forced under the huge, southern stereotype blanket, but to people like me, it’s not vague at all, and it’s just another question about how evil Southerners are.

“Do you know if rich whites in the American South still employ black women for nanny/housekeeping positions, and to what extent has it improved from conditions in the book The Help?” sounds like “Do the rich white folk up in those big, pretty houses still hire negroes to do what the rich whiteys are too lazy to do, and do they still treat them like dirt?”

@WillWorkForChocolate: You are putting words in my mouth. As I said before I am not going to argue about it because people are going to believe what they want to. You can and will think what you want.

No, just explaining how the question might come across to some people who’ve seen nothing but hatred for the “rednecks o’ the south” for years and years.

The rich white people in the American south that can afford housekeepers will hire the one they feel most comfortable with, regardless of skin color. Just like anyone else rich enough to afford a housekeeper.

My first experience with prejudice- (not about employing maids, but other stuff) was in areas that I was told are strongholds for the KKK. It did leave a bad taste in my mouth, and I admit it colored my opinion of most (white) people native to the area.

@jca, you are a history major, specializing in US history. Very respectively, I’d like to ask, you do realize that slavery wasn’t just in the southern US states? Right?

@bkcunningham: very respectively, do you realize my question was not about slavery?

From what I see, the domestic workers in our area are either Eastern European (Russian) or Asian. The housekeepers in commercial establishments are mostly Latin/Mexican.

@YARNLADY: thank you very much for answering my question in a straight forward way, without an argument, attack or sarcasm. GA to you.

I’m sorry, @jca, I think slavery has a whole lot to do with employing black women as maids or as domestic help. Be it in the north, south, east or west or anywhere else in the world.

@snowberry The KKK strongholds are in Idaho these days, around Coeur D’Alene. Most Southerners (and all the ones I know) despise the KKK and anyone who claims to be a member- they’re usually the most uneducated and dirty people these days. Yick.

@jca I didn’t think my response was an attack either, but I do agree with @WillWorkForChocolate‘s explanation. I’ve been a Southerner for 40 years and have over 200 years of South heritage in my blood. It does get tiring hearing about all the racial tension in Alabama and how horrible Alabama was (over and over and over for 40 years) while people never mention the lynchings in Duluth, the bloody riots in Detroit and Seattle, etc. Alabama was the center of the civil rights movement, yes, but it wasn’t the only place where bad things happened. I grew up in the 70’s with African American friends and never saw any racial tension until I moved to Florida. It wasn’t until I was in my 20’s that I saw a very sharp male black servant in Alabama (who, incidentally, was earning over $35K year).

Your question can be read both in an offensive and unoffensive way—you said you didn’t intend it that way, fine, that was your intention and I understand that, but please just see that it can be taken a different way.

@jca Just so we’re clear, I didn’t attack you. I simply made a comment based on the fact that the question came off as a little bit racist. But I didn’t attack you. Go ahead and make a big deal out of giving GA’s to those who don’t point out the flaws in the question if you’d like, but I didn’t attack you. If I had attacked you, it would have been a tacky personal comment and it would have been modded.

@jca Just so we’re clear, I did attack you in the same way that a black man might react negatively to a question that goes something like “Do you boys still like to have a good meal of fried chicken and watermelon before you go out to find a white girl to rape as is described in this book written in 1874, and if not, how have things changed?”

Yes, I did change my answer to be a bit less reactionary as I understand it was not your intent to be offensive. However, it’s kind of like sexual harassment in the work place. It does not matter if you intended to be offensive, what counts is that you offended someone.

So… here’s a newsflash to take with you moving forward, while morons are ubiquitous throughout this great country of ours and you can find racism and bigotry pretty much anywhere you care to look, as a whole we folks from the South do not hire “house negros” to abuse, despite the content of some sensationalist book written quite some time ago with an obvious political agenda. Those who can afford it do, however, often employ housekeepers and (surprise, surprise) some of them are even black!

Abuse of this sort exists in most countries in the world and isn’t tied to skin color. There are cases of American households abusing au-pairs from Europe, especially Eastern Europe.

I can only give you one personal example. Mom, who happens to be white and lives in the southern US, employs a woman, who happens to be black, to clean the house every two weeks. The housekeeper runs her own business, is highly respected by her clients and is in high demand.

According to news reports the rich have forgone the black nanny in favor of the illegal immigrant. They are very pliable, will accept a great deal of abuse, and you don’t have to pay them much.

I was in Malaysia when a rich Malay women beat and otherwise abused her Philippine maid. There was even some of that in China where the new rich took up capitalist ways of abusing the help.