YOU IS KIND. YOU IS SMART. YOU IS IMPORTANT

There is a scene in the movie, “The Help” that for lack of another phrase “speaks volumes.”

In this scene a 1960’s Mississippi Negro maid named “Aibileen” bends down to speak to a toddler in her care, a little white girl named Mae. What follows is just so poignant. Looking Mae in her eyes, and holding her chin, Aibileen says,

“You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”

As a matter of fact, the second time around little Mae repeats the phrase after Aibileen. And based on the implication in the movie, this is a phrase that the caregiver repeats to the little girl on a daily basis.

Granted, “The Help” is a fictional movie, but every minute of it could have just as well been non-fiction, and may well have been non-fiction somewhere in the segregated South in which I grew up.

I remember the black and white restrooms, and restaurants, hotels and schools of the 50’s and 60’s. I remember Martin Luther King and his “I Have a Dream” speech. I remember a black maid named, “Etta” who worked for my family. (My mother is gone now, or I would ask her, but I feel sure the former wasn’t required to “hold her pee” ‘til she got home at night, and we certainly didn’t build a segregated “indoor outhouse” like one of the home owners did in the movie).

However, during the course of the movie, I think the scene which I have just described impacted me most. Here you have someone who has been relegated to second class citizenship because of her color, and has been hired to care for a little girl of what might have been characterized as the master race.

Pt. 2

Aibileen might have barely tolerated her job, the only job women of color were likely to get in those days. She might have walked around with a proverbial chip on her shoulder. She might have reminded herself daily what a raw deal her people were getting. She might have sworn to herself that she would say and do just as little as she could get by with saying and doing in her position as caretaker for a little white girl.

But this was not the aging black woman’s mindset. (No, it wasn’t)! Aibileen decided to bloom where God had placed her, and she decided to impact whomever, whenever God gave her the opportunity.

So much so this lowly maid takes time each day to verbally affirm the little white girl.

“You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”

No doubt, her employer’s stereotypical attitude, and the similar prejudices of other members of her race had wounded the middle-aged woman deeply. But God help her, Aibileen wasn’t about to emulate them. Not by a long shot.

Jesus said, “My words are spirit and they are life”(John 6:63). And as a Bible believing woman, Aibileen seemed to both realize and practice the power of words better, and more often than most.

Aibileen chose to speak life into the mind and soul of a young toddler knowing that her words and example would find a safe place in Mae’s heart, and might potentially help her overcome the prejudices of the environment in which she had been born and raised.

As believers, I think we should take every opportunity to encourage and make a difference in the lives that God has set in our pathway. My favorite scripture admonition in this regard is Hebrews 3:13.

“But day by day, and as long as today shall last continue to encourage one another.”

I think Aibileen has a great deal to teach us.

by William McDonald, PhD. Copyright pending