The Help

I have just finished reading The Help and I wonder what I would have been like had a been a young woman of the early sixties.  Would I have thought about equal rights?  Would I have thought separate but equal?  Or would I have believed that I was part of a superior race?
I would like to think that I would have been like Skeeter.  A writer quietly trying to create something special.  Skeeter seemed to be caught between wanting to treat blacks as equals, but maybe just not ready to cross that line in a big way.  Even in the end when it gets hard for the maids, Skeeter gets out.  She was brave, but not brave enough.
I know that I would have not been like Hilly.  No one hangs on my every word, no one follows my example, no one would want me to be league president.  But, I cannot say that I would not have been as narrow minded as she was.  Living in the South and knowing no other way of life, I may have thought the way she did.
Celia definitely had a lot of qualities in her that I liked.  She never pulled a status card.  She considered Minny an employee not a servant and she also considered Minny a friend.  If Minny would have been able to friend Celia back much sooner, both of their lives would have been so much better.  I think Minny could have saved Celia a lot of heartache and could have stopped Celia from trying so hard with the league women. 
Unfortunately though, I would probably have been somewhat like Elizabeth and a lot like all the other nameless women who hired black women as maids.  I would have been a much better mom then Elizabeth, but I don't know if I would have been a better boss.  I cannot see myself being brave.  I cannot see myself taking such a chance to try to make a change when those people were so brutally put down. 
Would I go up against men with baseball bats?  Police with fire hoses and dogs?  Soldiers?  I doubt it.  I have never stood for anything in my life so I don't know what makes me think I would have stood from something then. 
The Help has definitely made me think about my backbone.