but very fitting.
I didn't know this until last night but there's economic theft taking place right there.
Lawsuit
Abilene Cooper, a maid who used to work for Stockett’s brother, has criticized the author for stealing her life story without her knowledge and sued her for $75,000 in damages. Cooper also criticized her for comparing the character’s skin color to a
cockroach.(12) A Hinds County Mississippi judge threw the case out of court, citing the statute of limitations.
...
you used the woman’s NAME, and you STILL deny stealing her story?
What a thieving little snot!
Here’s another
article on that note. A quote:
It’s funny. In the book, ‘The Help,’ Skeeter–the character based on phony ‘anti-racism’ crusader Stockett–gives a significant portion of her book advance to the Black maid named Aibileen (which is pronounced the same way Ablene pronounces hers). In real life, Stockett gave Ablene nothing as she continues to make money off of her.
...
But Kathryn Stockett expressly refused Cooper’s request and right to privacy, and ripped off her name and destroyed her reputation. The movie is being heavily marketed to the Black community and to liberal White women, none of whom know the real story here about the dissing of Ablene Cooper. The New York Times even referred to “The Help” as a “history lesson.” PUH-LEEZE. Some real history is missing, like what Kathryn Stockett did."
http://www.theloosh.com/blog/archives/5725There’s nothing unusual about such compensation claims in America, but what makes Abilene’s writ different is that she is claiming just £50,000 in damages, hardly a fortune when set against the millions the author will earn from the book and the movie deal.
Abilene’s lawyer, Edward Sanders, says: ‘It’s not about money for Abilene. It’s about hypocrisy. The Help’s big appeal is to white people. It makes them feel good because it’s about a white woman who reaches across the racial divide to help poor black servants.
Well, let me tell you, it hasn’t done anything to help Abilene. She feels Stockett is just one more white woman who has exploited an African-American.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2033369/Her-family-hired-maid-12-years-stole-life-Disney-movie.htmlThere are layers and layers here. But it was just another Black woman that got ripped off and the Mississippi Courts let the exploitation stand. Sometimes what we're cheering is horrible underneath but we have no idea because of the way our society's constructed. Still the victims know the truth, and the pain.
I agree with you about fair pay but as a non-White, when I see my darker sisters exploited and hurt, for the comfort of Western women, I can't let it go or elevate it above their pain.
I won't knock people who do and admit I'm missing a tribal gene from years of living all over the world but I just can't elevate the needs of Western women, or American women, over the needs of our victims.
I can't stop thinking how different things would be if we had bonded with our sisters in Iraq and Afghanistan against the patriarchy's colonialism.
I don't see why we can't focus on both, on equal footing? If we were joined at an international level of sisterhood and were hitting them from all over, wouldn't we be further along? And wouldn't it make it easier for our sisters who say we don't care enough about issues important to them to see that we do and ally with us?
These are tormented questions. I don't mean to point fingers or attack anyone, much less you, and it doesn't help to know that some other words I casually typed about racism in the Feminist movement caused a righteous woman pain recently.
Please accept my apologies in advance if anything I said here was insensitive or accusatory. These are just my thoughts and I think a lot faster than I can type so sometimes it comes out all wrong.
I'm glad we're all in this together and having different priorities isn't a bad thing unless we work against each other's goals like sometimes happens.
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