The Help in the 21st Century

I work in a small office building in River North. There are only six floors, and maybe four or five companies per floor, so just from walking around the hallways and using the restroom, I’ve come to identify who works in which office. There’s one company on our floor, a small real estate firm (about 30 employees) that is of particular interest to me.

Anytime I am roaming the halls or using the ladies room, I almost always see one of two groups from the real estate firm – a group of relatively young white women and one group of relatively young black women. There are four or five people in each of these groups, and (almost) anytime I see them they are with their group. However, I’ve never seen the white group and the black ground interact – not even a nod or smile of recognition. And for the record, I know they work together, because I’ve seen each group walk in and out of that office numerous times.

I’ve always found this lack of interaction strange, but never really gave it a second thought until I watched The Help. I mean, I always thought it was one of our societal norms to acknowledge the presence of an acquaintance, especially a colleague, regardless of the length of time it has been since you last saw them. But clearly that isn’t the case for the women in these two groups from the real estate firm.

Now to be clear, I’ve spoken with women from both group and they’ve always been very kind. So it’s not that they don’t interact with anyone, just not each other. I think it’s also important to note that these women have distinct roles within the company. I’m not sure what the white women do, but through the front door I can see each of the four black women sitting at desks in the front of the office. So I would assume that they hold roles such as an office manager and administrative assistant. I say this because in most companies, those who do not have offices and whose desks are situated near the reception area typically hold roles related to administration. 

So after watching The Help, I began wondering if these women don’t interact because the white women think they are better than the black. Assuming that the white women hold more “prestigious” titles, based upon the mere location of their personal offices, perhaps they think they are better than the black women. In turn, the black women likely feel the white women are either racist or pretentious (or both), and don’t have any desire to interact with them outside of work projects. With the exception of Skeeter, that’s how the relationship between the whites and blacks in The Help was like. Now of course the two races interacted because the whites had to assign tasks to their help, but aside from that they avoided interaction.

I really hope my presumptions are wrong about the two groups of women at this real estate company, but evidence suggests otherwise.