Despite a long apologetic addendum "in her own words" revealing her gratitude and affection for her own family's "stout and dark-skinned" maid, I confess I was slightly suspicious of Stockett and put off by her use of an inconsistent and condescending dialect for the working women ("her legs is so spindly, she look like she done growed em last week"). I know she wanted to convey hardships resulting from the steep racial divide but wondered if careless insensitivities laced through the narration were intended to underscore despicably egregious Jim Crow laws in force at the time, or if they reflected the author's own ambivalence.
Read the full post by Bonnie Goldstein here.