Voncille Reveals All

Voncille Sherard is a black woman originally from the south who was hired as a domestic worker. She was to watch the employers children, although a child herself, in most of the homes she worked. Voncille was brought up to attend church and pray each night and would instill those values upon the children she raised. Having been employed by several households, Voncille has dealt with many types of people and their treatment towards African American help. While in her first home her employer treated her as her own child and would take her out shopping with her, have her sit in the front of the bus or on her lap, would hug her and call her baby, and would yell at the man who would hand Voncille the heavy bag of groceries. So far Voncille's story sounds similar to that of the women in The Help. She raised her employers' children and cleaned their homes. Although she is only eight years old, Voncille and the black women from the help completed the same type of jobs. However here is where Voncille's story takes a turn for the worst. After having to drop out of college she returned home and got a job as a domestic for a baby of six months. She was to get to the employer's small, two-bedroom apartment at eleven and at five or six the husband of the home would bring her home. One day the husband came home alone around one or two and tried to force her into bed, telling her how much more she could make if she agreed. Voncille refused, and told the wife that she would have to find other arrangements for getting her home. Her arrangements now consisted of the husband and his friend both in the car for the ride home. About a week after the incident, Voncille had an encounter with the husband's friend. He also tried to force her into bed which she responded with sprinting from the home, racing to her house.
 
The story of Voncille is more realistic than those of The Help but there are several similarities between the two. Voncille spoke of  woman who on the first day took out a fork and a plate telling her that those were hers to use. We see Minny telling her daughter the rules of domestic work which includes just that, separate plates and utensils for the help. We see Voncille and Aibileen both caring for children and trying to instill a sense of morality on the children whose parents don't have time for them. However The Help doesn't address the major fear of Voncille which was the possiblility of sexual assault from her employer. The reason for this may be that the women of The Help are older than Voncille who is at an extremely vulnerable age. Although the topics addressed are different, both works are accurate portayals of the racism and resentment towards the black maids. They dehumanized themselves in order to treat these women with little to no respect. The actual maid's account seems to have a stonger impact as you know this story is completely true and this was a possible fate of many, many young girls.