Some readers tell me, 'We always treated our maid like she was a member of the family.' You know, that's interesting, but I wonder what your maid's perspective was on that.

Ugly live up on the inside. Ugly be a hurtful, mean person.

....I realized I actually had a choice in what I could believe.

Frying chicken always makes me feel a little better about life.

I intend to stay on her like hair on soap.

Everyone knows how we white people feel, the glorified Mammy figure who dedicates her whole life to a white family. Margaret Mitchell covered that. But no one ever asked Mammy how she felt about it.

Truth. It feels cool, like water washing over my sticky-hot body. Cooling a heat that's been burning me up all my life. Truth, I say inside my head again, just for that feeling.