The Help Lesson Plan

What does Skeeter mean when she says, “These things I know already, yet hearing them from colored mouths, it is as if I am hearing them for the first time”?

Knowing something is different than understanding it. Skeeter knows society's rules for interaction between black and white people but she didn't understand the way it could affect black people. It's much like how she originally thought the Jim Crow laws were neither intimidating nor unfriendly--by looking at these rules and laws with the perspective of the black maids, she sees them in a brand new way. Gaining this perspective makes Skeeter more analytical rather than just accepting the way things are.

What did...