We saw The Help last night and found it to be utterly moving. Rarely do I get to see a movie that takes me to the emotional places to which that movie took me.

I'll spare you too much of a summary, since I actually went in a little bit blind and I don't think that's such a bad thing. I had never read the book, though I probably will now. Basically, this movie depicts Mississippi in 1963, and it shows the life of black women who were charged with raising white children while simultaneously being treated like sub-humans by their employers. These employers felt - and perhaps rightfully so, given the lack of opportunities in other lines of work - that they "owned" these helpers. It depicts a complex relationship between a southern white woman who was raised by "the help" but has come to feel that there's something terribly unjust about the system, and two black women who were born into this situation and feel trapped by it.

I cried for about the last 30 minutes of it. The movie lasts more than two hours, and I didn't notice.

Here's what I was thinking as I watched: every young person in America needs to see this movie. I hate to generalize based on my experience at Arizona State University, but I have to say that I was surprised, time and time again, by the strong feeling this generation of college students seems to have about how "over" race we are.

We have a black president now, some explained. And this generation is a lot more comfortable just making fun of everything and everyone. So yeah, there are racial jokes, but everyone is in on them and none of it is serious.

I'd press on, occasionally. And anytime the subject of race came up, the faces in my classroom -- of all races and creeds -- tended to go blank. I sometimes felt as if what was being communicated to me was that, as an older person, I didn't understand the way race is no longer an issue in a world where many of the last bunch of Disney princesses have been non-white.

I am glad for this turnaround in cartoon depiction, and it does matter. That said, I got the feeling many people in this generation had no idea about the history of race in our country. When I talked about the Middle Passage, I was sure that many kids were hearing it for the first - or maybe second - time. One of my smarter students, in giving a presentation, spoke of the 60s, when we abolished slavery.

I had to stop the conversation. "Wait. Hold up. The 60s? Do you mean the 1860s, or the 1960s?"

This happened. I'd like to think this student was making a political point about how different sorts of systemic slavery survived abolition, nearly 150 years ago. But I'm pretty sure this student wasn't making that point.

It was an awkward moment, because if a room of students doesn't know - or think it particularly matters - that slavery may have ended 50 years or 150 years ago, give or take, and doesn't get the nuance that other forms of slavery existed in the years since, how do we possibly have real conversations about race?

I'd like to think that seeing a movie about something that took place within the past 50 years might really open up some thinking about what's going on in our country today. Are we really done with race? Has it really all been "talked to death?" Is black-on-white racism really the same as white-on-black, or is there a history to consider? Is the anger aimed at Barack Obama commensurate with what he's done as president, or is there something else behind it?

I'm an optimist. I like to believe that art can lead to change. That's my hope, a day after seeing The Help.