Atticus Was Always a Racist

[eponinepontmercy]

I thought this was interesting, especially in light of conversations we've had about race.  It's long, but I've included some excerpts below.
 

jezebel.com/atticus-was-always-a-racist-why-go-set-a-watchman-is-n-1718996096

The final tableau of To Kill A Mockingbird has always given me a sour feeling toward the book—it ends with the black man dead, the poor white man also dead, the law uninterested in prosecuting their murders. The white gentleman and his children are sadder and wiser, but the wisdom imparted is essentially about the hopelessness of defending black people and poor white people from one another. I used to think Mockingbird was a shameful book to hand out in a high school classroom, all things considered, given that it’s a race story that scarcely passes the black-person version of the Bechdel test. It’s about white people within white culture making Tom Robinson’s life and death about themselves.

Here’s something I didn’t remember. In Mockingbird, when Atticus first tells Scout that he’s taking on the Tom Robinson case, he talks about the nobility of fighting for a lost cause. “Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started,” he says, “is no reason for us not to try to win.”



Scout replies, “You sound like Cousin Ike Finch,” referring to Maycomb County’s “sole surviving Confederate veteran.” Within a few pages, she adds, “Cecil Jacobs asked me one time if Atticus was a Radical. When I asked Atticus, Atticus was so amused I was rather annoyed, but he said he wasn’t laughing at me. He said, ‘You tell Cecil I’m about as radical as Cotton Tom Heflin.’”



Helfin, of course, was a white supremacist senator and member of the Klan.

[summer]

I've honestly never understood why To Kill A Mockingbird was supposed to be The Best Thing Ever. My English teachers were always dead set on making me love it, but the story was always kind of meh

[downtoearth]

I didn't read the linked article, just the quotes here, but people are crazy with interpretations. I feel like the person who wrote the Jezebel article was high during high school English class.

That statement is not because he racist... it's because Atticus is saying that he is viewed as a radical for standing up for a Black man's word over a white woman's word. Atticus is making a joke b/c he DOES believe that white supremacist is radical, but I'm sure if you asked the white supremacist he wouldn't think he is. Standing up for a black man's narrative over a white woman's narrative IS novel in their county and that time (or any time, really), but Atticus doesn't see that as novel, he genuinely believes Tom Robinson and that he wants to defend him b/c it's unjust not to.

[NewOrleans]

Jul 20, 2015 14:53:10 GMT -5 summer said:

I've honestly never understood why To Kill A Mockingbird was supposed to be The Best Thing Ever. My English teachers were always dead set on making me love it, but the story was always kind of meh

Why you no love me?

[Michelle]

I loved the book but what was most impactful about the story for me was not the race issue. The fact that the girl claimed rape falsely left a huge impression, and the fact that they were so ready to condemn Tom because he was Black resonated with me, for sure. The fact that Atticus fought to make sure the truth came out was also important to me but I never saw him as a hero to Tom. Just a seeker of the truth. And probably a hater of white trash incestuous fathers who have relations with their daughters.

What was most impactful to me was the lesson that just because someone is different doesn't mean you should be scared of them. It was easy to assume Tom was guilty because he was Black. It was easy to assume Boo was scary and dangerous because he was sickly white and never communicated with others. In both circumstances both men were right and honorable.

I never walked away from TKAM with a sense that it held much justice for Blacks. I thought it was more about appreciating persons with disabilities.

In fact, I have to confess that I knew Boo Radley's name off the top of my head easily. I had to google Tom's name. I just knew about him as the Black man in the story who was falsely accused.

To me the story was more about Boo but Tom was a foil character, or that his storyline was a parallel undertone of the main storyline at best.

[NewOrleans]

I don't think this means what they're saying it means. ^o) They're also missing a shit ton of key quotes.