8/12/2023 0 Comments Tkm narrator point of view![]() Many articles discussing the ban focused on the repeated use of the n-word, but this dialogue echoes the problems inherent to the text itself. I blame Atticus Finch for the failure of white liberals to face racism today. As a high school English teacher, I have the chore of rereading the book annually, becoming more aware with each rereading of the damaging narrative it offers in dealing with present-day racism.ĭo we need to ban it? Of course not - but I do not believe it has any place in today’s classrooms. ![]() It’s also a fixture of school reading lists. The book is, by all measures, an enduring and beloved “classic.” President Obama quoted Atticus in his farewell address. Aaron Sorkin (perhaps the living embodiment of white liberalism) has adapted the story for a Broadway debut in 2018, and it will most likely be a hit. Most fans of To Kill a Mockingbird read the book as children and continue to champion it throughout adulthood, never rereading it or re-examining it through a critical, modern lens. Last October, the school board in Biloxi, Mississippi, voted to ban To Kill a Mockingbird because, they say, “There is some language in the book that makes people uncomfortable.” Of course, the literary world rallied to the defense of its darling. Scout Finch, Atticus’s daughter, is our narrator who provides commentary on the turmoil caused by the trial, as well as her general impressions of Maycomb, Alabama, in the 1930s as she pursues the everyday adventures of being a child. Atticus, as most people know, is tasked in To Kill A Mockingbird with heroically defending Tom Robinson, an African-American man who has been falsely accused of rape. I blame Atticus Finch for the failure of white liberals to face racism today. To Kill a Mockingbird gives an insight into the subject, but the way in which it is still read demonstrates that we have a very long way to go before we can declare ourselves to be truly “colour blind”.What we see today among white liberals is a mimicry of Atticus Finch’s exact posture and message. Talking about these things can be difficult, but we shouldn’t shy away from them. Writing Buffalo Soldier has led to the most extraordinary conversations with people of all ages. Slavery has cast a very long shadow and we are all still living with the consequences. Racism is not a thing of the past that was solved back in the 1930s by Atticus Finch. It’s a discussion I’ll be continuing over the coming year in schools who have invited me to speak on the subject. The book Harper Lee had originally set out to write is a slap in the face not only for Scout but for white society as a whole. ![]() Of course, it helped that Go Set a Watchman had been published by then. But what followed – once they’d recovered from the shock of having a beloved book described that way – was an extremely considered and thoughtful discussion. When I suggested to the group in Edinburgh that maybe, possibly, To Kill a Mockingbird might be considered a profoundly racist novel there was a collective sharp intake of breath and some very stony stares. ![]() Their distress is kept at safe distance from the reader. We never see the effect of Tom Robinson’s death on his family up close – we don’t witness Helen, Tom’s wife, grieving and Scout never wonders about his children. And the rest of the black community is depicted as a group of simple, respectful folk – passive and helpless and all touchingly grateful to Atticus Finch – the white saviour. Calpurnia is in the fictional tradition of the “happy black”, the contented slave – the descendent of the ever-loyal Mammy in Gone With the Wind. Only once does she express an opinion – an event so startling that Scout remarks on it. The closest we get is Calpurnia, the family’s cook, but we never know what she’s thinking or feeling. But one of the book’s central themes is that you need to walk around in someone else’s skin to understand them and Harper Lee doesn’t actually get under the skin of any of the black characters. Given that her narrator is a child growing up in the 1930s segregated South, maybe that’s inevitable. To Kill a Mockingbird started me thinking. ![]()
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