A few days ago the Washington Post ran a story about some high school teachers in Washington state who wanted to stop teaching To Kill a Mockingbird. It all started when one of the teachers was listening to a podcast:
The Black hosts of the show joked that “Mockingbird” ranked with Confederate monuments as something painful to Black people, but which White people adored. Johnson, who grew up loving “Mockingbird,” identifying with White protagonist Scout, felt shaken — and guilty.
Another one of the teachers heard complaints from her Black students:
Students shared their discomfort with the way the 1960 novel about racial injustice portrays Black people: One Black teen said the book misrepresented him and other African Americans, according to meeting records reviewed by The Washington Post. Another complained the novel did not move her, because it wasn’t written about her — or for her.
My immediate reaction to this was probably pretty common: Give me a break. It's a book about the ugliness of racism! But unlike a lot of stories like this, this one kept gnawing at me. I'd never argue that TKM is a bad book, or even an insensitive book. But it is a book that's 60 years old set in a small Alabama town nearly 100 years ago. And it got me wondering: Why do we all stay so doggedly attached to books from our own childhoods? Why do we resist so strongly the idea that while there's nothing terribly wrong with them, they may no longer be right for the present day?
It's probably been a while since you read TKM. Or maybe you've only seen the movie. What you remember is Atticus Finch, the white lawyer who defies the scorn of his neighbors to defend an innocent Black man charged with raping a white girl. A Black man named.......um, let's see. What was his name again?
Tom Robinson. But I'll be honest: I had to look that up. Tom Robinson may have been treated sympathetically by Harper Lee, but he doesn't have a whole lot of agency in the book. Hell, it's nearly 200 pages before we meet him even briefly.
Elsewhere, the n-word is used casually dozens of times. Black people are treated as superstitious, illiterate, and submissive. Calpurnia is an exception, but for all that she's still just Atticus's cook and maid. All of this might very well be historically accurate for the book's time and place, but does that mean Black kids of the present day feel like having their faces rubbed in it?
In any case, the more I thought about it the more I found myself on the side of the teachers who no longer wanted to use TKM in their classrooms. Partly this is because of how Black characters are portrayed, but it's more because we oldsters stay attached to things for way too long. This is not Shakespeare. It's just a mostly good book that has had its day and won't be missed if high school kids read something else instead. That's not so hard, is it?
Just because a book was written a long time ago does not mean we can't learn something from it.
I'm very happy that a lot of black kids don't relate to the characters in the book. That is an indication of real progress.
But real progress doesn't happen in a vacuum. That book had a lot to do with the fact that Blacks are now closer to being seen by everyone as human beings.
Social scientists know very well that it is possible to change people's views of other people merely by exposing them to each other. This lets them see the "other" as a human first, "other" second. It's done by exposure. Blacks in literature, blacks on TV.
Now I wish that women could be seen by everyone as human beings.
I doubt that TKM faces banning. It can still be in school and general libraries, but perhaps with some cautions for snowflakes. The same thing should happen with all the old lit that treats women as weak, helpless, and dependent on "real" men to validate them. The really good stuff (and some of the OK but past sell-by date) will still be available, but things change, and it's best to encourage it to change in a way that actually lifts experience and understanding.
And this is exactly how books that shouldn't be used any more keep being used, which causes kids to stop paying attention to the people who keep pounding on them to read insulting representations of race relations.
Fact is, "classics" are a dime a dozen. Yes, Shakespeare had a way with words. Many people have before and since, and if you're going to make an argument that there is some special knowledge conveyed by 9th graders reading The Tempest, then make that argument. I have never heard it, only appeals to tradition and other emotional responses.
Some themes are eternal. Which makes it all the weirder for academics to fan-club things like this. Which is more important: your sense of tradition or educating kids? Make them like reading and they'll go find Shakespeare all by themselves.
When I was a kid Romeo and Juliet was taught along West Side Story.
There are some classics that are taught because culture does exist due to a certain amount of common literacy. There are older racist songs that we wouldn’t teach in music class, but would you only want students to learn only music that has been composed in the last 20 years, or study only art that has been made in the last 20 years?
I feel the same way about Huckleberry Finn and Moby-Dick. They had their place at one time, but they haven't aged well.
I can remember 50 years ago thinking that anything by Herman Melville was best relegated to curing an advanced state of insomnia.
They aged just fine. They're old now, and should be read in that context.
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I love this comment, Crissa
+1
Some of Twain's other books aged a lot better. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is actually really bizarre even by contemporary standards. Yes there are some dated jokes about the cutting edge technology of telephone operators and that sort of thing, but it kind of holds up. Also Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc is just a pretty entertaining historical novel. Not that I expect either of these to be taught in schools.
I still love Huck Finn for its devastating take down of religion. If the right-wing ever read it clear through they would demand it be banned.
OMG. Huckleberry Finn has been stated with good reason to be the greatest American novel of all time. Now, you can read it as a straight adventure and it works that way too, but don't be fooled into thinking it's Tom Sawyer Part Deux.
Personally I disliked the book and would be happy to see it no longer taught. Long and boring was my beef. No way to get kids hooked on reading, which honestly should be the goal of teachers I was fortunate to stumble upon Breakfast of Champions in 8 th grade and have been reading books ever since. I did love Huck Finn
The movie was ok, Gregory Peck at his finest and solid direction.
"Gregory Peck at his finest and solid direction."
And it's my feeling that this is why it's still taught in schools. Without the movie, it falls into obscurity like many other mid-20th century novels.
Ah, but these novels are teaching moments. This is how it was, and some states, still is. It's history in a novel. I honestly believe that we should all read these novels at some point in our lives.
I read Moby-Dick for the first time about five years ago. Only about the last 150 pages are worth reading.
So, you didn't care for all the nature observations of whales, nor the technical details of whaling? Didn't care for the great diversity of characters?
I slogged my way through the first 100 or so pages of it, thinking it was REALLY slow and boring, and then I came upon a full-page-long description of a desk in somebody's room. And that's where I bailed.
It's a tough read. Definitely not something to teach in school, unless the lesson is, reading is very boring.
I'm a scientist, so the narrator lost me when he concluded that a whale is a fish. Although I did read the whole thing anyway. Some of the details of whaling were interesting, but I later found the same information in a much easier-to-understand form at the Whaling Museum in New Bedford.
Moby-Dick is supposed to be "the great American novel." If I believed that, I'd never read another American novel.
For me it’s the characters more than the discussions on whether the whale is a fish. It is unlikely anyone who understands the motivations of characters like Ahab and Starbuck ever voted for Trump.
great post. lots of wonderful newer books out there -- https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/5-under-35-2023/
Kevin, I was honestly expecting you to go the other way, but this is the right take. Most people just cannot relate to not being the hero of the stories they see in books and movies. They are so used to be the "default human" that they can't recognize what it means to be the non-default, the exception, the outlier.
"Not written about me, not written for me" is something we expect lots of people to just get over, but that is just perpetuating the problem. Supposedly "woke" stories that commit the grave crime of including everyone as humans is the bare minimum.
After all, there's a reason why conservatives get so upset when the Little Mermaid is a Black girl. They know the game full well. They know how white supremacy works, but unlike many of us, conservatives want it to thrive.
I don't know what you mean here:
> Supposedly "woke" stories that commit the grave crime of including everyone as humans is the bare minimum.
What's the declared-female-at-birth astronomy-inclined human with a Samoan mother and Scottish father who grew up partially in the Siberian tundra and partly in Brooklyn supposed to do in there search for representation?
Just how is "everyone" defined and how far does it go?
I started reading VERY early - my mother had several boxes of Golden Books shipped to Trinidad when we moved there from Samoa (my father was taking graduate education at the Royal University of Tropical Agriculture). Her idea was she'd pull out a new book a week and slowly go through it with me.
Didn't work out like she planned. I learned very early to pull a high chair into position in the upstairs hallway, pull down the stairs, and explore. When she got home in the afternoon after my climbing expedition, I had Golden Books stacked all over and made her read them at every possible moment. She started teaching me to read after the first few days, and dragooned my father into doing it in the evenings. By the time I was four, I was digging into his science fiction and hard-boiled detective novels.
My first grade teacher on Maui after we moved there was a bit baffled, leading to her telling my parents at their first PTA meeting that I was "not normal". My father's reply was: "He is for THIS family." I kept plumbing new depths from then on...
If so, then I'm guessing that Big Trouble in Little China went right over their heads.
The book is neither evil nor holy. It will always be somewhere on someone's list.
I don't see why teachers can't choose to include To Kill a Mockingbird or not, according to their own preference. It might be better if they don't state a rationale for their decision.
TKAM was expressly designed by a Southern woman for the elite society of the time to invoke feelings of righteousness and outrage. It's beautifully written, and captures Southern class distinctions exceptionally well. The chapter on the rabid yellow dog is far and away the best part of the book.
However, it's also a fairly accurate depiction of how life was ruthlessly unfair to blacks at the time and how the class demands of the time made it impossible for the jury to side with Tom Robinson over the low-rent white trash Ewells, even though they knew the truth. There's lots of powerful discussions that could be had there not about racism, but class and peer pressure.
What I find unpleasant about it is the fact that, as I said, it was written in such a way to make northern educated whites feel superior to southern whites. That was its primary purpose, which is why the treatment of blacks is perfunctory. Ideally, it should be taught to high schoolers or college students with that objective--to show how a piece of propaganda can be effective and have value.
Unfortunately, far too many people are so solidly in the demographics Lee wrote for that they can't see how thoroughly they've been manipulated and thus actually see the book as genius.
As for the objections by black students a teachers: that's another good area to explore. A woman who was writing propaganda for elite educated white folks was more interested in castigating and shaming the southern white folks than actually treating the black characters like people.
Uh, you do know that Harper got a lot of 'help' on TKaM, right? And, wow. Just wow.
This is why people need to take a few humanities courses.
To Kill A Mockingbird was transformative for my daughter when she read it in fourth grade, both in seeing the imbalance in racial treatment in the country and a similar imbalance for cognitive and emotional disabilities.
The characters are nowhere near where we all want to be in how we treat bigotry, but neither are any of us. I will never understand why fictional characters are supposed to be ideal and perfect while every single human being is nowhere near such.
"All of this might very well be historically accurate for the book's time and place, but does that mean Black kids of the present day feel like having their faces rubbed in it?"
This is the mirror opposite of the "why should white kids feel uncomfortable about how White people treated Blacks, and treat Blacks today?"
Instead of "rubbing their faces in it" maybe this shows how far we've come, and how far we have yet to come? Ignoring the past takes away understanding of the present.
Sheesh, Kevin when was the last time you read To Kill a Mocking Bird. Sit down and give it another chance, it's a very good book that pretty accurately captures the ugliness of the time. As someone who grew up in the South and attended High School in notoriously racist Forsyth County, To Kill a Mocking Bird forced a lot of us to look in the mirror and think about race.
I suggest that people check this out for a capsule summary of Harper Lee and the milieu she (thought she) was moving in. Why why why do people think they can just read a book and pronounce judgement without knowing something about who wrote and when and where they were?
I partially disagree with Kevin. I just TKM for the first time -- I read it aloud to my son. I was prepared to be skeptical, but I came away impressed. I am not sure I can think of more than a few books suitable for middle-school readers that are of this quality. The story is gripping, the writing is great, it poses difficult moral questions, and it illuminates a fascinating little world in detail and with a lot of feeling. That said, Kevin is right that the treatment of black characters, the way they are basically just props for white protagonists, is embarrassing and offensive. Where does that leave me? Conflicted -- we certainly shouldn't discourage people from reading what is a really good book. But in a multicultural world, I personally would be against requiring kids to read it.
I have so much to say about this and don't have time to get my thoughts in order at the moment. In a nutshell, I absolutely disagree that it should be retired from classrooms. It was written about a particular time and place and the main character was special because of his progressive attitude. The n-word is used many times to set up the scene when Atticus tells Scout not to say nigger because only ignorant people used that word. If it hadn't been used previously that scene wouldn't have any weight.
And, Kevin mentions Tom Robinson doesn't make an appearance until pretty far into the novel. Tom, and his trial, is only one part of the story. The other, equally important, plot line is around Boo Radley and his relationship with Scout and Jem. There are to "Mockingbirds" in the novel -- Tom and Boo. (Atticus tells Jem he can shoot all the Blue Jays and some other bird he wants with his BB gun but to never shoot a mockingbird. They don't do anything but make pretty music for everyone to enjoy.) Scout and Jem's relationship with Boo is influenced by Tom's trial and Atticus defending him (in and out of court).
This book is really what spawned my love of literature when I first read it in early high school. If not for this book I probably wouldn't have been an English major. I love the part where Jem reads to the elderly neighbor lady each day as she overcomes her addiction. She doesn't want to die an addict. Then when he throws the box with the white flower into the fire after her death and ultimately rescues the flower while the box burns, that was the first time I grasped how strong and moving symbolism in literature could be. The book is essentially a children's book but it's perfect for demonstrating all the different elements of literature.
**There are TWO "Mockingbirds" in the novel...
Type "to" by accident.
Concerning the two characters, they are the centerpieces of two parallel moral narratives.
By the end of the book, the children have come to understand that Boo Radley is a real person, not someone they can simply dream up stories about.
Meanwhile, the white adults of Macomb are unable to come to the same realization about who Tom Robinson actually is. I don't think I've ever seen a reference to the existence of these parallel stories.
(This has nothing to do with the possible problems involved in teaching the book to present-day 9th graders.)
nick checks out.
The question isn’t whether the book has value. Many, many books have value. The question is whether it is proper to require Black students to read it.
And I find any argument that they shouldn't read it as absolutely absurd.
I'm not finding the answer to a critical question in this discussion: Why is TKaM on the reading list? What learning objectives does its inclusion addess?
I can imagine several ways the book--or excerpts from it--might be used to achieve some high level learning. But if one wants to include it only because it is "classic literature," well, that's a pretty weak argument. If it's supposed to be that Harper Lee was a "great writer," that's even weaker--her output was decidedly sparse.
What's the reason for including it in the first place?
Yeah, if it was paired with a book by a Black author covering similar subject matter as a sort of comparative literature exercise that might make sense. Just as a stand alone "great novel" not so much.
Uh, because it teaches you how to read?
This is an excellent take. Thoughtful and well-reasoned.
I personally think TKAM is a great book and worth reading and studying. However, it is a book written about white people, for white people, by a white person. It does address the ugliness of racism, but does it from a white perspective, in the way designed to make white people feel better about it.
It's not a book that a black person would write, and it's not a book that a black person would choose if you were going to address racism in an English class. Reading a book by a black author about the black experience makes a lot more sense if you want to teach about racism than reading a book by a white author about the white experience of racism.
If a teacher feels TKAM has important literary lessons to teach, then teach those. If they think it promotes diversity or addresses racism, it's not the book to choose.
So, a different set of books should be assigned depending on whether the student is white or black? To Kill a Mockingbird for the Anglos, Kindred for the blacks?
No, that wasn't my point at all. White culture has dominated what gets taught, certainly in terms of literature and history, and how it is taught, and if you're seeking to apply a broader range of diversity to your reading selection or wanting to take on the racism of America's past, TKAM isn't a good choice. It's a book about oppression from the (admittedly somewhat sympathetic) point of view of the oppressors. Not the best way to teach about that oppression, if that's your goal.
It's still a really fine work of literature.
As you alluded to in your last sentence, the book isn't read to "address racism". It's read to teach all the different literary techniques and themes it employs. It's a fantastic book for doing that because it's so rich in those literary techniques and it's written for an audience that's the age of when students are learning these things.
Regarding your first paragraph, as a high school student I read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, The Bluest Eye, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Beloved. These are books about black people, by black authors, for a black readers.
And now your compatriots are banning all of those books as "CRT". Perhaps you could have spared a few sentences, out of hundreds in this thread, denouncing that?
Umm, that wasn't the topic of conversation. But, since you mentioned it, I am generally against banning books in school libraries. (Within reason. Unlike Kevin, I don't think elementary schools should have porn magazines available.)
You literally brought up books you liked that your wingnut friends are actively banning, yet you failed to mention that, even though this is a thread about removing books from school libraries.
So let me spell it out for you: you're a fraud and a hypocrite and I have zero respect for anyone who doesn't fight the fascists. Hence, I will continue to call you out for the coward you are. You're just as much of a dangerous wingnut as they are, except they at least have the balls to admit it.
Have a good day
Folks around here know my opinion of Atticus. But on this he's entirely on point. And your waaaay out of line bud. Dial it back.
Thanks.
At my high school, at least in terms of assigned reading, we didn't read any black authors. I'm sure things have changed.
My point was, it's a great book and has value in being taught, but if this is your "racism" book (which is unfortunately how it often gets seen) it's a poor choice.
Got it. Fair enough.
I must say after reading this and some of your other preceding comments that I am pleasantly surprised.
The book wasn't for, or really even about, Black people. They already knew how bad they had it in those days. It was an attempt to arouse a sense of decency and humanity in white people. Some white people still need that lesson.
Yes, succinct.
+1
I venture to guess that Today's Youth cannot read anything written in another time. Because, if the mores and habits of that time were not identical to today's, they as readers feel "uncomfortable."
Note that PBS had a Big Read several years back and chose their viewers' 100 favorite books, ranked in order. To Kill a Mockingbird came out number one. But to appreciate it, one has to realize what life was like in the late 1800s to early 1900s southern US.
To Kill is then a story centering around the blatant injustice done to Mr Robinson, solely because he was black. It also showed that even a decent, non-racist man like Atticus Finch could not overcome a bad system and community racism. The book inspired a certain horror, as well as a desire to fix this system.
Should books not do this? Or do we all prefer to be hit over the head with the pre-packaged "message"?
Well, the plot of TKaM is absolutely astonishing and it just shows how ignorant many MAGAs are that they are not running around trying to ban it.
I don't see how you could make the 1930's South look any worse if you tried. Which, as someone pointed out above, was Harper Lee's point. Not only are many of the characters evil, but even Atticus, as perhaps the only adult willing to act in moral way, doesn't even save the day. Racism is fully on display as the evil it is, and most of the town does exactly zero about it. Basically like today.
It is certainly deserving of all the awards it got, from a literary perspective, and, as others have said there is not an infinite list of such quality books for young adult readers.
That said, I can certainly see how a 2023 Black person would be "offended" (if that's the right word) by it. It is more or less Exhibit A on the question of "how much progress have we actually made in almost 100 years?"
Is Desantis allowing this in Florida?
"I can certainly see how a 2023 Black person would be "offended" (if that's the right word) by it."
Here's an additional point to consider:
In this instance, we're talking about the reactions of 13-year-old black kids who may find it hard to navigate the experience of reading the book in a majority-white high school class. 13-year-olds, of whatever "race," are just 13 years old.
I am agnostic on TKM because I did not read the book, only saw the movie some time back.
That said, I think we all are making a mistake by not using books because we think some people might be offended or traumatized or whatever. I have found over the years that people are not quite a s fragile as is often supposed these days and that they probably should be exposed some to things that are out of their comfort zone because that is a way to grow intellectually.
Or maybe I am out of tune with today's zeitgeist.
"I guess he was tired of taking white men's chances." Oof.
For me it's always been Catcher In The Rye. It's a tedious book about a whining spoilt brat that somehow appealed to all the boomers circa 1955 so our English teachers thought it was a much better book than those of use who had to read it.
I, too, have always hated "Catcher." Apparently, the guys love it, and women, not so much.
A classic entry in the fictional genre I like to call "privileged white male on the verge of a nervous breakdown." There were probably hundreds of these written in the middle of the century. Even Steinbeck wrote one. Joseph Heller too.
Ah, yes. All the Greats (as they used to call them). What did Bellow say? "When the Zulus Produce a Tolstoy We Will Read Him."
I couldn't get past the second page.
I also hated it. I don't know why anyone would have any sort of emotional connection with it. It's a meandering story about a thoroughly unlikable character.
Like Uncle Tom's Cabin, To kill a Mockingbird is a historically significant novel in the effect that it had on opening the eyes of white readers. That doesn't mean we need to require either today.
Definitely, don't take it out of libraries or anything - it is historically important and worth reading as such, or even by a curious person. But it is unclear to me why we'd put it on a modern curriculum.
We can always hope that we outgrow the arts our culture needed to kick us in the right direction. Sometimes such art is distinctly unsubtle.
It's not part of the curriculum because of social issues. It's taught because it's a great example of various literary techniques (symbolism, themes, etc). It's taught in English, not social studies or ethics.
I don't see any use in teaching the book to a class (or even one) black kids. It's way out of date and literally not written for them. Not everything is written for everyone. It can't be.
The idea that white people can't also struggle with racism is as pernicious as the idea feminism doesn't help men because misogyny doesn't hurt them, too. Because it does help men and misogyny hurts men as well. Both/and.
Both/and! We tend to approach every issue like Coke versus Pepsi, don't we?
I'm a white, male, fiftysomething retired English teacher, a Texan. So I taught To Kill a Mockingbird for years, which meant re-reading it for years, and also listening to my high school students' reactions. I also read the book as a student in the 1980s. And I'm now a parent of school aged children.
With all that said, I don't think this book should be hated or banned or anything, but I feel it definitely needs to be retired as a classroom staple. It's a first novel, and frankly not a great one. If the argument is that students should be reading masterpieces, this doesn't cut it. If on the other hand we value the importance of using literature to expose our youth to the difficult discussion of race in America, and I for one do think that has priceless value, then again this book just does not serve that purpose in any up-to-date, meaningful way.
In 1962, I could see why White Americans might have found this book eye-opening, and perhaps comforting; well, we have our problems, but at least we have good folks like Atticus to do the right thing, and we are making progress. But heck, by 1972, the real events of the Civil Rights movement had already left this story in the dust. It's a book of its time, and that time is long past. There are many, many novels and nonfiction books out there that tackle race better, and from a lot of different perspectives, not just the White one. There is a much bigger, more complex, more truthful and contemporary story to tell than what Mockingbird has to offer. I suppose this book had its impact, for better and worse. Like Uncle Tom's Cabin, another mediocre and flawed book that helped shift the thinking of white America in its day. But we should move on from it.
Of course getting Americans to agree on what to replace it with poses challenges. I personally would advocate reading a lot of short works from different perspectives, not look for a unicorn novel. It's a challenge, but our kids deserve better. The fact that we just lazily fall back on To Kill a Mockingbird and I Have a Dream is one reason Americans have no idea how to talk about race, and that's a damn shame.
I agree it's not a masterpiece. It's basically a kids (young adult) novel. But, with all the symbolism and thematic elements, don't you think it's a good resource to teach those things to young high school students?
All I know is the more times I read it, the worse it got. But yes, there are some good literary things happening here. The first person narration is one of the best things about it, in my opinion. Maybe it could have been 50 pages shorter?
So what would you teach instead? A Separate Peace?
Who do you think you are? Capote?
@Quincy, one of the best comments in here, thanks.
Flannery O'Connor reviewed To Kill a Mockingbird thusly: "I think for a children's book it does all right." Quite.
Whether it should still be on reading lists for children today, rather than 60 years ago, is an open question.
“Mockingbird” ranked with Confederate monuments as something painful to Black people, but which White people adored.
One Black teen said the book misrepresented him and other African Americans
Teachers and schools should be able to teach the book or not teach the book at their discretion. It can be useful book for teens to read, but it's not an essential piece of American lit. It's literary value is secondary to its cultural impact. The book helped many in the primary audience, whites, see the evils of racism. There seems to be plenty of whites today who could still use that message.
Comments above deserve some pushback, however. I can't imagine why Blacks would equate the book with Confederate monuments, which memorialize leaders who fought to enslave Blacks. There I can understand it would be painful. Harper Lee may or may not have made literary choices you agree with, but please, she was writing a book. Her character, Tom Robinson, for better or worse, was probably the most sympathetic Black character known to American audiences at the time.
One Black teen in 2023 says the book misrepresented him. How could a book from 1960 possibly be expected to represent a teenager living 63 years later? I get the point. There is something about Blacks and the Black experience that is unique and the teen feels that Harper Lee doesn't get it. Fair enough. But I think that misses the point of the book. It never claims to explore the experience of Blacks of the time except in a few scenes that are supportive of the main story, which is with the whites in town. If you expect the book to provide a fuller look at Black life, you'll have to read another book. There were fewer then that did that, but many more today.
A white author writing about a racist society and a Black author writing about a racist society may write different stories. Both stories will likely have limits, and both, if well written, will likely have merit.
+1
"I can't imagine why Blacks would equate the book with Confederate monuments, which memorialize leaders who fought to enslave Blacks."
Yes, OK, but Robert E. Lee was a respected, southern White man whose relationship to southern Blacks was paternal. He didn't so much hate black people as see them as child-like and in need of the protection and civilizing influence of their White superiors. Atticus Finch, the hero of this story, is certainly fighting on behalf of Tom Robinson. But that White paternalism is still all over this story. The good Black folk of Maycomb are sweet, passive, and whatever agency or opinion they have is hidden behind polite smiles. They revere their valiant White protector, Atticus. I could imagine all this not sitting well with many Black readers today. I find it a bit hard to swallow, too.
I don't fault Harper Lee for writing about things from her perspective, but I could see why some readers would rather hear some other voices on the matter. Like those statues, To Kill a Mockingbird is a literary edifice that White Americans of a certain age really defend, and I think maybe they need to think a little more deeply about why.
“To Kill a Mockingbird is a literary edifice that White Americans of a certain age really defend…”
I think this may be the real reason for the objections to the book: its reputation. Many in white society treat it as the Great American Novel About Race. Which, of course, it’s not. Many arguments against the book are not so much beefs with Harper Lee but with other readers who overvalue its merits.
FTR, while the point has been made that Lee doesn’t do justice to her Black characters, her portrayal of whites, who occupy most of the space in the story, are often no deeper or free of cliche.
Been a long time since I read the book (I saw the movie and a stage production in recent years), but I remember thinking it was trying too hard to teach an obvious point. Other books about race and related matters often do the same. There’s a difference between “books that are good” and “books that are good for you.”
TKaM is about a girl growing up in a racist society. Big difference.
I felt the same way about Light in August, and I read that decades ago.
I thought if I were a young black kid reading this pile of crap I'd just hang myself.
Supposition: We stay attached to them because they were formative for us. And we turned-out alright so clearly others would turn out alright reading them. And if they are no longer right for the present day, perhaps we aren’t either.
That said, they best keep teaching Orwell and Huxley…
In my day we had music! Not this noise!
Indeed. Of course, the noise of our days didn't/doesn't survive to "today" ...
I was speaking with someone, a still-wet-behind-the-ears twenty-something I suspect 🙂 who was marveling at how the music of the 1960s was so great. (He was listening to Credence Clearwater Revival at the time.) I pointed-out that the dreck from the 1960s simply isn't around today.
Thus I suspect it will be in the decades hence.
Ha, ha. Yep, I'm with you on Orwell. I would love it if his writing were out of touch with modern society. Sadly, it just seems to get more relevant...
I've always thought TKAM was essentially a fable about how the genteel southern aristocracy were not responsible for slavery. It was all those gross white trash who were to blame.
I meant to say racism, not slavery.
I'm with Kevin. Any person of any race can read the book (which, if we're being honest, has a stature that's probably been somewhat unjustifiably elevated by the excellent movie starting Gregory Peck) on their own.
But we don't in the main have public schools that are fully able to benefit from things that require historical context. No sense in pretending otherwise.
There's a period where things go out of date and out of style and out of mind until decades, or perhaps a century or more, later they're re-discovered and re-assessed in a more objective and neutral light.
There should be a name for this kind of period, and I think To Kill a Mockingbird is just falling into it now.
On the other hand it was recently a big hit on Broadway, so what do I know.