I hear you're a racist now, Atticus....

Boring username · 12-07-2015 11:24AM #1

FANS of To Kill A Mockingbird have been warned of "disturbing" reading in Harper Lee's much-anticipated follow-up novel, as its hero lawyer Atticus Finch is shockingly portrayed as a racist "bigot" who went to a Ku Klux Klan meeting.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/590494/To-Kill-A-Mockingbird-Harper-Lee-Atticus-Finch-racist

There have been allegations that 89 year old Harper Lee has been coerced into releasing this book by unscrupulous advisors and shady legal personnel who can smell the scent of dollar bills. Sad if true.

But then again, maybe this is what the world needs. There are no heroes. There never has been. Everyone is a little bit racist, especially those who claim they aren't. So maybe it's only right that the biggest hero of 20th century literature is shown up to be a regular man with flaws, just like you and me.

We all know that holier than thou crusader who preaches tolerance and diversity on facebook, but opposes the proposed methadone clinic down the street, and lobbies against moving the immigrants in next door. In fact, Rev. Al Sharpton says the depiction rings true of his interactions with some 'liberals' who were racist behind closed doors:

The Rev Al Sharpton, veteran civil rights activist and Baptist minister, told the Observer that the portrayal of Atticus in Watchman chimed with his own experience of some postwar American liberals. “To Kill A Mockingbird has always been the standard we talked about in American literature in dealing with the question of race and racial justice,” said Sharpton. “Now to find out that Atticus Finch was not this statesmanlike racial hero, but was in fact portrayed at first by Harper Lee as racist in many ways, reflects the burden we’ve had in real life of the northern liberal who ended up being racist.

“When I was a kid and Dr King was dealing with raw racism in the south, the northern liberals supported him. But when I came of age and started fighting racism in the north, some of the liberals who supported the generation before me were the ones I had to fight in police brutality cases … Finch reflects the reality of finding out that a lot of those we thought were on our side harboured some personal different feelings.”

Sharpton added: “I think the irony of this revelation is it reflects much of the reality of what I’ve seen in the civil rights movement in the 21st century.”

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/11/atticus-finch-racist-go-set-watchman

Do you think this is a more realistic portrayal of Finch, and humanity in general?

NachoBusiness · 12-07-2015 11:28AM

What's next? Oscar Schindler only saved Jewish people cause he was worried about the gas bill.

biko · 12-07-2015 11:32AM

How about we read it and judge for ourselves?

12-07-2015 11:35AM

Is he a bigot because of other things or because he attended a KKK riot?

Menas · 12-07-2015 11:37AM

biko wrote: »

How about we read it and judge for ourselves?

Much better to just get a good old racism car crash thread going.

strelok · 12-07-2015 11:39AM

i just hope it doesn't convince anyone to shoot paul simon

suicide_circus · 12-07-2015 11:39AM

The Rev Al Sharpton is a charlatan

fatknacker · 12-07-2015 11:42AM

Maybe it was all an elaborate plan to stage a COUP KLUX KLAN!

Heh?

tritium · 12-07-2015 11:44AM

Stuff like this kind of shows how much words like racist have been devalued by the ease and frequency with which they're thrown about by certain individuals and groups to raise their own profile or further their own agenda.

Gatling · 12-07-2015 11:46AM

So we're complaining about a fictional character in a work of fiction that nobody has read .

Some people hey !

branie2 · 12-07-2015 11:51AM

Gregory Peck (who played Atticus Finch in the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird) must be turning in his grave.

cloud493 · 12-07-2015 11:51AM

Gatling wrote: »

So we're complaining about a fictional character in a work of fiction that nobody has read .

Some people hey !

This is the internet, where you can be offended by things nobody read that don't even exist!

osarusan · 12-07-2015 11:57AM

Boring username wrote: »

There have been allegations that 89 year old Harper Lee has been coerced into writing this sequel by unscrupulous advisors and shady legal personnel who can smell the scent of dollar bills. Sad if true.

Go Set A Watchman was written before she wrote To Kill A Mockingbird, just never published.

What is being published is that original text (which Harper Lee believed had been lost) with no revisions.

Boring username · 12-07-2015 12:00PM

fatknacker wrote: »

Maybe it was all an elaborate plan to stage a COUP KLUX KLAN!

Heh?

You deserve far more likes for that

Boring username · 12-07-2015 12:04PM

osarusan wrote: »

Go Set A Watchman was written before she wrote To Kill A Mockingbird, just never published.

What is being published is that original text (which Harper Lee believed had been lost) with no revisions.

Yes I was inaccurate in my reporting. But there have been concerns that Lee was being pressured into releasing it:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/go-set-a-watchman-concerns-that-harper-lee-was-pressured-into-publishing-new-book-10024615.html

osarusan · 12-07-2015 12:07PM

Boring username wrote: »

Yes I was inaccurate in my reporting.

It was mentioned in the link you provided in the OP:

Lee has previously said she completed Go Set A Watchman in the mid-1950s, which features Scout as an adult woman.

Boring username wrote: »

But there have been concerns that Lee was being pressured into releasing it:

Yeah, that was also mentioned in your own link in the OP:

News of the new book's publication stunned the literary world earlier this year and concerns were raised about the extent of Lee's involvement in the project.
Her agent was forced to respond to reports suggesting the 88-year-old was being taken advantage of over the publication of the book.
Authorities in her native Alabama closed their investigation into the issue saying the reclusive writer had "made it quite clear" she wanted the book published.

justchecked · 12-07-2015 12:14PM

But that would mean that there could be other people out there who act all right on just for public approval.

Boring username · 12-07-2015 01:12PM

suicide_circus wrote: »

The Rev Al Sharpton is a charlatan

He is certainly guilty of race baiting and stoking racial tensions at times. But he has a point about hypocritical liberals too.

suicide_circus · 12-07-2015 01:17PM

Boring username wrote: »

He is certainly guilty of race baiting and stoking racial tensions at times. But he has a point about hypocritical liberals too.

Agreed

Turtwig · 12-07-2015 01:20PM

It never ceases to amaze me how people want fictional characters to behave in certain ways. It's fiction characters don't have to be anything. The can be anything. They're characters. They shouldn't have to conform to our expectations and etiquette.

Also Atticus might originally have been racist. People change. Something in the real world we tend to ignore.

Qualitymark · 12-07-2015 01:28PM

Quotes from Atticus in Go Set a Watchman:

“The Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people.”

“Have you ever considered that you can’t have a set of backward people living among people advanced in one kind of civilization and have a social Arcadia?”

“Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theatres? Do you want them in our world? Do you want your children going to a school that’s been dragged down to accommodate Negro children?”

The first chapter is awkwardly written and dull; I'm not surprised that Harper Lee didn't want it published when she was in her prime. The beauty of To Kill a Mockingbird is that Atticus Finch, while very much a product of his class and society, is too noble and too intelligent a man to harbour such ideas. To have this earlier and not very impressive book stain his beauty is an awful pity.

Turtwig · 12-07-2015 01:31PM

Those quotes carry no context.

I like the idea of Atticus initially being racist and slowly changing his view.

Steve_Carella · 12-07-2015 01:32PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbud8rLejLM

osarusan · 12-07-2015 01:36PM

Turtwig wrote: »

I like the idea of Atticus initially being racist and slowly changing his view.

It would be the other way round I think, because this book, while written before To Kill A Mockingbird, is set some years later when Scout is an adult.

But mostly, I would not be sure it's a good idea to view these novels as kind of two parts in a series, and expect the characters to behave in much the same way, or expect one novel to lead into the other.

It isn't clear if that is what Harper Lee intended at all.

fatknacker · 12-07-2015 01:44PM

Boring username wrote: »

You deserve far more likes for that

I know, right?

Happyman42 · 12-07-2015 01:59PM

TKAMB is set in the 30's
The new one is set in the 50's

Samaris · 12-07-2015 02:20PM

Going to reserve judgement until I actually read it. It may be taken out of context, or maybe it just is an early draft, and doesn't mesh with her classic TKAM. If it doesn't, I will quite happily ignore it from the context of the earlier book.

Or maybe there will be an explanation for it all in the book that will make sense.

branie2 · 12-07-2015 02:26PM

Atticus could have been brainwashed into become a racist

kylith · 12-07-2015 02:31PM

Wasn't it written before TKAMB but never published? In that case she would have decided to go with a less racist Atticus meaning that Atticus in the new book is only a first draft.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 12-07-2015 02:49PM

Boring username wrote: »

. There are no heroes. There never has been.

Can't agree. Of course there are genuine heroes in life. Now in fiction of course heros can rise and fall at a whim.

Everyone is a little bit racist, especially those who claim they aren'

Where did you get that from?

We all know that holier than thou crusader who preaches tolerance and diversity on facebook, but opposes the proposed methadone clinic down the street, and lobbies against moving the immigrants in next door.

Ah, no we all don't.

I think I'll wait to read it before jumping to any conclusions.

Not a NSA agent · 12-07-2015 02:52PM

kylith wrote: »

Wasn't it written before TKAMB but never published? In that case she would have decided to go with a less racist Atticus meaning that Atticus in the new book is only a first draft.

This is what I was thinking. The book might have been written before but they dont have to be part of a series. It could have been one version but she decided to write TKAM, taking aspects of the characters but took a different path with them.

I hear you're a racist now, Atticus....

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