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

Qualitymark · 12-07-2015 03:00PM

The first couple of pages read like something out of the first, inexperienced days of a writing class: inward-looking, flashbacky, telling-rather-than-showing, self-indulgent.

Since Atlanta, she had looked out the dining-car window with a delight almost physical. Over her breakfast coffee, she watched the last of Georgia’s hills recede and the red earth appear, and with it tin-roofed houses set in the middle of swept yards, and in the yards the inevitable verbena grew, surrounded by whitewashed tires. She grinned when she saw her first TV antenna atop an unpainted Negro house; as they multiplied, her joy rose.
Jean Louise Finch always made this journey by air, but she decided to go by train from New York to Maycomb Junction on her fifth annual trip home. For one thing, she had the life scared out of her the last time she was on a plane: the pilot elected to fly through a tornado. For another thing, flying home meant her father rising at three in the morning, driving a hundred miles to meet her in Mobile, and doing a full day’s work afterwards: he was seventy-two now and this was no longer fair.

and so on. Read the full chapter here:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2015/jul/10/go-set-a-watchman-read-the-first-chapter

When you compare it with the fabulously kinetic and vivid opening of To Kill a Mockingbird, it's tragic:

When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem's fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than his right; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right angles to his body, his thumb parallel to his thigh. He couldn't have cared less, so long as he could pass and punt.
When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident. I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out.

Now, admittedly this is also a flashback, but it's vivid, immediate, exact, direct, gripping.

There are a few pages of setup - more than you'd expect in a modern novel - and then it jumps straight into a living story, as we meet Scout and Jem's cousin Dill (based on Harper Lee's own cousin Truman Capote):

Early one morning as we were beginning our day's play in the back yard, Jem and I heard something next door in Miss Rachel Haverford's collard patch. We went to the wire fence to see if there was a puppy- Miss Rachel's rat terrier was expecting- instead we found someone sitting looking at us. Sitting down, he wasn't much higher than the collards. We stared at him until he spoke:
"Hey."
"Hey yourself," said Jem pleasantly.
"I'm Charles Baker Harris," he said. "I can read."
"So what?" I said.
"I just thought you'd like to know I can read. You got anything needs readin' I can do it...."
"How old are you," asked Jem, "four-and-a-half?"
"Goin' on seven."
"Shoot no wonder, then," said Jem, jerking his thumb at me. "Scout yonder's been readin' ever since she was born, and she ain't even started to school yet. You look right puny for goin' on seven."
"I'm little but I'm old," he said.

Boring username · 12-07-2015 03:53PM

Nataly Gorgeous Speakeasy wrote: »

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

Don't get me wrong, there are people on this planet who do incredible and dangerous jobs every day. But there is no such thing as a hero-that's just a word the media uses to sell papers. There are only ordinary people who do brave things. As any firefighter/nurse/paramedic/peacekeeper/rescue worker will be the first to admit. I've never heard anyone say 'I am a hero'. It's always others who label them one.

Nataly Gorgeous Speakeasy wrote: »

Where did you get that from?

There are multiple studies that indicate this, it's called unconscious bias. That's not to say you are a closet neo-Nazi, but you make different decisions when you see a person's skin colour, whether you realise it or not:

Everyone’s a little bit racist, posits the song from the musical Avenue Q. But it may not be your fault, according to research in the latest edition of the British Journal of Social Psychology. In looking for the culprit as to why people tend to display tinges of racism, sexism or ageism, even towards members of their own group, a research team, led by the Georgia Institute of Technology, found that our culture may be partially to blame.

While previous psychological studies have shown that racism, sexism and ageism tend to be universal, a new study led by Paul Verhaeghen, professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Psychology, found that works in the American culture, namely literature, movies, TV, radio and the Internet, may contribute to the problem by exhibiting the same stereotypes that society works so hard to snuff out.

http://www.cos.gatech.edu/stories/Everyone-is-a-Little-Bit-Racist-but-It-May-Not-Be-Your-Fault-Study-Suggests

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mind-the-gap/201110/prime-and-prejudice-why-we-are-all-little-bit-racist-0

http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2014/may/29/racist-racism-study-uk

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/opinion/nicholas-kristof-is-everyone-a-little-bit-racist.html?_r=0

Nataly Gorgeous Speakeasy wrote: »

Ah, no we all don't.I think I'll wait to read it before jumping to any conclusions.

Are you seriously telling me that not one of your friends, the ones who would condemn racism publicly, have never said anything negative against travellers, for example? Even in a fit or anger or rage that they regretted afterwards? I would be sceptical of any claims to the contrary. We even see it here on boards with supposedly right on people having a go at travellers sometimes.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 12-07-2015 04:21PM

Boring username wrote: »

Are you seriously telling me that not one of your friends, the ones who would condemn racism publicly, have never said anything negative against travellers, for example? Even in a fit or anger or rage that they regretted afterwards? I would be sceptical of any claims to the contrary. We even see it here on boards with supposedly right on people having a go at travellers sometimes.

Yes I am.
Take it back to what you posted-

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.

I don't know anybody on facebook, so no I we don't all know people who post with contrary values. Secondly, I have friends who would be unhappy about travelers but they are straight about it and would be honest about their racism too. I accept there must be people with double standards but it is incorrect to say we all know such people.
Anyway, back to the book.

Qualitymark · 12-07-2015 04:24PM

Boring username wrote: »

That's not to say you are a closet neo-Nazi, but you make different decisions when you see a person's skin colour, whether you realise it or not

But isn't that a question of current societal norms, rather than inherent bias? For instance, would you make different decisions if I had blue eyes rather than green? I doubt it.

Irish people's attitude to, say, Indians has changed radically in the last 20 years; they used to be 'other', but now they're just slightly different-looking; we've got used to them and know what to expect. Our attitude to Africans is moderating gradually, though they're newer to us so it hasn't happened as much yet.

As for the anti-Traveller bias, I suspect a lot of that comes from the criminals who are Travellers. Most of us aren't really aware that their main victims are other Travellers. I don't know what will happen if travelling people are declared an ethnic minority - whether it will make things better or worse between them and settled people.

catallus · 12-07-2015 05:04PM

Well, he might be a racist or he might not be, but it says an awful lot more about the people who like that book that they don't see anything wrong with killing birds.

Qualitymark · 12-07-2015 05:31PM

catallus wrote: »

Well, he might be a racist or he might not be, but it says an awful lot more about the people who like that book that they don't see anything wrong with killing birds.

Heh!

When he gave us our air-rifles Atticus wouldn't teach us to shoot. Uncle Jack instructed us in the rudiments thereof; he said Atticus wasn't interested in guns. Atticus said to Jem one day, "I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."
That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.
"Your father's right," she said. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

The 'mockingbird' in the story is Boo Radley, autistic, damaged, shy and - yes - heroic.

Eugene Norman · 12-07-2015 06:29PM

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.

Yes. However this is now canon.

Look a guy could change over his life. Or oppose brutality and bad law in certain circumstances but support segregation. Nowt so queer.

The Backwards Man · 12-07-2015 06:44PM

Ug; Things change
Charlie; So do people

Critters 4

kylith · 13-07-2015 10:46AM

Eugene Norman wrote: »

Yes. However this is now canon.

Look a guy could change over his life. Or oppose brutality and bad law in certain circumstances but support segregation. Nowt so queer.

I think calling it canon is a bit much. It was written before TKAMB, it's an unrefined text so it hasn't be rewritten and edited, it was never intended to be published, or to be a prequel to TKAMB.

Qualitymark · 13-07-2015 10:55AM

Watchman was written first. When it was rejected by publishers, Lee switched the viewpoint so that a child watches a conservative, decent country lawyer forced to go to bat for a man victimised by racism, and produced Mockingbird.

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

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