Atticus Finch a racist in new Harper Lee novel!

[boomer177]

Just posted:

Review: Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set a Watchman’ Gives Atticus Finch a Dark Side,
www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/books/re...ml?emc=edit_na_20150710&nlid=66636455&ref=cta

Oh, my.

 

[phrodeau]

She sure asks a lot of easily-answered questions.

 

[LadyVer]

I'm confused. I'm wondering if racism and segregation for that time period aren't being taken for the same thing.

 

[boomer177]

I'm confused. I'm wondering if racism and segregation for that time period aren't being taken for the same thing.

Was not legally-enforced segregation societal racism?

In any event, it is Jean Louise (Scout), herself, who, according to the review, castigates her father, Atticus. The time period is the 1950's.

 

[LadyVer]

Was not legally-enforced segregation societal racism?

In any event, it is Jean Louise (Scout), herself, who, according to the review, castigates her father, Atticus. The time period is the 1950's.

Yes, but that wasn't what I meant. My remembrance of the Finch character was that although he lived in a segregated society, his character wasn't written as a flaming KKK member. Maybe the castigating is more a generational issue. When one is young, one is less tolerant at times. I remember segregation while growing up in Texas. Although I'm glad that those days are over, my mother still has issues with it. She is not someone whose mind can be changed by me, mainly because I'm a feminist and a liberal. To her mind, I'm a spawn of Satan and nothing will disuade her from her belief that Obama is the Antichrist and a Muslim. What would change her mind is someone like herself that she admires, a white conservative born again Christian, making the case for equality. Unfortunately, she listens to people like Franklin Graham, so the likelihood of her changing her beliefs is zero.

 

[lovecraft68]

Yet another example of trying to force today's PC on something set back in a time where it didn't exist and people were...well they were racist.

Fiction is fiction and characters in it behave differently and some are 'good people' and some are pieces of crap its called realism.

Its fine for a character to be a rapist, a murderer, a thief, a cannibal-hell we glorify Hannibal Lechter and serial killers.....but a racist, oh good god, burn that book

I'd say don't like it, don't read it, but it doesn't work that way anymore.

I'm sure people will be calling for the book to be banned and burned soon.

PC is getting us dangerously close to censorship at this point.

 

[pointless]

honestly, atticus was always kind of a paternalistic cunt, but back in the day that was about as good as it got for establishment types.

 

[renard_ruse]

What is a "racist" and why is it "bad"?

This undefined word, which was actually coined up by Lenin believe it or not, is now the second most common word in the English language after "the." And yet, if you took fifty people off the street and asked them to define it you would probably get fifty different definitions.

That's right, have you ever thought about that? No, probably not, because this emotionally charged and powerful word, doesn't have a specific meaning. Its a tool used to intimidate and control, justify government power, put people on edge, and enforce conformity to whatever thing those using it at a particular time want to force conformity to. Its one of the key tools that American totalitarianism, and other western totalitarian societies, use to exercise control over the public.

 

[pointless]

no, it's pretty well defined. has been for quite a long time.

 

[boomer177]

Yes, but that wasn't what I meant. My remembrance of the Finch character was that although he lived in a segregated society, his character wasn't written as a flaming KKK member. Maybe the castigating is more a generational issue.

Lady Ver, you despicable spawn of Satan, what is beyond intriguing is that, according to the review:

Though “Go Set a Watchman” is being published for the first time now, it was essentially an early version of “Mockingbird.” According to news accounts, “Watchman” was submitted to publishers in the summer of 1957; after her editor asked for a rewrite focusing on Scout’s girlhood two decades earlier, Ms. Lee spent some two years reworking the story, which became “Mockingbird.”

The reviewer continues:

Students of writing will find “Watchman” fascinating for these reasons: How did a lumpy tale about a young woman’s grief over her discovery of her father’s bigoted views evolve into a classic coming-of-age story about two children and their devoted widower father? How did a distressing narrative filled with characters spouting hate speech (from the casually patronizing to the disgustingly grotesque — and presumably meant to capture the extreme prejudice that could exist in small towns in the Deep South in the 1950s) mutate into a redemptive novel associated with the civil rights movement, hailed, in the words of the former civil rights activist and congressman Andrew Young, for giving us “a sense of emerging humanism and decency”?

How did a story about the discovery of evil views in a revered parent turn into a universal parable about the loss of innocence — both the inevitable loss of innocence that children experience in becoming aware of the complexities of grown-up life and a cruel world’s destruction of innocence (symbolized by the mockingbird and represented by Tom Robinson and the reclusive outsider Boo Radley)?

The depiction of Atticus in “Watchman” makes for disturbing reading, and for “Mockingbird” fans, it’s especially disorienting. Scout is shocked to find, during her trip home, that her beloved father, who taught her everything she knows about fairness and compassion, has been affiliating with raving anti-integration, anti-black crazies, and the reader shares her horror and confusion. How could the saintly Atticus — described early in the book in much the same terms as he is in “Mockingbird” — suddenly emerge as a bigot? Suggestions about changing times and the polarizing effects of the civil rights movement seem insufficient when it comes to explaining such a radical change, and the reader, like Scout, cannot help feeling baffled and distressed.


Not to worry, lovecraft68, there won't be any book-burnings. Rather, more than a few raised eyebrows.

And, if there were, to be effective, they would need to be more than minor conflagrations. As I understand it, pre-publication sales are in the seven figures.

 

[Recidiva]

Atticus wasn't a perfect being and he always had a dark side. He was a fairly absent father, described why women couldn't be in juries as "The ladies'd be interrupting to ask questions."

The book is the book, the movie is a bit of a whitewash of the actual character of the man.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

For a fair depiction of the 30s read Cross Creek by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Her home was smack dab in the middle of a rural Florida hamlet called Cross Creek. It was a small community of whites, blacks, and Brits who interacted intimately without prevailing social barriers. All were racists but all respected each others dignity. That is, being a nigger or a limey or white trash didn't disqualify people for fair treatment or help or one's company. I was raised in a small place like Cross Creek with the Limey and his Hollywood wife, and the rich family who owned 1000s of acres of orange groves, and the niggers who picked the fruit, and folks like me who bathed in the creek and ate what others left on their restaurant plates.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

What is a "racist" and why is it "bad"?

This undefined word, which was actually coined up by Lenin believe it or not, is now the second most common word in the English language after "the." And yet, if you took fifty people off the street and asked them to define it you would probably get fifty different definitions.

That's right, have you ever thought about that? No, probably not, because this emotionally charged and powerful word, doesn't have a specific meaning. Its a tool used to intimidate and control, justify government power, put people on edge, and enforce conformity to whatever thing those using it at a particular time want to force conformity to. Its one of the key tools that American totalitarianism, and other western totalitarian societies, use to exercise control over the public.

no, it's pretty well defined. has been for quite a long time.

http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/britneyschalupa/13926004/50122/50122_600.gif

http://37.media.tumblr.com/bf4a49d5d803b79ff62345bbef4bc9d1/tumblr_mu7x8dK6Dt1rfduvxo1_500.gif

http://media.tumblr.com/4ef9747ad303e41cb58915e1e7e4156d/tumblr_inline_ni930ckwwn1rna76x.gif

http://media.tumblr.com/d3173f006b6b78bff860577a0417258b/tumblr_inline_nlonf5dMft1rna76x.gif

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v358/AlexClarke/wipes_sweat-forehead.gif

 

[boomer177]

For a fair depiction of the 30s read Cross Creek by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Her home was smack dab in the middle of a rural Florida hamlet called Cross Creek. It was a small community of whites, blacks, and Brits who interacted intimately without prevailing social barriers. All were racists but all respected each others dignity. That is, being a nigger or a limey or white trash didn't disqualify people for fair treatment or help or one's company. I was raised in a small place like Cross Creek with the Limey and his Hollywood wife, and the rich family who owned 1000s of acres of orange groves, and the niggers who picked the fruit, and folks like me who bathed in the creek and ate what others left on their restaurant plates.

But JBJ, it is neither the 30's nor the 50's or 60's any longer--I was raised in the 50's--and respecting people nowadays means, among other matters, leaving racism in the past and no longer calling folks names which rightfully offend them.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

But JBJ, it is neither the 30's nor the 50's or 60's any longer--I was raised in the 50's--and respecting people nowadays means, among other matters, leaving racism in the past and no longer calling folks names which rightfully offend them.

It's a futile gesture to reply with logic, Boomsey.

J Blow Job is one of those ossifying dung heaps of racist play-doh that you have to unfortunately wait for nature to reclaim through maggots in order to delete it from the road of progress instead of wasting time and resource on removing it manually through weekend steam shoveling.

http://media.tumblr.com/de54d002dd42fe62704974a85093a788/tumblr_inline_nkkfwuqyfT1qbarv9.gif

 

[pointless]

also, he's just a character alt, so you'd likely have a better conversation with your dog or maybe a dirty sock.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

MOCKINGBIRD was written by Truman Capote.

I suspect Harper Lee sacrificed Atticus to kiss modern liberal ass and be celebrated.

 

[Liar]

Am I supposed to know who or what an Atticus Finch is?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

But JBJ, it is neither the 30's nor the 50's or 60's any longer--I was raised in the 50's--and respecting people nowadays means, among other matters, leaving racism in the past and no longer calling folks names which rightfully offend them.

Dear, play it how you please, and I'll do the same.

A black woman I know said of me, "You as white as bread, but you wrapper is clear plastic." I say a snake with rattles is a gentleman. Niggers and queers and the galz know where not to step. That is, don't tread on me.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

Don't tread on him. Just piss on him.

The warm acidic liquid will melt him away, much like what it does when you try to pee your name in snow.

 

[boomer177]

Dear, play it how you please, and I'll do the same.

A black woman I know said of me, "You as white as bread, but you wrapper is clear plastic." I say a snake with rattles is a gentleman. Niggers and queers and the galz know where not to step. That is, don't tread on me.

I had hoped you might be in a rare, other than hate-filled moment. Astonishingly, the first three sentences of your Noon post were devoid of epithet or invective. So I set aside my "ignore JBJ" policy and gave it a shot.

No skin off my teeth.

 

[pointless]

Am I supposed to know who or what an Atticus Finch is?

you've never even seen the movie of to kill a mockingbird? i didn't even know that was possible. fuck, we watch it in school here.

and, of course, read it.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I had hoped you might be in a rare, other than hate-filled moment. Astonishingly, the first three sentences of your Noon post were devoid of epithet or invective. So I set aside my "ignore JBJ" policy and gave it a shot.

No skin off my teeth.

Always a bad idea with me. I love to hate. I wish LIT had a haters board.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

I had hoped you might be in a rare, other than hate-filled moment. Astonishingly, the first three sentences of your Noon post were devoid of epithet or invective. So I set aside my "ignore JBJ" policy and gave it a shot.

No skin off my teeth.

People often learn the hard way, but sometimes the crucible is a necessary one for learning.

 

[Liar]

you've never even seen the movie of to kill a mockingbird? i didn't even know that was possible. fuck, we watch it in school here.

and, of course, read it.

Oh, that one. Nope, nothing I was forced to read in school or that's all that ubiquous outside the US, I'd magine.

It's on a long to-do list of mine. But pretty far from the top.