"Birds of a feather flock together and if we got a problem we talk together." - Mocky, Birds of a Feather (Remix w/ GZA)
My relationship with To Kill A Mockingbird is similar to NPR's Michel Martin. She writes
At that age, all I really knew was that some people were nice and some people were mean. But it was shocking to me to contemplate how easily people could be designated for mistreatment solely because of the color of their skin. And, as the novel intended, it was also a relief and a reminder that advocates and allies come in every color.
I haven't read that novel in a long, long time. I am wondering if it's time to pick it up again, to be reminded that otherwise decent people will look the other way at wrong, and that sometimes, other decent people will cross the room to stand up for those who deserve it and are standing alone.
I picked up Harper Lee's novel on my own some time in Junior High. I had lived in relatively diverse communities in Maryland, the San Fernando Valley, and Las Vegas at that point and it was at that point in my life that I first had my first experiences with overt prejudice. What resonated with me was that idea that allies weren't only folks who looked like me. It reflected back to me what I had seen and felt in the world and I didn't want to—and still don't—view the world as hostile to me.
So, it was surprising, on the 50th Anniversary of the book, to read this
I refuse to go along with this week's warm, feel-good celebrations of Harper Lee's novel (published fifty years ago today), To Kill a Mockingbird. Simply put, I think that novel is racist, and so is its undying popularity. It's also racist in a particularly insidious way, because the story and its characters instead seem to so many white people like the very model of good, heartwarming, white anti-racism. - warmly embrace a racist novel, stuff white people do
and the follow-up
I remember being in class and reading To Kill a Mockingbird. . . . and I don't remember what that book is about. No clue, zero.
What I think the book is about is the word "ni**ger-lover," because that's all I heard for like, days on end in my classroom, was the teacher going, "Ni**ger-lover, ni**ger-lover, ni**ger-lover, ni**er-lover, ni**er-lover!" And then the kids, "Oh! Ni**ger-lover, ni**ger-lover, ni**ger-lover, ni**ger-lover!" - force non-whites to read 'great' literature that demeans them, stuff white people do
That's Damali Ayo (of Rent-A-Negro) relaying her experience with the book. I wonder how I might feel about the novel and story if I had to look at it through the lens of required reading in a classroom setting. I went to a pretty diverse high school and I still really enjoy Twain's Huck Finn but I distinctly remember what it felt like reading the novel aloud in 11th grade English and the awkwardness/debate about how to deal with the derogatory language of the day at use in the work. I believe I either volunteered to read those parts (or was volunteered by the teacher) and that was that. I know I said the words out loud. I'm pretty sure my internal debate was over the uncomfortableness of using that language vs. needing and wanting to respect the writing and the impact changing words in a story has. To not read them as they were written would be disrespectful -- to the author and the audience.
I have no such memories with To Kill A Mockingbird. And so, I have to wonder if that anger about the book is misguided. We can debate the merits of the characters, of the use of a "mockingbird" to describe a black person, and all of that but, it seems to me, the anger displayed in those two posts is about the fact that the shared experience of reading this book exposed, greatly, the prejudices of classmates, othered the black folks in the room, and brought forth all the awful feelings that come with.
I'd blame our long, poor history and teachers ill-equipped to handle the material for that terrible scenario.
The book is just the light that exposed those cockroaches.
But, like Michel, maybe I should read it again.
