Go Set a Watchman

I wrote this a while ago, after reading Go Set a Watchman. It just seemed like something it might be worthwhile to share.

So Harper Lee, who wrote a book about white people and racism, wrote another book about white people and racism. I don’t know why we’re all so surprised.

Okay, yes, I do know. It’s a gut punch to know that Atticus, the kind, protective, wise, gentle father figure to white America, will smile and nod while listening to a speech so full of racist vile it makes his daughter vomit. It’s horrible to hear Atticus, our Atticus, declare the Warren Supreme Court and the NAACP his mortal enemies, to talk with gentle and genteel horror about black children sitting in his school and black voters taking over his government.

But it shouldn’t shock us, if we look back honestly at To Kill a Mockingbird.

We were all lulled into thinking that this is the definitive book about racism in America. And what does it tell us? That one man, armed with kindness, good manners, and legal training, can overcome racism in his small Southern town.

Except he can’t.

What does Atticus actually do in To Kill a Mockingbird? Remember? He doesn’t get Tom Robinson acquitted. He makes the jury take a little longer to decide. He makes them think about it. And he counts that as a victory.

He counts it as a victory to make it just a tiny bit harder for white people to be racist. To make them hesitate before they connive at the open murder of a black man by the young white woman he tried to befriend. And maybe it is a step forward, for Atticus, for white Macom. But I doubt it felt like much of a victory to Tom Robinson.

We don’t really know, of course, because the book isn’t about Tom Robinson. It’s not about Calpurnia. (Does Calpurnia even get a last name?) It’s about white people, and it tells white people that small victories are enough. That racism in America is about how white people feel, and not about how black people suffer.

So maybe it shouldn’t be such a shock for us, and for Jean Louise, to find out that our Atticus, who can be kind and gentle and caring and polite toward Calpurnia and Tom, can react as viciously as an injured snake if the NAACP and the Supreme Court tell him that small victories are not in fact enough. That making a group of white men kill a black man more slowly is not enough.

That what is needed is justice.

It wouldn’t have been such a shock if we’d paid attention to the first book, it we hadn’t turned it into a fable about racism in American and how to overcome it. I’m not trying to tear down To Kill a Mockingbird, although I will read it with a different eye now that I’ve read Go Set a Watchman. It was reasonable for Harper Lee to write about being a white child in a Southern town and coming face to face with racism, and also about being a young white woman coming back to that town and coming face to face with racism in her beloved father. But she didn’t do anything more than that, and that’s the part that we, her readers, forgot. She didn’t, in fact, write an instruction manual for overcoming racism, and she didn’t, in Atticus, give us a perfect role model to follow. Harper Lee didn’t make us believe that good manners and good intentions can overcome racism. We did that to ourselves.

In fact, what is needed is Supreme Court decisions and the National Guard and millions of people ready to face fire hoses and police dogs just to get Tom Robinson the fair trial he should have had all along, the one Atticus couldn’t get for him. To make sure Calpurnia’s grandchildren can go to school alongside Atticus’s grandchildren, even though the idea fills Atticus with horror. So that Calpurnia can walk to the courthouse and vote.

Atticus can’t get these things for us. The truth is, Atticus won’t even try.

No wonder people are so upset by this book. But Scout grew up. Now we have to too.