Of Course Atticus Finch Is A Racist!
You’re still allowed to love him!
I’m curious to read Go Set A Watchman. I wasn’t all that surprised to find out Gregory Peck/Atticus is a racist. But, of course, I’m from the South. Southern gentlemen with fine manners and soft voices are often barbaric on the subject of race. And on the subject of women. Yes even now, even in 2015.
To me this character complication doesn’t make him less of a man, just more of a complicated, realistic man.
In a small southern town during the Great Depression, nearly every man was racist. Some were worse than others. Some were scared and mean out of fear, some were just plain mean. Some were going with the flow—the great, silent evil of not even noticing there’s anything wrong.
As a reading public, many of us loved the fictional Atticus Finch because he stood up for a black man when this involved courage and cunning. He was the moral compass of the town. In Go Set A Watchman, he still is, but now, Scout is old enough to see her father isn’t perfect. And truly, defending a man in court doesn’t make you a liberal. Atticus is a lawyer first, last and always. And he’s a man who upholds the status quo.
In 2015 in every town across America, people are still racist. We can all see it. Look at what’s happened this year in Ferguson and Baltimore. Just last month President Obama gave a speech in which he said, “we are not healed!” that’s an understatement.
Gloria Steinem once famously remarked “the personal is the political”. It is, of course and it isn’t too. One can love someone and forgive someone for their political beliefs. We all still want to love Atticus—or perhaps it’s Gregory Peck we want to love just as much. In schools all over the country the book has been taught alongside the movie.
It’s a beautiful book and a beautiful movie. We’ve come a long way from the days of Jim Crow.
Unfortunately we haven’t come far enough.
by 
