To Kill a Mockingbird isn't just a good book, it's a great book. But it's an honest one and morally mixed. It's not about the black experience of racism. It's about the white experience of racism. The "good" white people in the book are against mistreating black people. But that doesn't mean they aren't racist. And it certainly doesn't make them crusaders for equality. Her characters are ordinary people with the ordinary assumptions of their time and place. The have their heroic moments but they are not generally heroic.
Atticus is not a volunteer. He's appointed to defend a black man accused of rape. The accusers are poor white trash and no one really believes them, yet the black man is convicted. All Atticus does is makes the jury think longer about it.
And the trial is not the be all end all of the book. Much of it is about a young man hidden away be his family for a minor crime until he is no longer really fit to be outside the house. Like racism, response to the morality of that situation is muted. No one saves that young man from his family. Their "right" to imprison their son is unquestioned.
Atticus is not a volunteer. He's appointed to defend a black man accused of rape. The accusers are poor white trash and no one really believes them, yet the black man is convicted. All Atticus does is makes the jury think longer about it.
And the trial is not the be all end all of the book. Much of it is about a young man hidden away be his family for a minor crime until he is no longer really fit to be outside the house. Like racism, response to the morality of that situation is muted. No one saves that young man from his family. Their "right" to imprison their son is unquestioned.
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.
