The Real Atticus Finch and Laura Ingalls Wilder

Gladwell Does It Again

By: PGofHSM | Wed, 08/12/2009 - 16:42

Thurman's article appears to be well-grounded in the facts about the Ingalls/Wilder clan (although she's unduly harsh on "The First Four Years). But Gladwell's analysis of the fictional characters in "To Kill a Mockingbird" underplays too much of the evidence that would challenge the argument he's putting forward.

(1) Speaking of Folsom, a real-life white liberal to whom Gladwell likens Finch: "He worked to extend the vote to disenfranchised blacks. He wanted to equalize salaries between white and black schoolteachers."

Those are not just symbolic, hearty-handshake changes that Folsom was pushing. In particular, enfranchising black voters would make a crucial difference, allowing those who lived in areas where they were a third or more of the population to ally with the white liberals/moderates to win narrow majorities and pass larger changes through democratic means instead of solely through the courts.

I am very much in favor of using the courts to obtain your legal rights, but anyone who is quoting Michael Klarman ought to be aware of just how much damage the backlash from Brown did to black children's education, that could have been avoided if the changes had occurred through the electoral process instead. Prince Edward's County in Virginia shut down all public schools and gave white schoolchildren vouchers for "Christian" (i.e., segregationist) academies. Black children lost their opportunity for education for five years.

Had the black voters been able to participate in the election of the people who ran the county (blacks being over a third of the population), county officials wouldn't have dared to do this because they would have lost the next election to a candidate who appealed to the black voters and pulled in just enough whites to win. Equal access to the ballot is the beginning of real political power. Conservative whites, even non-Southern ones like William F. Buckley, recognized this fact and urged that blacks be denied such access in areas where they were a majority.

(2) Gladwell's idea that Atticus Finch was impugning Mayella as some evil plotting low-class slut is extremely inaccurate. On the contrary, Finch makes clear that she has done the best she could in her life circumstances (something that the eugenicists wouldn't have considered possible, because "blood tells"), and that her clumsy attempt at seducing a married black man is due to her isolation and loneliness; her desperation for a human connection, not specifically for sex.

Finch speaks to her as "Miss Mayella" and "ma'am," which she takes as mockery because she never has been treated respectfully before. To her, the only thing that will show that the community gives a damn about her will be a conviction of Tom Robinson: "I got somethin' to say an' then I ain't gonna say no more. That nigger yonder took advantage of me an' if you fine fancy gentlemen don't wanta do nothin' about it then you're all yellow stinkin' cowards, stinkin' cowards, the lot of you. Your fancy airs don't come to nothin-your ma'amin' and Miss Mayellerin' don't come to nothin', Mr. Finch."

(3) In addition to the uselessness of Atticus's "brimming with rage" at an unjust verdict, there's also the fact that Atticus never believed he would win the jury trial. He did his best to create a good factual record for appeal and to increase the likelihood of one of those gubernatorial commutations of a sentence that Gladwell notes were fairly common. But from the beginning of the book it is clear that Atticus does not believe that 12 white male citizens of Maycomb will fail to convict a black man of raping a white woman, no matter what.

Gladwell also isn't in touch with the Southern culture that says you don't show your feelings to your opponents. This rule is very clear in the scene where Aunt Alexandra is hosting a missionary meeting and Atticus comes in to tell her and Calpurnia that Tom Robinson is dead. Alexandra, Maudie and Scout are upset, but all are resolved not to show their feelings among the women like Mrs. Merriweather who don't think Tom even deserved a defense in the first place.

4) Gladwell's attitude toward racism is precisely the kind I find useless in actually achieving progress at this point in American history. He discounts the idea of racism as a moral failing to which nearly all humans will be subject, just as we are all inclined to be uncharitable, untruthful, excessively prideful, etc. Such a refusal plays beautifully into the hands of the kind of conservatives who declare that they are taking racism SERIOUSLY by not admitting the possibility that racial bias influences anything unless someone actually says, "And this is because you're black!"

If racism were treated as a common moral failing, instead of having to deny all racial bias for fear of being permanently labeled A Racist, people would be able to acknowledge that race influenced their thought or speech or action, apologize and say that they will try to do better in the future. Atticus recognized this about his white neighbors and himself: that some of them (he and Miss Maudie, for example) are better about racial bias than others (Miss Gates, Mrs. Merriweather) and those in turn better than others (Mr. Cunningham, Mr. Ewell), but that it makes no sense to label a few of the worst so that the rest can feel virtuous about themselves.

(5) And some of Gladwell's quotes are just plain dishonest in their decontextualization: "I won't try to scare you for a while," Finch says, when he begins his cross-examination of Mayella. Then he adds, with polite menace, "Not yet."

Of course, Finch says this because Mayella in her direct examination by the prosecutor had said she was scared of Finch, and the prosecutor played on that.

'Mr. Gilmer called attention to the hot day by wiping his head with his hand. "That's all for the time being," he said pleasantly, "but you stay there. I expect big bad Mr. Finch has some questions to ask you."'

Thus Finch's response is a joke, not "polite menace."

a liberal's prayer

By: Caerolle | Wed, 08/12/2009 - 16:26

"'What we accomplished was without help of any kind, from anyone.' This, of course, is not true, as Thurman points out."
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would but modern-day Republicans/conservatives heed this little condensed syllogism...