The author of “To Kill a Mockingbird” has made its hero a racist in a new book.
Harper Lee, who wrote the modern American classic depicting a white Alabama lawyer who defends a poor black man accused of rape in the 1930s, has published a sequel, “Go Set a Watchman.”
In it, she gives a complete face lift to Atticus Finch, “Mockingbird’s” saintly lawyer, by turning him into a racist.
What?!
In the sequel, set in the 1950s but written before “Mockingbird,” Finch says blacks are too “backward” to “share fully in the responsibilities of citizenship” and rails that the NAACP is composed of opportunists and troublemakers, according to The Associated Press.
When news of the sequel hit the public, the public took to social media to express sorrow, disappointment, and even disgust.
This alternate version of Atticus is hard to process http://t.co/z3DHQgrShX
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) July 10, 2015
Remember yesterday when everything Atticus Finch believed was good and decent? I want to go back there.
— Cole Haddon (@colehaddon) July 11, 2015
I know the feeling. Even the movie version, starring the late Gregory Peck as Finch, was a classic.
For some people, the news was a double whammy.
2 fictional male characters I most admired as a child, Cliff Huxtable + Atticus Finch, are not doing well. Someone check on Charles Ingalls.
— Rebecca Keegan (@ThatRebecca) July 10, 2015
@patrickkevinday 🙁 Me too
— Rebecca Keegan (@ThatRebecca) July 10, 2015
One person even offered an excuse.
@ThatRebecca Atticus is fine. Harper is elderly.
— Atticus (@RacistAtticus) July 11, 2015
Then there are those who were hardest hit by the news.
Boys named after #AtticusFinch are going to be pretty upset pic.twitter.com/35mOyb6zt2 http://t.co/LAOs0GgHRY
— Vocativ (@vocativ) July 11, 2015
The book is scheduled to be released Tuesday.
DONATE TO BIZPAC REVIEW
Please help us! If you are fed up with letting radical big tech execs, phony fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals and a lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news please consider making a donation to BPR to help us fight them. Now is the time. Truth has never been more critical!
- ‘Act like a grownup’: Drunk driver sobs when she loses plea deal by coming 4 hours late to court - July 23, 2017
- ‘I would’ve fired her the day I met her’: Glenn Beck reveals more about Tomi Lahren mess - July 23, 2017
- Canadian thug beats 74-year-old cyclist bloody with a club in road rage fit– and they say US is more violent? - July 23, 2017
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.