"Rather than debate people they disagree with, they pathologise them as 'phobic': whore-phobic, trans-phobic, you-name-it-phobic. Similarly, people are labelled as 'deniers'; for example, 'climate change deniers'. Hume points out that the intention is to shut down discussion - after all, who wants to debate a pathological liar? Hume argues that it is always better to engage [...] than simply to outlaw their speech."
- Caroline Criado-Perez, New Statesman 17-13 July 2015
Where does one draw the line between freedom of speech, and offence? Are they in contradiction of one another? Are they even compatible? Are they synonymous?
Joining the multitude who ventured out bleary-eyed last Tuesday morning to buy a copy of Lee's much anticipated Go Set a Watchman, the first-draft-come-novel-come-destabilising-sequel to, as Oprah Winfrey wrote in 2010, America's 'national novel', To Kill a Mockingbird, I looked forward to revisiting the characters of one of my favourite (childhood) books - though not without trepidation. Immediately preceding its public release, the novel was tainted by news reports and reviews that the book was a 'revelation' that would 'shock fans' of the earlier novel, given the surprising fact that Atticus Finch, the racially revolutionary hero lawyer of To Kill a Mockingbird, 'is now a racist' (words from The Independent). Contrary to public opinion, I enjoyed it. And, further, I wasn't disappointed.
The racist undertones (or, to be more precise, overtones) to the novel are undeniable. Atticus' moral sainthood is crucified by Scout, now the grown 26 year old Jean Louise, when she comes across a Nazi-esque pamphlet entitled 'The Black Plague' on his desk, later leading to her discovery of his place on the board of directors of the local citizens' council (these, as Erica Wagner writes (also New Statesman), 'were white supremacist groups in the Southern states largely organised after Brown v Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court case that decreed segregation in public schools unconstitutional'). Contrary to the moral motivations of Atticus' earlier law case in To Kill a Mockingbird, where he defends a black man, Robinson, as innocent, his decision to 'take on the case of a black man' accused of murder in Go Set a Watchman is reached only to keep the "buzzards" (i.e. the NAACP lawyers) "who demand Negroes on the juries in such cases" away. At this point, you catch yourself screwing your brows and creasing your eyes in abhorrence. How did the Atticus of To Kill a Mockingbird develop from this racist southern trope? Hats off to Lee's editor.
"Then let's put this on a practical basis right now. Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theatres? Do you want them in our world?"
"They're people, aren't they? We were quite willing to import them when they made money for us."
"Do you want your children going to a school that's been dragged down to accommodate Negro children?"
Lee translates the thoughts of her reader into the pages of the novel, entangling the thoughts of Scout with our own in a narrative palimpsest: "You're a coward as well as a snob and a tyrant, Atticus. [...] You're a nice, sweet, old gentleman, and I'll never believe a word you say to me again. I despise you and everything you stand for."
I don't know if Atticus is deliberately, intentionally racist; perhaps it is incidental. I think he's tired, wary, apprehensive, nervous, morally contradicted and confused. His argument against immediate and complete racial integration in Maycomb County stems from his awareness that the result would be an 'inexperienced' takeover. Say I've worked as a gardener my whole life, and then suddenly decide to become an MP; I'd probably need some form of initial guidance and experience to be successful. Hence Atticus' argument: "Would you want your state governments run by people who don't know how to run 'em? [..] Would you want someone of Zeebo's capability to handle the town's money? We're outnumbered, you know." Though I can see where his racism perhaps stems from, I do not condone nor agree with him, sharing Scout's frustration. This disagreement, this contradiction, this destabilising of the moral idol construed of Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird, is, in my opinion, the thematic preoccupation of the book. It is not a book that aims to be racist, the third person narrative from the stance of Scout assuring us against this, but one concerned with the limitations in revering humans and their ideologies. It encourages us to refute, to argue, to engage. It says: don't be passive, don't accept something you disagree with. Challenge it. Question it.
""When you happened along and saw him doing something that seemed to you to be the very antithesis of his conscience - your conscience - you literally could not stand it. It made you physically ill. Life became hell on earth for you. You had to kill yourself, or he'd had to kill you to get you functioning as a separate entity."
Kill myself. Kill him. I had to kill him to live.
"...You're very much like him, except you're a bigot and he's not."
"I beg your pardon?"
Dr. Finch bit his under lip and let it go. "Um hum. A bigot. Not a big one, just an ordinary turnip-sized bigot."
Jean Louise rose and went to the bookshelves. She pulled down a dictionary and leafed through it. "'Bigot,'" she read. "'Noun. One obstinately or intolerably devoted to his own church, party, belief, or opinion. Explain yourself, sir.""
Erica Wagner writes that it seems to her 'wiser to read Watchman as a very early draft of Mockingbird, rather than an independent work'. I disagree. It reads best as a sequel. Not only does Scout learn from her idolatry of Atticus and blind reverence of all that he said, realising that he is in fact a faulted, flawed human being, but we do too. Yes, the racism of Atticus in Go Set a Watchman will 'shock its readers', but they shouldn't leave the novel disappointed or empty. Lee, though unintentionally, effectively challenges our own idolatry of the first novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, teaching us the valuable lesson of independent thought and challenge. If something is wrong, don't accept it. We are a fallible species. Go set yourself a watchman: 'every man's watchman, is his conscience'.
Caroline Criado-Perez concludes her review of Mick Hume's Trigger Warning: Is the Fear of Being Offensive Killing Free Speech? by writing that 'there is an important and necessary book waiting to be written on this subject' but 'sadly, Hume's effort is not it'. Lee's Go Set a Watchman is certainly a fictional contender for such a book.
C
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