"Well, Dill, after all
he's just a negro." –Scout Finch
During the trial of Tom Robinson, a Black man falsely accused of raping the White woman who tried to take advantage of him in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout's best friend Dill begins to cry uncontrollably. As he struggles to collect himself outside, he tries to explain to Scout that what upset him was the treatment of Tom Robinson by the prosecuting attorney who was "talking so hateful to him" during his cross examination.
"The way that man called him 'boy' all the time and sneered at him," Dill tells her, prompting Scout's short retort above.
"He's just a negro."
I read this novel with my students in twenty-five of the twenty-seven years I taught high school. When we reached this point, which is roughly three-quarters of the way through the book, I'd have them write to this prompt: Is Scout a racist?
Year after year, from 1990 to 2017, I asked the same question. Of course, they were required to explain to me why they believed what they concluded about her. Among individual students, the answers would vary.
"Yes!"
"No!"
"IDK." (Translation: I Don't Know.)
"She can't be racist because she's black." (Some students assumed that because Jem, Scout and Dill spoke with Southern accents, they were Black.)
"She's racist because she lives in the South and all White people in the South were racists back then."
"She's not racist because racists hate Black people and she doesn't hate Black people."
True, Scout does not hate Black people.
But yes, she is a racist.
This scene, this conversation between Scout and Dill, this is the crux of the matter. Tom Robinson is fighting for his very life before their eyes, and Scout attempts to comfort her friend by suggesting he not get too upset since this man is "just a negro."
To Scout, his life matters less than hers because he is Black.
Yes, she is a child, and yes, this is a novel and she's the protagonist, so by the time Scout has had time to process the trial and listen to further discussion by her father and brother, she is already drawing new conclusions about her racist third grade teacher, and by the end of the novel she has come to fully understand why it is "a sin to kill a mockingbird."
But before that... Scout is a product of her family, her history and her community and yes, she is a racist.
If folks grow up seeing and hearing a distinction made between races--between who gets the highest regard, the best jobs, the most convenient seat on the bus--and they emulate that behavior, they are tacitly complicit in the preservation of this learned behavior we call racism.
Time and again in my life, I have had racists tell me, "I don't hate Black people...." And it's very possible that they don't associate what they feel with hatred. But if they hold themselves in higher regard because they are not Black, they are racists.
Because Black lives matter as much as any lives.
This idea that others are less valuable because of their race or ethnicity or geographic origin or socio-economic level is, well, in Dill's words, "It ain't right.... Hasn't anybody got any business talkin' like that--it just makes me sick."
The events in Virgina over the past two days have made me sick indeed, and I know that many of my friends feel the same way. We are sickened by the rage and hate and violence, but we are also sickened by the disparity we continue to experience, even among those who say, "I don't hate anyone." Racism isn't always this blatant. Most often, it is subtle and insidious, which is why it is still so pervasive.
During the trial of Tom Robinson, a Black man falsely accused of raping the White woman who tried to take advantage of him in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout's best friend Dill begins to cry uncontrollably. As he struggles to collect himself outside, he tries to explain to Scout that what upset him was the treatment of Tom Robinson by the prosecuting attorney who was "talking so hateful to him" during his cross examination.
"The way that man called him 'boy' all the time and sneered at him," Dill tells her, prompting Scout's short retort above.
"He's just a negro."
I read this novel with my students in twenty-five of the twenty-seven years I taught high school. When we reached this point, which is roughly three-quarters of the way through the book, I'd have them write to this prompt: Is Scout a racist?
Year after year, from 1990 to 2017, I asked the same question. Of course, they were required to explain to me why they believed what they concluded about her. Among individual students, the answers would vary.
"Yes!"
"No!"
"IDK." (Translation: I Don't Know.)
"She can't be racist because she's black." (Some students assumed that because Jem, Scout and Dill spoke with Southern accents, they were Black.)
"She's racist because she lives in the South and all White people in the South were racists back then."
"She's not racist because racists hate Black people and she doesn't hate Black people."
True, Scout does not hate Black people.
But yes, she is a racist.
This scene, this conversation between Scout and Dill, this is the crux of the matter. Tom Robinson is fighting for his very life before their eyes, and Scout attempts to comfort her friend by suggesting he not get too upset since this man is "just a negro."
To Scout, his life matters less than hers because he is Black.
Yes, she is a child, and yes, this is a novel and she's the protagonist, so by the time Scout has had time to process the trial and listen to further discussion by her father and brother, she is already drawing new conclusions about her racist third grade teacher, and by the end of the novel she has come to fully understand why it is "a sin to kill a mockingbird."
But before that... Scout is a product of her family, her history and her community and yes, she is a racist.
If folks grow up seeing and hearing a distinction made between races--between who gets the highest regard, the best jobs, the most convenient seat on the bus--and they emulate that behavior, they are tacitly complicit in the preservation of this learned behavior we call racism.
Time and again in my life, I have had racists tell me, "I don't hate Black people...." And it's very possible that they don't associate what they feel with hatred. But if they hold themselves in higher regard because they are not Black, they are racists.
Because Black lives matter as much as any lives.
This idea that others are less valuable because of their race or ethnicity or geographic origin or socio-economic level is, well, in Dill's words, "It ain't right.... Hasn't anybody got any business talkin' like that--it just makes me sick."
The events in Virgina over the past two days have made me sick indeed, and I know that many of my friends feel the same way. We are sickened by the rage and hate and violence, but we are also sickened by the disparity we continue to experience, even among those who say, "I don't hate anyone." Racism isn't always this blatant. Most often, it is subtle and insidious, which is why it is still so pervasive.
