if a non white person tried to order a meal back in 1850 would they serve him?

[HadleyH1]

Precisely -- social history, to be specific. There's a difference.

If there is a difference it's a very subtle almost invisible difference.

-".....they go hand in hand, both influencing each other. Historical events forge political opinion, and politics guide civilians creating social and cultural history."-


No black and white here. Only lots of grey.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We've discussed the cultural history of the Era here in many threads around the lounge for many many years without diverging into modern politics. Uncomfortable historical realities are as much a part of the Era as shoes and hats, and we've never shied away from them here.

 

[sheeplady]

Nostalgia washing of our society's cruel past does little service towards history.

Racism isn't a political phenomenon, it's fact.

You can love history. You can love its designs, its clothes and shoes, its lifestyles. You can do all that while recognizing segments of our society were treated cruelly and inhumanely.

 

[sheeplady]

And returning to "Go Set a Watchman," while that Atticus Finch says some offensive things to our 2018 ears, for his time, he was a forward-thinking, good man trying to see outside of his cultural context but still, to a degree, confined by it. To denounce him for not living up to today's standards is unfair, but IMO, that's not giving him a pass either.

I have a completely different reading of the two books. Scout is a child in "to kill a mockingbird." In her child's mind, she sees her father as a heroic non-racist. She bases her identity off of what she sees. She fills in the blanks about her father. She sees him in court fighting against having a man (a black man) put in jail for something he didn't do, against the backdrop of a town who wants blood. She assumes her father isn't a racist. She comes to base part of her identity off of it.

In "go set a watchman" she returns to her childhood home as an adult. She finds that her father is a segregationist. She has difficulty accepting this. However, she comes to understand she had a childhood idolatry of her father. She is faced suddenly with her own dilemmia: stand against her father and childhood friend or let go of what she believes in. Watchman is about the battle of choosing beliefs over blood. It is about how hard it can be when you have a strong belief but find that those who you once thought shared these beliefs never really did. It is the loss of idolatry; the mooring of a person not as a shadow of their parent but as their own person. Yes, there is grief and anxiety there. But also strength.

The story(ies) is not about Atticus Finch, it is always about Scout.

 

[Fading Fast]

I have a completely different reading of the two books. Scout is a child in "to kill a mockingbird." In her child's mind, she sees her father as a heroic non-racist. She bases her identity off of what she sees. She fills in the blanks about her father. She sees him in court fighting against having a man (a black man) put in jail for something he didn't do, against the backdrop of a town who wants blood. She assumes her father isn't a racist. She comes to base part of her identity off of it.

In "go set a watchman" she returns to her childhood home as an adult. She finds that her father is a segregationist. She has difficulty accepting this. However, she comes to understand she had a childhood idolatry of her father. She is faced suddenly with her own dilemmia: stand against her father and childhood friend or let go of what she believes in. Watchman is about the battle of choosing beliefs over blood. It is about how hard it can be when you have a strong belief but find that those who you once thought shared these beliefs never really did. It is the loss of idolatry; the mooring of a person not as a shadow of their parent but as their own person. Yes, there is grief and anxiety there. But also strength.

The story(ies) is not about Atticus Finch, it is always about Scout.

As you note, we just have a different view of the two books. I don't believe Scout, super observant Scout, would have missed the segregationist beliefs of her father growing up; I think Harper Lee just showed us - the reader - a different, more in-depth and complex view of Atticus in "Go Set A Watchman."

 

[LizzieMaine]

I can see both sides of this argument, given that Lee wrote "Watchman" before "Mockingbird." I think she made a conscious authorial decision to go with Scout's more innocent point of view about her father because nuance was a difficult commercial sell at the time she wrote the original version. America's racial nerves were rubbed raw in the late 1950s, and I don't think the largely white middle-class market for mainstream hardcover fiction wanted a book that laid certain uncomfortable truths bare in the way that "Watchman" does.

That market fell in love with "Mockingbird" largely because it gave them a picture that they wanted to believe -- a world in which one (white) man of stalwart principles consistently did the right thing. At a time when the Klan and the White Citizens Councils and other such bodies were running rampant in the South, and when Little Rock was a suppurating open wound, white Americans desperately wanted an idealized Atticus Finch figure to prove to themselves that the kind of things they were hearing about weren't a structural part of the society they lived in, but an anomaly, an isolated evil that could be defeated by a brave, principled figure who looked and sounded like the way they themselves liked to think they'd look and sound in similar circumstances. The idea of an adult Scout having to confront the real, flawed man inside that idealized image would have forced those Americans to confront the flaws within themselves -- and nobody ever made any money doing that.

"Mockingbird" is one of the most beloved books of the last sixty years for good reason, but I think "Watchman" is a far more courageous -- and honest -- one.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I can see both sides of this argument, given that Lee wrote "Watchman" before "Mockingbird." I think she made a conscious authorial decision to go with Scout's more innocent point of view about her father because nuance was a difficult commercial sell at the time she wrote the original version. America's racial nerves were rubbed raw in the late 1950s, and I don't think the largely white middle-class market for mainstream hardcover fiction wanted a book that laid certain uncomfortable truths bare in the way that "Watchman" does.

That market fell in love with "Mockingbird" largely because it gave them a picture that they wanted to believe -- a world in which one (white) man of stalwart principles consistently did the right thing. At a time when the Klan and the White Citizens Councils and other such bodies were running rampant in the South, and when Little Rock was a suppurating open wound, white Americans desperately wanted an idealized Atticus Finch figure to prove to themselves that the kind of things they were hearing about weren't a structural part of the society they lived in, but an anomaly, an isolated evil that could be defeated by a brave, principled figure who looked and sounded like the way they themselves liked to think they'd look and sound in similar circumstances. The idea of an adult Scout having to confront the real, flawed man inside that idealized image would have forced those Americans to confront the flaws within themselves -- and nobody ever made any money doing that.

"Mockingbird" is one of the most beloved books of the last sixty years for good reason, but I think "Watchman" is a far more courageous -- and honest -- one.

Isn't the prevailing theory that Watchman is simply an earlier, longer draft of Mockingbird, which was cut because no one wanted to read the second part, for the reasons you describe?

 

[LizzieMaine]

There's several books worth reading if one wants to get a really good picture of the racial situation in the America of the Era. In 1943, the African-American journalist Roi Ottley wrote "New World A'Comin'," an extremely informative inside look at the state of the civil rights movement during WWII, and how it impacted the lives of everyday African-Americans in creating a sense that there was a momentum building toward positive change that wasn't going to be stopped. This book became the basis of a popular radio show of the same title, heard in New York under the sponsorship of the City-Wide Citizens Committee for Harlem starting in 1944.

A more scholarly but worthwhile book is sociologist Gunnar Myrdal's epic 1944 study "An American Dilemma," which gets deeply into the statistical realities of the time in demonstrating the existence of institutional racism in American culture. The prose is dry, and the book is thick, but its research is impeccable, and its conclusions are definitive.

And I'd also recommend the works of journalist Stetson Kennedy, a remarkable Southern white man who devoted his life to fighting the system of injustice he was born into. He extensively documented the workings of Jim Crow, both on the local level, and also how Northern industrialists exploited it for profit. Kennedy wasn't some beard-stroking academic, and he didn't just write theory: he went so far as to personally infiltrate the KKK in Georgia, and uncovered information that led to the revocation of that organization's formal charter. His 1946 book "Southern Exposure" is the definitive look at not just how organized racism functioned in 1940s America but also exactly why it was maintained. Later on, he wrote "A Jim Crow Guide to the USA," a blistering indictment of the "customs" of racism done up in the satirical guise of a WPA-style travel guide. Kennedy has his latter-day critics, as might be expected, but his research nevertheless stands up to scrutiny, and I recommend his work without hesitation.

The Civil Rights movement didn't begin in the 1950s, and these books offer ample evidence of its early years. They're an excellent introduction to a critical, formative period.

 

[sheeplady]

Isn't the prevailing theory that Watchman is simply an earlier, longer draft of Mockingbird, which was cut because no one wanted to read the second part, for the reasons you describe?

Lee's editor suggested she write about the story within watchman about the court case- that this story within watchman (which became mockingbird) was more interesting.

I can see how after the public loved Mockingbird she refused to release her "first" book- the sequel. She acutely understood that many people would not accept it. It hurts when our idols are destroyed, and I've heard a lot of denial that Scout's father is the one and same in the two books. That a person can believe that people shouldn't be jailed for the color of thair skin; but also that races should stay separate.

I've seen this... racists who would never treat someone out right badly but have plenty of damaging things to say in private about those type of people.

I really liked watchman. I know a lot of people panned it. But the truth is there's a lot more racists than most of us would like to admit in many of our lives. We would rather pretend they don't exist than confront them or admit to ourselves that we welcome them into our homes, communities, etc.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Lee's editor suggested she write about the story within watchman about the court case- that this story within watchman (which became mockingbird) was more interesting.

I can see how after the public loved Mockingbird she refused to release her "first" book- the sequel. She acutely understood that many people would not accept it. It hurts when our idols are destroyed, and I've heard a lot of denial that Scout's father is the one and same in the two books. That a person can believe that people shouldn't be jailed for the color of thair skin; but also that races should stay separate.

I've seen this... racists who would never treat someone out right badly but have plenty of damaging things to say in private about those type of people.

I really liked watchman. I know a lot of people panned it. But the truth is there's a lot more racists than most of us would like to admit in many of our lives. We would rather pretend they don't exist than confront them or admit to ourselves that we welcome them into our homes, communities, etc.

A lot of people question the timing of Watchman, Lee being of advanced age and all and whether or not she was fully aware of everything surrounding its publication. That her handlers may have been trying to squeeze a few bucks out of her rather than respect her literary integrity/legacy. She was adamant for many years that she would never publish another book, and there were various reasons for that. Nonetheless, Watchman was suddenly "found" when she was 89 years old, and there is it.

And I agree with you about people who demonstrate this dichotomy. I know many people today who will say "some of my best friends are black....no, I would never invite them to my home for dinner or have my kids play with theirs, but that doesn't make a racist..." In their world there is nothing inherently racist or even discriminatory about racial segregation.

However, I disagree about Watchman as a novel. Nothing wrong with the storyline, I just think it's poor writing. I enjoyed reading it, but it's not a good book.

 

[HudsonHawk]

There's several books worth reading if one wants to get a really good picture of the racial situation in the America of the Era. In 1943, the African-American journalist Roi Ottley wrote "New World A'Comin'," an extremely informative inside look at the state of the civil rights movement during WWII, and how it impacted the lives of everyday African-Americans in creating a sense that there was a momentum building toward positive change that wasn't going to be stopped. This book became the basis of a popular radio show of the same title, heard in New York under the sponsorship of the City-Wide Citizens Committee for Harlem starting in 1944.

A more scholarly but worthwhile book is sociologist Gunnar Myrdal's epic 1944 study "An American Dilemma," which gets deeply into the statistical realities of the time in demonstrating the existence of institutional racism in American culture. The prose is dry, and the book is thick, but its research is impeccable, and its conclusions are definitive.

And I'd also recommend the works of journalist Stetson Kennedy, a remarkable Southern white man who devoted his life to fighting the system of injustice he was born into. He extensively documented the workings of Jim Crow, both on the local level, and also how Northern industrialists exploited it for profit. Kennedy wasn't some beard-stroking academic, and he didn't just write theory: he went so far as to personally infiltrate the KKK in Georgia, and uncovered information that led to the revocation of that organization's formal charter. His 1946 book "Southern Exposure" is the definitive look at not just how organized racism functioned in 1940s America but also exactly why it was maintained. Later on, he wrote "A Jim Crow Guide to the USA," a blistering indictment of the "customs" of racism done up in the satirical guise of a WPA-style travel guide. Kennedy has his latter-day critics, as might be expected, but his research nevertheless stands up to scrutiny, and I recommend his work without hesitation.

The Civil Rights movement didn't begin in the 1950s, and these books offer ample evidence of its early years. They're an excellent introduction to a critical, formative period.

In high school I read John Howard Griffin's "journal" Black Like Me, where a white man has his skin darkened and immerses himself into 1950s black culture in the South. Of course you can imagine many of the things that happened, the usual segregation woes of being denied service in restaurants, having to sit at the back of the bus, the vile comments, and the plain "evil eye" he got everywhere, but he also got insight into the way the African American community interacted within itself. He got a much more candid view as people would be much more honest with him than if he'd been a white man. His surprise was the black community trying to take advancement into their own hands, the unity and self-reliance. He assumed that they simply wanted to be integrated into white society, but that wasn't necessarily the case.

 

[belfastboy]

I am

You don't need to make it 1850. There were plenty of places in 1950 where this would have happened. While segregation by law was a Southern phenomenon, segregation by custom was widely practiced in the North -- many hotels routinely turned away non-white guests, and many also operated on what was genteely/gentilely called a "restricted" basis: which meant No Jewish Guests.

I wouldn't be too inclusive about Europeans, either. If you weren't a *northern* European you could have a rough go of it in many parts of the country -- those swarthy Mediterranean types, the Slavs, even what they used to call "black Irish" were the subject of discrimination. The social "whiteness" of these groups doesn't go back all that far at all.

Xenophobia is America's Original Sin, and a lot of it goes back to the very first colonists. The Puritans were not nice people, and they certainly weren't Christians, since Christ preached exactly the opposite of xenophobia.

I am Irish so count as northern european...not many whither than us Irish and my ancestors did not have a great welcoming on their arrival to these shores.

 

[Benny Holiday]

The Irish have suffered racist and culturalist abuse from the English peerage for at least 900 years. Colonial Australia was founded on the backs of poor Irish and lower class English convicts (for the most part, no doubt plenty of Welsh and Scots sent out here as well). What a history. A little over 10% of the Australian population today come from Irish ancestry. They enjoy a wonderful life in a great country, but the price their forebears paid for it was dreadfully harsh.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In high school I read John Howard Griffin's "journal" Black Like Me, where a white man has his skin darkened and immerses himself into 1950s black culture in the South. Of course you can imagine many of the things that happened, the usual segregation woes of being denied service in restaurants, having to sit at the back of the bus, the vile comments, and the plain "evil eye" he got everywhere, but he also got insight into the way the African American community interacted within itself. He got a much more candid view as people would be much more honest with him than if he'd been a white man. His surprise was the black community trying to take advancement into their own hands, the unity and self-reliance. He assumed that they simply wanted to be integrated into white society, but that wasn't necessarily the case.

There was a strong thread of that point of view thruout the Era -- if you read African-American newspapers of the period, there's a common editorial stand endorsing economic solidarity on the basis of "if you wait around for the white man to give you a straight deal, you'll be waiting a long time." This led to the "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work" movement that galvanized Harlem in the mid-thirties, and also to a major tenet of Father Divine's movement of the period. That sect operated a number of small businesses in cities where it had a presence, usually neighborhood-oriented things like bakeries, restaurants, and boarding houses, that provided jobs and commodities at fair prices to black workers and consumers who were tired of discriminatory policies from white-owned businesses. Later on, Elijah Muhammad would adopt a similar strategy for the Nation of Islam, with NOI-run businesses having a significant presence in African-American sections of most major cities by the late 1950s.

John Howard Griffin was a remarkable figure. In addition to "Black Like Me," he wrote a first person account of what it was like to be a blind man in postwar America -- he had been blinded in an accident in the mid-1940s, and lived his life without sight until it spontaneously returned in 1957.

When "Black Like Me" came out, the Klan put a price on Griffin's head. Fifteen years later a KKK hit squad caught up with him -- and beat him nearly to death.

 

[sheeplady]

However, I disagree about Watchman as a novel. Nothing wrong with the storyline, I just think it's poor writing. I enjoyed reading it, but it's not a good book.

I read it as a first draft. My understanding is the editor sent it back to her without much editing... if any at all. Decades and decades ago.

As someone who writes a bit for a living, I sympathize with having an unedited draft published. Editors catch so much and help fix so many holes...

And yes, the release was suspect in my mind too. I borrowed it from the library, in part, to prevent as little money as possible being made off my reading of it.

 

[Benny Holiday]

The trouble with the Klan is, they're missing part of their uniform. Along with the white robe and the hood, there's a special jacket that has harnesses that buckle up at the back. Every time they open their mouths or write something (thay can spel and rite cannt thay?) it becomes apparent they really need those jackets. Desperately.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's hard for people today to understand how pervasive the KKK was in the 1920s -- it was a dominant force in national politics, to the point where a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, E. D. White, could be an open, known Klansman, along with 16 members of the US Senate and numerous governors, and had political control over 24 of the 48 state legislatures.

August 1925: an estimated 100,000 people turned out for a Washington DC-area Klan Klonklave at the Horse Show Grounds in Arlington, Virginia.

The entire government of the State of Indiana was under Klan control -- and it was the brutal rape of a state government employee by Indiana Klan head D. C. Stephenson in 1925 that brought the Klux machine crashing down.

That Klan, the "Second Klan," was finall driven out of business during WWII by the Internal Revenue Service -- which slapped them with a $685,000 bill for back taxes that bankrupted them. Since then there has been no one national, official KKK -- but there are dozens of small regional factions in existence today, tracing their ancestry, for the most part, to the desegregation battles of the 1950s and 1960s. These Klans are not a purely southern phenomenon either -- we have them active here, now, in Maine. Their current recruiting tactic is to drive thru working-class neighborhoods at night and throw these flyers into driveways and dooryards, sealed in plastic bags weighted by pebbles:

This particular Klan faction is a well-known one with a presence that covers much of the US east of the Mississippi, and is the same group depicted in the recent film "BlacKKKlansman." One of its regional Imperial Wizards was murdered in Missouri in 2016 by his own wife. Traditional values indeed.

 

[Haversack]

In 1946, the cartoonist H. T. Webster drew a single panel cartoon about the KKK that still carries a gut-punch today.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's especially powerful coming from Webster -- a cartoonist whose entire stock-in-trade was a sort of wistful nostalgic Americana. It's the same sort of statement as Norman Rockwell's "The Problem We All Live With."

 

[vitanola]

That's especially powerful coming from Webster -- a cartoonist whose entire stock-in-trade was a sort of wistful nostalgic Americana. It's the same sort of statement as Norman Rockwell's "The Problem We All Live With."

Marsh still said it better, I think.