Derryck Green: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee | The Book Club

Welcome to the book club. This month we are reading a book that needs no introduction. It is a book that is one of the most widely read novels in the world. It is a book that, according to one British survey, ranks above the Bible on the list of books that you must read before you die. I think that's a little bit much, but it's a very good book anyway. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. My guest is Derek Green, the conservative writer. Derek, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. This book, everyone's read it, but for the three people out there who haven't read it, how would you summarize it in 60 seconds? I would say that Atticus Finch had two children. He's a lawyer. In Alabama. In Alabama, Maycomb County. Yep, 1930s. And he's trying to instill morality in his children because he's a widower. His wife is not there. And he has a black maid and she is, in essence, the mom. And she's trying to instill morality in Jim and Scout as well. And so what she's trying to do is not only instruct them in the Christian church, but also the morality that goes around in Maycomb County. And then when you get to the second part is when Atticus Finch defends Tom Robinson. Who's a black guy. A black guy for charges that, for things that he did not do. This innocent man is on trial for rape, just as Atticus's moral integrity is on trial. If he refused to defend the innocent man, he would have no basis, no justification for continuing to educate and instruct his kids. That's right. And he says that out loud. And so what Jim and Scout really learn is that it's not about who you defend, it's about loving people. And as they get older, hopefully, they will be able to use that to people who, some of the people that aren't as equal as them. So there's no mother at home. Atticus Finch is a widower. And there is a woman in the home. That would be Calpurnia, who is a black woman who's helped to raise these kids. And so just with the character of Cal, you see the beginning of this theme of race and racial tension that ends up being the whole point of the book, really, in the end. Yeah. I think that she was, in essence, she was sort of a mother because he was a widower. And eventually she started taking them to church. And they liked going to church. To the black church? Yeah, it was a black church. It was first purchase. And so when they started going to church, Reverend Sykes was there and he said, listen, we have to raise money for Helen, Tom's wife, because she has three children at home and Tom is in jail. He says, lock the door. That's right. You're not getting out of here until we get this money. That's exactly right. And so everybody goes and they give money, but he says, listen, this is not enough. We have to help this person because he was a member of this church when he was very young. And so people started giving more dimes, more nickels, more quarters, and they eventually got $10 to give to Helen so she could take care of the children. On this theme of community, you've got a separate community here. You've got this black community, though it intersects because Calpurnia is the stand-in mother for these two white kids. And then you've got the community of Macomb. Yes. Macomb, Alabama, perfect town, USA, at least at the beginning of the book. But at the beginning of the book, Scout is a young girl who doesn't know very much. She knows how to read, but she doesn't know much about the world. And probably a lot of us thought of our hometowns that way when we were really little kids. And so another theme of the book is not just about racial relations in the South in the 1930s. It's about losing innocence. It's about coming to realize that this is a fallen world and that our perfect little community that we grew up in has all sorts of secrets and has all sorts of unjust prejudices and has all sorts of nasty relations that can disturb the peace so much that they could kill innocent people. Yes. And that's basically what happened. I mean, they had white people living in one particular area and then they had blacks living in another particular area. And so whenever the blacks would walk down the street, there was a lot of people who would use the N-word and say these kinds of things. And they would always say that the Negro would come out of him. They lie a lot. They steal a lot. And so it was a lot of friction going on in that particular area. And it's not just Alabama. It was also Mississippi. It was also Georgia. It was also Florida, for that matter. So it was a lot of different things. And she didn't really understand this. So she would always ask her father, what does this mean? Why are they saying that you love Negroes? Why are you defending Negroes? She uses a more offensive term. That is very true. That she hears from her classmates. That's very true. And Atticus would say, well, listen, if I didn't defend these people, I could not hold my head up high when I walk around the city. I could not defend the legislature and I couldn't tell you what to do. And so that was a good thing. It's not as though his law office were focused specifically on black people. He would help everybody in town and a lot of them couldn't pay him and they'd pay him in a bushel of corn. That's right. They'd just do what they could. But this case comes up of a guy, Tom Robinson, who is accused of raping this white girl. And the white girl is Mayella Yule and her father, Mr. Yule, is poor white trash and their house is made of flattened tin cans. Right. And it's just an awful, awful place. And Atticus Finch says, that boy did not commit that crime. Now he takes up the case. I don't think even because he's so eager to do it, he just says, I couldn't look myself in the eye if I didn't take up the case. That's right. And Scout says, well, are you going to win? And he says, no, of course not. Of course, I'm not going to win. She says, well, why would you take up the case if you can't win? They said, well, sometimes to show courage, you've got to engage in an endeavor that was lost a hundred years before you even started. That's right. And what he says in the book is some of these white men are trash because they will lie to overcome a black man who's trying to defend himself. And so I appreciated the fact that Atticus Finch described the discontent between whites and blacks because it actually allowed Jim and Scout to understand what was going on and his perspective on the trial. And there's this really weird scene that pops up in the middle of the book where there's a mad dog in the street and the dog is clearly a danger. He's got some terrible disease, you know, could bite people, could just give him the disease. And they call Atticus Finch home from work to go shoot the dog. And you're reading this and you say, hold on, wait, what does this dog have anything to do with this story? And why are they calling the lawyer to come down? And you quickly find out it's because Atticus Finch was known as one shot, one shot Finch back in the day. And he says, I haven't picked up a gun in 30 years. They say, well, the sheriff says, you got to do it. I don't trust myself. And if I, if I shoot my rifle and I miss, I'm going to go kill the, the, uh, Radley's. And so he says, I don't want to, I don't want to. He throws the gun at him. And Atticus one shot shoots the dog just a little bit to the left, right? Just a little over the eye and, uh, scout and Jim. Why didn't you tell us about this talent? Why? Come on. Why? And, and he says, you shouldn't be proud of a natural talent. There's, there's nothing to be proud of about just something you were endowed with as a matter of nature. Sure. You can practice shooting, but shooting, it's not like reading, you know, shooting is the sort of thing. Some people are just born with it. And clearly this has implications for the broader theme of the book, which is you're just going to be proud of some natural aspect of yourself. You know, when, when the poor white trash come, come up on the stand in part, they seem to be particularly vile toward the black people because they're of such a degraded social position that the only thing they've got to be proud of is this natural attribute that, you know, clearly hasn't served them all that way. Uh, so they go onto the stand and quickly find out Atticus finds out, then we find out he's a good lawyer. We find out that given the bruises on this, the victim, it seems likely that her father could have done it. It seems very, very unlikely that Tom Robinson could have done it because she's got, she's got a bruise on her right eye. Yeah. And her father, we find And Tom barely has an arm. Yeah. Barely has a left arm. Yeah. He hurt it in a cotton gin. So it was 12 inches shorter and all the muscles detached from his arm. So when he says, you used your left hand, there was really no answer from Bob Ewell. And Mayella didn't really want to answer either. I mean, he was asking her questions and she was not going to answer. I mean, she all but admits on the stand that the father molests her too. And Tom Robinson clearly alludes to this. She, she is asked on the stand, is your father good to you? She goes, he's tolerable. Yeah, that's right. Is he always tolerable? Uh, well, except when he's, except when he's drinking. And then she, and Tom Robinson says that she told him that she wanted to kiss a grown man. She's never kissed anyone. What her father does to her doesn't count. So Tom is convicted. He was always going to be convicted. He was convicted a hundred years before, but it ruins Bob Ewell's reputation, what little of it remains. I mean, he is exposed as a complete degenerate and he wants revenge. He does. And that's, that is why when he attacked Jim, broke his arm, that's when Arthur Radley or Boo Radley came out and stopped him. So, so you've got, you've got Bob Ewell attacks the kids, breaks Jim's arm. And all of a sudden this recluse, who's been, he's been a figure. That's right. You've never really seen him, but he, he leaves them little toys when they're little kids. That's right. He just kind of this, he gives a blanket to Scout once when there's a fire and they're all standing outside. Boo Radley comes out and saves them. Yes. And carries Jim back to the house. And so for, for me, that was a very integral aspect of the book because he carried him back to the house to protect him. Bob Ewell doesn't, he's not able to capture the children. Boo Radley takes the kids away from the villain and Bob Ewell is found in the street with a, with a knife in his chest. Yes. In between his ribs. And so the question is, who was it? Was it Jim or it could have been Boo Radley? Yes. Atticus seems to think it's Jim. Yeah. And so, so he's arguing with, over the law and over justice with, with the sheriff. And the sheriff says, you know, I think what happened here, Atticus, I think probably just kind of fell on that knife and it was body weight plunged it in. And Atticus says, I won't hear of it. I won't. He's so committed to justice. Yeah. He says, no, no, no. Don't lie. Tell the truth. And Tate says, I'm not thinking of Jim. Right. That's right. Atticus, you're not seeing who really did it. That's right. But so why then does the sheriff have to intervene? Why does he try to bend the law? Well, there's this theme throughout the book, which is Boo Radley is a weirdo. He's a recluse. He's, he's, he's a kind of counterpoint to Tom Robinson and being on the fringes of society. If he's brought up to trial, they might kill him. They might, but at the same time, he's also white. So I don't think that they would. It's not quite the same. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I don't, I don't, I don't necessarily think that they would charge him with it, but. But would you, would you want, you know, if he really did stab Bob Ewell, would you really want to take the chance knowing we've already, we've had this, this facade of perfect justice cracked for us in this book. And so the sheriff in the, in the messiness of political life takes matters into his own hands. He says, you know, sure looks like it was an accident, but you know, Atticus gives this impassioned speech. He does. We're about justice and about, you know, how the law is just all, you know, it's just all of us here. We're the ones who make up the system of law. So we need to conduct ourselves with integrity and dignity and with concern for the truth. But, but we live in a fallen world where people have all sorts of unjust prejudices and disordered desires. And, and so, you know, the bad version of that is they go kill Tom Robinson. They convict him and then he tries to escape and they, and the mob kills him. Yeah. But maybe then the flip side of that is the sheriff recognizes that a strict application, perhaps, the letter of the law killeth and the That's right. And I, and I, you know, listen, I understand why Atticus argued that because he's a lawyer and he wants to have justice. I think it was, it was, I'm not saying it was right that he died, but after what he did to his daughter. Yeah. No one's shedding a lot of tears. No, no, not at all. Not at all. Not at all. So now why, that's all to say it's a well-written book. It's very enjoyable. I've read it a number of times and I've enjoyed it every time. Why has it become the novel in America and even in the rest of the English speaking world? That's a very good question. And I think probably because, like I said, it took place during racial segregation and whites, Christian whites looked down on blacks. Okay. And so that, that's just kind of how it was. And so it w it was, they didn't see that blacks were equal to them, even though they were racially segregated. Even back in slavery, they said, okay, you are slaves. Even though we want to baptize you, you're still not as equal with us. Writing this book, I think it opened a lot of minds and hearts to the, the friction that went on in the South between blacks and whites. Blacks were basically shoved out of the mainstream America. They had to go create their own businesses. They had to create their own work, all these kinds of things. And a lot of it was in the church. So if they were excluded from mainstream America, they had to survive somehow. And I think that for a lot of people who may have come to the country after the 1964 Civil Rights Act, read this and said, oh, this is how it was back then. We didn't know that. And so for them, it probably opened their eyes a little bit. And even just the way things were changing, like at one moment they ask if the Klan was going to be there. And they said, we never really saw the Klan in Macomb. And someone says, well, no, the Klan, they terrorized some Catholics. I never saw a Catholic in Macomb either. I don't, what are you talking about? And then even Atticus comes in, you know, this great, great defender of justice and of this black guy in particular. And he says, well, there, there was the little uprising in the 20s, but that was mostly a political thing and they all looked ridiculous and they all went home, you know. So it was so complex and the social dynamic was changing because of, you know, a peculiar institution. I wonder if too, part of the reason why a survey would list To Kill a Mockingbird, look, I really liked the book, but it's got wonderful moral messages to it. It's not the greatest novel ever written, but perhaps one of the reasons for that is as we continue to contend with race in the States in particular, we've lost a lot of our traditional religion. We've lost a lot of our traditional moral and ethical education. We don't know very much about history anyway. And so the substitute religion is one that focuses on race. You know, we hear, we talk about how slavery is America's original sin. I don't think that's true. I think original sin is America's original sin and slavery is a bad thing. But even the way we talk about it, that's the way we understand all morality. And so in that world, this book becomes an indispensable moral text. Yes. And when people read it today, they're looking at diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is a different form of what we had before. You're right. So when they're reading this book, they're like, this doesn't seem to be the right way. There is no real easy answer. I mean, I guess that's something I do really like about the book as a 12-year-old can read this book. You know, it's not the most complex. It's clear enough to be read, but yet it doesn't just give you nice pat answers to everything. Right. Amid the little quotables such as, well, you can never understand a person until you see things from his point of view. Those little one-liners are floated all over the place. And yet, by the end, they're still going to live in Maycomb. And Maycomb, it's not the worst place in the world, but it's not the best place in the world. That's right. And there's a lot of evil that can happen, but there's a lot of good. And as you grow up, you recognize that having a nice pat, easy answer to any of these questions is almost certain proof that that answer is not correct. Yes. Yes. And that was one of the things that I really appreciated about Calpurnia taking them to church because they actually got to witness a black church and they enjoyed that interaction. And then at the very end, you know, when, when Atticus Finch is walking out, he says, scout, stand up. Your father's passing. And every black person up high stood up because they said, this guy did a really good job. Now, obviously it didn't work out the way that they wanted. It was never going to work, but at least they stood up and gave him his due. Now, what does scout ask Calpurnia at the church? You can clean up the language as you go. Yeah. She says, why do you, in essence, why do you talk that Negro talk? Yeah. It's a more polite version. And you know, it, she, she gets into a discussion with a person that she doesn't particularly care for, which I thought was funny because that happens all the time. But she asked that question. She says, well, this is, this is why. Because Calpurnia at home, you know, at the Finch home, she talks just, you know, normal standard American English, but she speaks what today you'd call like Ebonics or something. At the church. And I, I had never noticed that having, I mean, I had plenty of black friends growing up, but I, I thought everyone just kind of talked the way that they talk. And one time in college, a friend of mine used the phrase code switching. I said, what's code switching? I've never heard of that. And she would talk like we're talking right now in school, but then with her family, she would talk in like Ebonics basically in a totally different dialect and would just go back and forth. And Scout says, well, aren't you, isn't that dishonest? Aren't you kind of lying? And Calpurnia says, well, wouldn't it be stranger if I didn't, if I talked in a totally different way from my community. Listen, and that happens in a lot of black communities all the time. Sometimes they speak proper English. Sometimes they don't speak proper English. They just, they like to get around their friends and talk the way they want to talk. And for, for some of them, it is refreshing. Now it's, it's a book from the early sixties about the mid thirties. Yeah. And things seem to have improved at least to a point in terms of racial reconciliation. And then they seem to be going in the other direction now, at least over the last 10 or 20 years. Yes. Yes. Again, I think that's diversity, equity, inclusion. I think that's, I think that's leftist wanting to elevate black people because they are not capable of reaching the heights of whites, black immigrants, or Asians. So they want to elevate them to a particular level. It's an odd, it's a paradoxical exaltation and degradation. That's right. And, and to be honest with you, the one thing that would cure that is if black parents got married and stayed married. So, you know, in 2021, the black marriage rate was 29.7%. That's low. And that's, that's low. That's below whites, Asians, black immigrants are at 61%. So it's like, if we just got married, not shacking up, but got married and then said, we're going to instill these things, what was instilled in our children back in racial segregation, I think that we would demonstrate a higher level of equality. We just don't do that. To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most canceled books or at least has been at different times, but it's not canceled by the right, really. The people who are trying to cancel To Kill a Mockingbird now are the people who are trying to cancel Huckleberry Finn. And they're doing it because the book uses a certain word that we're not allowed to say, you know, it's a totally taboo word. Is it wrong that the book uses a common word to advance a narrative in a truthful way? Not necessarily. I mean, listen, like you said, you saw it in Huck Finn and you see it here. The reason that they raised the issue is because a lot of people are saying that Atticus Finch loves Negroes, you know, the real world that even you're not allowed. Isn't this crazy? Yes. Look, because I, I respect taboos. So I think it's actually good to have taboos. So I'm, I know some conservatives want to almost performatively say, say the word casually. I wouldn't, I would say if I were, you know, reading a passage or something, but I know, I recognize there are taboos. If this word is so taboo, you're a black guy and you can't even say it. Yeah, I won't say it. I won't say it. But you know, like I said, the left wants to cancel these books. And I don't think that these books should be canceled. Allow children to read it. It's not like they're going to go out and say the word, but at least if they get an idea of what it was like back in the South, you know, in 1935, 1940, 1945, they'll understand it. I also just don't understand, I understand educating people to respect certain taboos and to not use language that is vulgar and common, but you know, it, it's a book about them lynching a black guy. Like, you know, the word's going to come up in 1930. Should we, should we edit the Bible to remove, sometimes you'll hear atheists say that Bible, you know, that Bible that includes incest, murder, you know, this, that, and the other thing. And I will first of all, yes, it's a book about revealing our role, humanity's role vis-a-vis God. Like it's going to tell you about human nature, but two, it doesn't look favorably upon those things. So how on earth could, could we understand, and even the most basic aspects of human nature without seeing the nasty things about human nature. How on earth are you supposed to understand a lynch mob in 1930 without that word? And you know what, there's a lot of people who are 15, 16, 17 that didn't grow up back in the 1960s. So they will have no idea of what it was like back in those times. But if they read a book like this, or they even watch A Time to Kill, they will realize what happened and maybe their morality will say that wasn't right. And then for this particular word, if they've ever listened to any popular music made in the last 50 years, I'm pretty sure they heard it once or twice. That's right. Yeah. Last question before I let you go. Truly one could speak for a very, even though it's a simple book, one could speak forever about it just because of its impact. Why the title, To Kill a Mockingbird? Atticus Finch says it is a sin to kill a mockingbird. And Scout says that at the very end. And I think that was about Boo Radley. It's a sin to kill a mockingbird. For Tom? Yeah. And she remembered that. And I was like, that's, that's, that's, that's morality. Right. That's morality. Because a mockingbird doesn't, doesn't harm anyone. It doesn't, doesn't sin. It just kind of sings its song. That's right. That's exactly right. What I really liked about the book is Atticus Finch describing why he defended Negroes. For, for two young people to understand that and then grow up with that, I think is a, is a, is a good moral lesson because it's, it's, it's saying they're not below you. They're equal to you. They're equal before the law. And there are all sorts of social inequalities. Scout's best friend, who she says she's gonna marry. That's right. Yep. He, he doesn't have any relatives really that he can rely on. He, he's always stuffing his face because he doesn't know where his next meal is. Yep. You know, there are the, the Yules are, are poor white trash. Yep. There are the, there's the separated black community. There's all the, you realize there's all of this social inequality that you'll never get rid of. That's right. I mean, that is a fact of. Yeah. Just differences of birth and cleverness and not to say anything of society and institutions. And so, but we can have some kind of equality perhaps before the law and ultimately equality before God. Yes. At least in an ideal, if not always in practice. That's right. That's right. And I, and I, you know, that, I like that. I like that. I like when people understand morality from a particular perspective and then that's when you teach your children, you know, what morality is. Right. Perhaps, perhaps the die is cast in certain cases. Things don't look like they're necessarily going to turn out well in this world. But if we maintain our integrity and if we follow justice, then we'll have something far more valuable. Hopefully. Thank you so much, Derek, for coming in. Absolutely. Thank you for reading this very good book. Not better than the Bible, but very good book. And we will see you next time on The Book Club. PragerU is a 501c3 non-profit organization, so we rely on donations from viewers like you to keep this content on the air. 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