3 ms·

No, it was already very well accepted that you shouldn’t throw white people in jail for crimes they didn’t commit. It was not well accepted if the accused was b

by esja 6y ago

No, it was already very well accepted that you shouldn’t throw white people in jail for crimes they didn’t commit. It was not well accepted if the accused was black. The challenge was to persuade people (many of whom were racists) to see the accused man as equal to a white man before the law, and deserving of the same treatment as a white man would have received. In other words, to persuade people to be blind to his colour in their assessment of the case. There are plenty of novels about defending people against crimes they didn’t commit. This one is about much more than that.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
> it was already very well accepted that you shouldn’t throw white people in jail for crimes they didn’t commit. I can agree in general, but the case in To Kill a Mockingbird is a little more complex than that. Tom Robinson actually committed the offense of having sex with a girl whose father didn't approve of him. This was shoehorned into the legal system by accusing him of the crime of "rape". This approach is quite current today under the name "statutory rape", and is applied in a race-blind manner. So it's plausible that if Tom Robinson had been a comparably undesirable white, something very similar would have happened. A lot of things that did happen were specific to him being black, but the very basic framework of the case wasn't.
- esja 6y ago
  The whole point of the story is that he is black and gets treated unfairly (accused of a crime) because of that. It’s fundamentally about the racial discrimination that was rife at the time. Take that one element away by making him white, and it remains an interesting story but now it’s about something very different, and I doubt it would be as famous today. It’s also not clear Harper Lee would have bothered to write it.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > Take that one element away by making him white, and it remains an interesting story but now it’s about something very different, and I doubt it would be as famous today. It would be Bridge of Spies, which makes the same comments on what it should mean to be a lawyer, and on the nature of mob justice, while making the two changes that the defendant is (1) white and (2) actually guilty of the same offense he's charged with.

by esja 6y ago

thaumasiotes 6y ago

> it was already very well accepted that you shouldn’t throw white people in jail for crimes they didn’t commit. I can agree in general, but the case in To Kill a Mockingbird is a little more complex than that. Tom Robinson actually committed the offense of having sex with a girl whose father didn't approve of him. This was shoehorned into the legal system by accusing him of the crime of "rape". This approach is quite current today under the name "statutory rape", and is applied in a race-blind manner. So it's plausible that if Tom Robinson had been a comparably undesirable white, something very similar would have happened. A lot of things that did happen were specific to him being black, but the very basic framework of the case wasn't.

esja 6y ago
The whole point of the story is that he is black and gets treated unfairly (accused of a crime) because of that. It’s fundamentally about the racial discrimination that was rife at the time. Take that one element away by making him white, and it remains an interesting story but now it’s about something very different, and I doubt it would be as famous today. It’s also not clear Harper Lee would have bothered to write it.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > Take that one element away by making him white, and it remains an interesting story but now it’s about something very different, and I doubt it would be as famous today. It would be Bridge of Spies, which makes the same comments on what it should mean to be a lawyer, and on the nature of mob justice, while making the two changes that the defendant is (1) white and (2) actually guilty of the same offense he's charged with.