#trumen capote

[akiszeretett]

Amíg èl az ember, mindig vár rá valami, s még ha rossz is is, az a valami, és az ember tudja, hogy rossz akkor is, mit tehet ellene? Az életet nem lehet csak úgy egyszerűen abbahagyni.

[evilelitest2]

100 days of Trump: Day 11, To Kill a Mockingbird

So I’ve talked quite extensively about the mindset of the Trump voter, but that sort of white resentment has been around forever in America, that isn’t anything new, there were other Factors that Made Trump’s Rise possible, and I want to look at a small part of that with the American Classic Book/Film, to kill a Mockingbird.  Both version are fantastic, ideally you would do both, but either one is great, I prefer the film slightly but the book has some really important scenes in it, like more stuff with Calpurnia who is amazing. 

    Yet again, there are many reasons to watch/read this, but what is relevant to us is race, and the entire American experience with Race, because it is more complicated than just white racists killing a black man unjustly, that’s the core of the story but a lot is gone into understanding why/how this happened (and continues to happen).  Like most of the South, Maycomb based on a highly formalized class system, among the whites they are segregated, divided and prejudicial to each other based on your family, wealth, and “mannerism”, with a small aristocratic elite on top.  For the poor whites with neither family, wealth or...anything really, the only consultation prize is that they are deemed superior to the black people in the area, and how vitally important it is for them . Bob Ewell isn’t a well regarded member of the community, Maycomb as a whole view him as a a disgrace and look down on him for reasons both legitimate (he is a horrible human being) and ill legitimate (his poverty).  The only way Ewell has to feel like he has power is by lording it over the black Americans, the only group who he has status over, and while the community dislikes him, they go along with it because they too wish to preserve the system that benefits them.  Even residents of the town who are less racists wish to see Jim hang, because to keep their own status intact, an innocent black man must die.  

  The book looks at the infamous southern racism and sees it through the light of mixed persecution, one of the best scenes in the book/movie is when Mayella Ewell is questioned by Atticus, because she is a racist who is condemning an innocent man to be killed, but she is also a victim herself, of abuse, of poverty, of parental incest, and lives in a world where nobody treats her remotely decently.  But despite that all, she has a sick pride, a pride which demands the death of a black man.  THe great tragedy of the South, again the poorest part of the US, is that if the poor whites allied their interests with the oppressed minorities, they could actually solve everybody’s problems, the rich white elites who benefit from this system profit because poor whites will always value screwing over black people more than their own base self interest.  And the entire structure of the white rural southern community (but also outside the south) is based on keeping this dynamic in check, that the suffering and segregation of the African American community is necessary to keep the culture of gentility among the community strong.  

    There is a lot of other stuff in there as well, like how Atticus Finch is considered the greatest American hero because of how he embodies the ideal of the American conception of Law rather than its reality, about how the fact that it took twenty mins to convict Tom Robinson is actaully progress by the standards of the Depression Era south, or how the black community needs to take on a “Two face” mentality to survive in the South (where they act one way around white people and an entirely different way around black people and must always be aware if any white people are present around them), like seriously To Kill A Mockingbird is an excellent “Introduce to the dynamics of American Class and Racial relations 101).  Actually no, its Introduction to American Class, Racial, and Gender Relations, seriously intersectionality is a major theme of the book/movie.  Nothing happens in its own context.  

Also Trumen Capote is in it, we love Trumen Capote.  

Also if you want more, maybe check out the Crash Course review, which is really good (Though Attitcus isn’t a rich white dude, he is more of a lower middle class white dude)

or this video where John Greene talks about overlapping privilege.