As I’ve been writing about Roots, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Emmett Till, and Black History Month, I realized many of my younger readers will have never heard of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

It used to be required reading and I’ve summarized the book and it’s four lessons below. Due to cancellation fear, I’ve removed all references to race, which will be replaced with blank spaces.

Not long ago They (™) began demanding that “To Kill a Mockingbird” was offensive and must be banned. The story is about Atticus Finch, a single father, teaching his son and daughter 4 lessons. He’s a Southern lawyer, in the 1930s, from an aristocratic family who defends a        Man accused of r@ping a      woman. 

There are six reasons They (™) find this book problematic.

1. A        Man is the good guy, not a deplorable, racist monster.
2. He’s a single father.  They (™) worship single mothers.
3. They (™) like dividing people by race, gender, sex, ability, but not class.
4. It shows we’ve come a long way in the last 90 years on race. 
5. Use of the N-Word

There are 46 instances of low-class people, showing their ignorance, using the N-Word and two instances where Atticus teaches his daughter only vulgar, low class people use it.

Scout: Do you defend N-WORDS, Atticus? I asked him that evening?  

Atticus: Of course I do, Scout, don’t say N-WORD, that’s common. (vulgar, low class)

Scout: It’s what everyone at school says.

Atticus: From now on, it’ll be everyone less one.

Scout: Well, if you don’t want me talking that way, why do you send me to school?

This really goes against the current narrative that for hundreds of years every, single,       American walked around with a Bullwhip, calling every,     American, the N-Word, constantly.

6. Perhaps they’ll find it considered vulgar and low class to use it like it is today.

7. This comes directly from Lesson #4 in the book.

#4 “They learn that people will convict a      Man accused of harming a      woman regardless of his defense.”

Part 1

Scout Finch is about to turn six, over the course of two years, she learns some important lessons in a small town. Scout’s father Atticus is a poor lawyer because his clients are poor. They live with her brother Jem cook Calpurnia. Her mother is dead and her friend Dill comes to stay next door over summers.

Scout, Jem and Dill learn four major lessons partly from Atticus partly from her own experience.

1.  You don’t understand someone until you put yourself in their shoes.

She’s not very good at this in the first part of the book. 

The Crabby-Ass Radley’s live across the street. No one has seen Boo Radley in 30 years. The kids assume he’s an ugly monster who eats rats and tortures children. In fact, he had been a troubled teen and his father kept him locked in the house.

Father Radley is dead now and Boo lives with his brother as a recluse.

The kids play games messing with the Radley house, they run past it, they dare each other to touch it. One day they start finding presents like gum and pennies hidden in a hole the tree out front. Boo Radley is leaving gifts for them. They don’t pick up on that.

The kids try to get Boo Radley to come out of the house so they can see him. One night they try to spy on him.

Boo’s older brother shoots at them and they run like Hell, Jim gets his pants caught on the fence.

Boo Radley fixes them and leaves them out for Jem. One night it’s cold and Scout and Jem are standing outside because a neighbor’s house is on fire. Boo Radley puts a blanket around Scout. She never realizes it – she still imagines Boo is a monster.  

She freaks out when she realizes he was behind her. Boo does quite a bit for them before they realize he’s a nice person who just wants to be left alone.

The next lesson they get is:

2. Don’t kill mockingbirds 

They don’t hurt anyone or eat crops.

All they do is make music.

Atticus gives the kids air rifles so they can shoot whatever they want, but not mocking birds.

Mockingbird here has a metaphorical meaning: anyone weak or defenseless. 

To Kill a metaphorical Mockingbird is to take advantage of someone weaker than you. 

Part 2

Tom Robinson Tom is a      Man who has been arrested and charged with raping a      woman named Mayella Ewell.  Atticus has been appointed as his defense attorney, even though he knows he’s going to lose because: Denialistaphobia. 

Everybody in the town is Denialistaphobic. 

Scout and Jem get messed with because Atticus is defending a      Man for a crime. Atticus doesn’t want them to fight the other kids, but chill in the face of adversity. He wants to teach them:

3. True bravery is when you keep fighting and persevering even when you know you can’t win 

One evening Tom Robinson is being moved to the County Jail before his trial. Atticus sits outside the jail house and a group of men comes to Lynch Tom.  Atticus blocks their way.  The kids show up and Scout starts talking to one of the men. Because she goes to school with the Man’s son, the Man tells the rest of the mob to disperse. 

They all go home.

The kids sit in the courthouse and watch the trial along with the rest of the town. Atticus does a great job. The children think he’s going to win.  The “victim” and her father, Bob Ewell, are both obnoxious and not credible. 

Also, the physical evidence is against them. Maya’s bruises are on the right side of her face and Tom’s left arm doesn’t work.  Bob Ewell, the dad, is left-handed. He could have beaten his own daughter. 

Tom testifies that Mayella was flirting with him, and Bob Ewell caught her and beat her up. She accused Tom of rape.

Despite Atticus’s brilliant defense, the jury convicted Tom because a       jury is not going to acquit a     Man accused of raping a      woman.

The children are crushed by Tom’s conviction. Atticus knew all along they would be. They learn about the evil side of their community, and the fact that even the justice system is tainted by unfairness. 

4. They learn that people will convict a      Man accused of harming a      woman regardless of defense.

Bob Ewell carries a grudge against Atticus for accusing him in court, and he threatens to get revenge. Halloween night, the kids are coming home from a pageant and Ewell attacks them with a switchblade. Ewell breaks Jem’s arm by twisting it. 

Boo Radley comes out to protect the kids. Boo kills Bob Ewell with a kitchen knife. The kids don’t really understand what happened.

The sheriff and Atticus discuss what to do. Atticus wants to say that Jem killed him in self-defense so he can clear his name publicly.  There won’t be any rumors they covered it up. 

The sheriff says no way. Jem couldn’t possibly have done it, the sheriff insists that their story will be that Bob Ewell tripped on a root and fell on his own knife.  The sheriff sticks to this story because he knows Boo must have killed Ewell. 

Even though he doesn’t think this is a crime he believes the town would treat him like a hero. They’d leave cakes on his porch and this amount of public attention would be devastating to a recluse like Boo. 

Since Boo saved the kid’s lives, the best reward is to let him keep his privacy. Atticus is afraid to do this because his children have just lived through this miscarriage of justice in the trial. 

If they see Atticus bending the law with the sheriff, he fears they won’t ever respect it or him again.  Scout tells Atticus that she understands making a hero out of Boo would be like killing a mockingbird.

Scout has absorbed the lesson about mockingbirds.

Despite having seen the unfairness of life she sees its value. Boo is actually very childlike and there’s a scene where he asks Scout to walk him across the street back to his own house because he’s afraid.

She does and looks out from the Radley porch and imagines how she’s acted over the past couple of years through Boo’s eyes.  

This is when she finally grasps the first lesson about understanding people by putting yourself in their shoes.