Posted on 07/28/2015 6:46:26 PM PDT by SJackson
Thhe publication of Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman,” the novel set decades after the era of her classic book “To Kill a Mockingbird,” has sparked a heated debate — and much heartache — over Atticus Finch.
“Watchman” follows Finch 20 years beyond “Mockingbird” into the 1950s civil rights era. It exposes him to be a racist segregationist rather than the hero whose supposed staunch commitment to racial justice inspired many white liberals. The southern white liberalism he seemed to represent rings hollow in light of this new story, which shows that he never intended to undermine the white supremacy undergirding his society.
But “Watchman” shouldn’t just prompt us to reconsider Finch — it should make us rethink all of white liberalism in the mid-1900s. I’d argue that we’ve given too much credit to supposedly benevolent white liberals “doing the right thing” on civil rights in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, when in reality many were just like Finch, only selectively supporting these rights.
What’s more, although many white liberals today think that a good, selfless, supportive white public answered the call to racial justice, at least some of this white liberalism actually originated among pragmatically motivated Jews passing as white to promote their own rights alongside those of others. A disproportionate number of “white” leaders in mid-century civil rights movements were in fact Jewish.
Popular interpretations of the era’s civil rights movements obscure Jews’ role and thus the pragmatic aspect of “white” civil rights support. Discussions of Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, two of the three civil rights workers slain by Ku Klux Klansmen in Mississippi in June 1964 (along with James Cheney, who was black), often characterize them as white rather than Jewish. The movie “Selma” portrayed white activists alongside King in his voting rights march to Selma, but not Jews like Rabbi Heschel and others . By omitting mention of Jewish participation, the movie and other popular representations of the civil rights movement inadvertently help facilitate the dominant narrative of benevolent liberal white support.
Why don’t we know about Jews’ disproportionately significant role?
It’s partly because in contemporary society Jews seem part of the white mainstream, so Americans today don’t see a distinction between Jews and other whites in earlier periods, when Jews faced significant discrimination. By reading today’s racial structure — Jews are white and communities of color are minorities — back on the past, we miss the subtle distinctions of this earlier period when white Jews faced discrimination and joined collaborative civil rights campaigns partly due to their own vulnerability. We’ve also overlooked this history because Jews, an increasingly accepted, “invisible” minority group seeking integration and security in the mid-20th century, sometimes camouflaged their activism. Los Angeles Jews , for example, supported the Los Angeles County Conference for Community Relations’ civil rights initiatives, even helping create it as a “front” for their own efforts to fight anti-Semitism and racism. They feared that Jewish visibility at the forefront of such initiatives would undercut them. Community officials argued they could “lessen potential friction for Jews by having other [non-Jewish] agencies intervene whenever possible.”
Jews’ attempts to influence racial equality struggles also included providing significant behind-the-scenes funding for the Community Service Organization, a Mexican American civil rights organization, and frequently consulting with organizations like the NAACP and the Japanese American Citizens League.
Such “passing” on the part of Jewish Americans, who hid their involvement in civil rights initiatives for fear of anti-Semites undermining their effectiveness, adds a different twist to recent discussions of Rachel Dolezal and Andrea Smith. These white women who passed as black and Cherokee, respectively, have been criticized for concealing their whiteness as they sought greater equality for the communities they claimed to represent.
The mid-century Jewish Americans who hid their civil rights involvement did the opposite, using the cover of whiteness to advance equality for themselves and others. And their legacy has often been hidden behind the façade of whiteness, leaving us to believe that “white liberals” were more benevolent than was the case.
Of course, a strong commitment to the ideals of justice did motivate some Jews, and other white liberals, including white Catholics, Protestants, and non-religious affiliates. Plus, plenty of Jewish Americans didn’t fight for civil rights — significant numbers, especially in the South , even opposed them. But in general, Jewish Americans were prominent among the white civil rights supporters.
Just as “Watchman” undermines white liberals’ interpretation of Atticus Finch as a white savior hero figure, recognizing Jewish Americans’ role helps us rethink the white hero figures of the civil rights movement. Pragmatic, self-interested participants were often behind the white allied faces. What does this mean today? It means that white liberals can’t rest on their laurels assuming that white benevolent heroes of the past fully supported civil rights — at least, not without their own agendas. It also means that they need to be aware of their own motivations and rethink how to be true allies in today’s efforts to achieve racial justice.
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I had a professor at Troy who I think was kin to Harper Lee. I know he was from Monroeville.
I have also read rumors that Harper Lee actually wrote or co-wrote “In Cold Blood”. On the other hand that Truman Capote wrote, “To Kill A Mockingbird”.
Atticus Finch was a fictional character, who had fictional morals, and did fictional things in a fictional town in a book of fiction.
If I read an unpublished work of Ayn Rand that said that John Galt was a secret socialist, do you think I would go into paroxysms of angst over it?
I think not.
Its been funny to see some of the liberal angst about Atticus not being liberal in this newest book.
I can easily see a lawyer such as Atticus having defended Tom Robinson due to his wanting to see justice done, while at the same time, feeling that Negroes, as they were then called, should be second class citizens.
All you have to realize is that Harper Lee was a liberal then, and a liberal now, and is at pains to demonstrate that she has kept up with the crowd. Most liberals are not so visibly tied to the millstone of their past expressions.
There is a lot more to the complete story of white Jewish Americans in the Civil Rights movements. Honest Jews are often written out of the leftist histories of the CRM, such as in the Scottsboro Brothers trial, and other legal issues.
Many communists used their Jewish ethnic heritage as a cover for their Party operations of infiltration the CRM, putting their own people, both white and black, in as heads of CPUSA front organizations, and of getting “face time” in the news media (who usually didn’t know the backgrounds of those individuals they were reporting on).
The Schwerners, whose son was murdered by the Klan, had a direct connection to several Communist Party USA fronts, including NECLC, a front that had direct ties to the KGB.
Both Schwerner and Goodman belongs to leftist civil rights groups that the CPUSA tried to take over. Whether the kids were communists or not, I don’t know. I think they had good hearts but were guided by evil people.
Rabbi Heschel was a good man but a little naïve on some issues. However, his presence with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on various marches was a genuine show of support for black civil rights.
The whole story has not yet been told but the Left definitely has flooded the book market with their versions of history, while covering up Communist infiltration and subversion of the Civil Rights Movement, esp. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Prof. David Garrow’s works on MLK (and the FBI) are informative but far from complete. He left out key people and organizations but I don’t know whether it was design, ignorance, or incompetence.
I would love to see his works expanded to fill in these major gaps. Then you would have something much more serious to read.
I refuse to read this article
Uh, aren't most Jews white?
Of course Atticus Finch was not PC; he attacked a rape survivor’s credibility and insisted that no rape had occurred. (A shameful abuse of the justice system, no doubt...)
Moreover, such an injustice could not be repeated today, because society would rush to the defense of anyone falsely accused of rape because of their race. (Just look at the Duke case, for example.)
And, the modern unbiased media would tear apart any false accusation of rape in two minutes flat... (/s)
When Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe (so the story goes), he referred to her as the woman who started this war. That her book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was fiction made no difference.
Negroes, Jews and “civil rights”, who can forget the early work of Lev Bronstein (Leon Trotsky). Fresh from the Bolshevik revolution Leon was writing to Claude McKay, who just returned from the Kremlin. The goal: use the negro as a weapon to overthrow America.
“Negroes, the very vanguard of the proletarian revolution”
“The American Negros, for centuries the most oppressed section of American society and the most discriminated against, are potentially the most revolutionary element of the population. They are designated by their whole historical past to be, under adequate leadership, the very vanguard of the
proletarian revolution.
The SWP therefore, while recognizing the limitations and pitfalls of a mass organization without clearly
defined political program, and while retaining its full liberty of action and criticism , welcomes and supports any attempt by Negroes themselves to organize for militant action against our common oppressors, instructs its Negro members to work actively towards the formation of such an organization, and recommends to the party members to follow closely all such manifestations of Negro militancy.”
Source: Marxist org
If you read the rest of the article, the author's point in that, in the 1950s and 60s, Jews were seen by white Protestants as "minorities," not "whites," and were supporting the civil rights movement as a pragmatic way to protect their own rights. There is something to what she is saying, but I think she overstates it.
Harper Lee did extensive research for her friend Truman Capote. He did not credit her. In a recent PBS special, “Hey, Boo,” nobody associated with Harper Lee believed Truman Capote wrote any part of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Dig up Gregory Peck”s grave for goodness sake.\s
Sammy Davis was exactly why I said “most”.
Libs don’t play in reality’s ballpark. For two weeks I’ve been astonished at their stupidity over “Atticus Finch.”
(Is this author trying to say that Jews aren’t white?)
I also don’t agree with the author’s premise that Jewish presence in the civil rights history is an unknown story. Living in NYC, I’ve heard it for decades - oy, have I heard it - you’d think NY Jews were the only ones involved.
Lee DID help with "In Cold Blood" but as a researcher. She traveled with Capote to Holcomb Kansas and helped conduct interviews with the townsfolk who knew the principle characters in the story.
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