HuffPoster: Atticus Finch A Feminized Male 'Not In Any Traditional Sense Manly'

Newsbusters ^ | 11 July 2010 | Noel Sheppard

[GOP_Raider]

Did you ever consider the lead character in Harper Lee's fabulous "To Kill A Mockingbird" to be a feminized male not in any traditional sense manly?

Atticus Finch, one of the greatest male figures in modern American literature?

Well, that's what Jesse Kornbluth wrote at Huffington Post on the 50th anniversary of this fabulous book being published.

For those that are fans of this novel like so many Americans, the following quotes from this astonishingly silly piece are guaranteed to offend:

"To Kill a Mockingbird" is a woman's book.

Written by a woman, Harper Lee, but more, written by a woman who dared to see herself as her region's Jane Austen. Told by a six-year-old girl. With a hero who's not, in any traditional sense, manly.

[mockingbyrd]

So no black men were ever unjustly accused of rape? Innocent men are not convicted inspite of evidence that should exonorate them?

You seem primarily focused on the race aspect of the book, but that’s not what it is about. It is the story of a child coming of age, and her maturing relationship with her father. Most adults have, at least once in their life, the opprotunity to do what is right, despite popular opinion or peer pressure. The trial was just one example in the book of this.

Who cares about the race of most rapists? Does it make the crime less horrific? My white sister was raped by a white man. I don’t think any of her scars would be greater or lesser if it had been a black man. I don’t understand your focus. But then again, I don’t focus on race. Black people don’t commit crimes, white people don’t commit crimes. Evil people do.

[x]

Not macho or aggressive, but surely manly in a traditional way.

BTW, If this is the worst case of media bias during the week, it was a very good week ...

... or a very slow and uneventful one.

[ckilmer]

So no black men were ever unjustly accused of rape?

False

Innocent men are not convicted inspite of evidence that should exonorate them?

This sentence is gibberish. You've got a double negative when you only needed a single negative. Try again.

And be sure to add 17 paragraphs of squid. That will give you practice for a job at the IRS.

[ckilmer]

Please explain the point you are attempting to make with your reference to “The Heart of Darkness”? Because to me it seems further absurd and illogical and immoral guilt by (racial) association.

Both the heart of darkness and to Kill a Mockingbird manipulate racial stereotypes in absurd ways to make a point. The problem is that -- because they manipulate racial stereotypes in absurd ways -- they are at bottom absurd stories. In law the rule is that bad cases make bad law.

You can make the literary argument that they're very absurdity makes them great works of fiction. Perhaps. That can be debated. But if for an instant you confuse either with reality -- you're in deep kimchee.

[Let's Roll]

Thanks for the pic but still going to say this:

I guess the poster means Atticus was feminized except for the scene where he shot the rabid dog instead of filing a report with PETA?

[allmendream]

It is absurd to think that a black man might be falsely accused of rape because, statistically, most interracial rapes are black on white?

That is the “logic” you are going with?

A black man being innocent of a rape he was accused of is a manipulation of racial stereotypes in an absurd way?

I suppose if the fictional black man was guilty of the fictional rape it would be less absurd in your world view.

It seems that guilt by racial association is the only “logic” behind what you find absurd. I find your illogical assumptions to be absurd.

So the great absurdity you want to warn people against is that a black man might actually be innocent of a crime he was accused of? Or is it that if a white woman doesn't instantly assume that any black man is a likely rapist of white women, she will be in “deep kimchee”?

[mockingbyrd]

I like how you failed to address any points that I made. You simply resort to ridicule. True, I had typos, that’s what typing while holding a sleeping baby does.

And that sentences makes sense to me. But I don’t have an ax to grind.

[ckilmer]

Who cares about the race of most rapists? Does it make the crime less horrific? My white sister was raped by a white man. I don’t think any of her scars would be greater or lesser if it had been a black man.

....
I’m sorry to hear about your sister. The crime is no less horrific whether done by black or white. What the crime does do is teach your sister —and likely you — which race more to distrust.

To Kill A Mockingbird does the same thing. The movie teaches you which race more to distrust in matters of rape and murder and justice.

Yet To Kill A Mockingbird is no less a propaganda movie For the 1960’s than the Birth of A Nation was a propaganda movie to the generation of the 1915’s.

[ckilmer]

Who cares about the race of most rapists? Does it make the crime less horrific? My white sister was raped by a white man. I don’t think any of her scars would be greater or lesser if it had been a black man.

....
I’m sorry to hear about your sister. The crime is no less horrific whether done by black or white. What the crime does do is teach your sister —and likely you — which race more to distrust.

To Kill A Mockingbird does the same thing. The movie teaches you which race more to distrust in matters of rape and murder and justice.

Yet To Kill A Mockingbird is no less a propaganda movie For the 1960’s than the Birth of A Nation was a propaganda movie to the generation of the 1915’s.

[ckilmer]

So the great absurdity you want to warn people against is that a black man might actually be innocent of a crime he was accused of? Or is it that if a white woman doesn't instantly assume that any black man is a likely rapist of white women, she will be in “deep kimchee”?

.............

Let's try this another way.

While its true that there is much more black on white murder and rape than the other way around--you're right of course to say that its politically incorrect to say that there is much more black on white rape, murder, than the other way around.

So let's try this from another political/racial angle so as to properly focus your eyes. Before you look at the mug shots--ask yourself what groups you most expect to see--and who do you expect to see least.

Here is a mug shot of Washington DC most wanted

Here's a mug shot of Chicago most wanted

Here's mug shots of FBI San Francisco most wanted

Here's a list of mug shots for Atlanta's most wanted.

Here's a list of mug shots for Kansas City most wanted

According to this study about 25% of inmates in federal prisons are illegals.

If you do a Google search of illegal alien murders --you'll find that more Americans have been killed by illegal aliens than have been killed in the middle east wars.

What the stories don't tell you is that most Americans killed by the illegals are American blacks. You would think that would be intuitively true without looking at evidence because black and Hispanic gangs are going to be in major league turf wars in American cities over the drug trade. But out west it goes deeper than that. There is a section of the Mexican population out west that think of blacks as varmints and its their duty to ethnically cleanse their neighborhoods of them. Here's a search in Google of hispanics killing blacks -- which produced this LA Times article on the subject. You can hear the author of the article trying to get his civil rights mind around the matter and failing. It just doesn't compute.

In the mean time do you think blacks in LA are growing leery of neighborhoods with high Hispanic populations? And would you think LA county blacks would naturally scoff at a movie that pictured blacks as unjust racists and Mexicans as misunderstood good guys.

[allmendream]

It is not another way, it is the same way; racial guilt by association and the idea that because of crime statistics, the fictional depiction of an INNOCENT and falsely accused black man is “absurd”.

The DNA freedom project has freed many a falsely accused man, many of them black, of the crime of rape or murder. How absurd is that?

If we want to get realistic about the crime of rape, your average white woman has much less to fear statistically from “stranger danger” and the minority living down the street than from her white friends and acquaintances.

To use your construction; if she ignores the danger from her friends and acquaintances and focuses on the much less likely stranger danger rape by minority - she will be in “deep kimchee”.

[ckilmer]

If we want to get realistic about the crime of rape, your average white woman has much less to fear statistically from “stranger danger” and the minority living down the street than from her white friends and acquaintances.
................
This sounds true. If a white woman hangs in a white neighborhood with white people her chances of being raped by blacks likely declines.

Same would seem to go for a black woman who hangs in a black neighborhood. Her chances of being raped by anyone but another black are slim.

Yet the stats show that overwhelmingly rape is done by blacks on white everywhere and not the other way around.

So its likely in the boundary areas that this nasty stuff happens.

[ckilmer]

If we want to get realistic about the crime of rape, your average white woman has much less to fear statistically from “stranger danger” and the minority living down the street than from her white friends and acquaintances.
................
This sounds true. If a white woman hangs in a white neighborhood with white people her chances of being raped by blacks likely declines.

Same would seem to go for a black woman who hangs in a black neighborhood. Her chances of being raped by anyone but another black are slim.

Yet the stats show that overwhelmingly rape is done by blacks on white everywhere and not the other way around.

So its likely in the boundary areas that this nasty stuff happens.

[allmendream]

“Yet the stats show that overwhelmingly rape is done by blacks on white everywhere and not the other way around.”

No, the stats show that overwhelmingly rape is done by blacks on blacks and by whites on whites and not inter-racially.

No amount of racial crime statistics is going to make the idea of a falsely accused black man “absurd”.

The reality, as shown by actual DNA evidence untainted by witness recollections misidentifications or whatnot - is that many many people (some of them black men) have been falsely accused.

How absurd is it that a black man identified by a white woman as her rapist might be misidentified? Well, given that cross racial lineup identifications are notoriously inaccurate, and the fact that there are ACTUAL CASES OF THIS HAPPENING (as seen by DNA evidence), I would say that this is an actual event that has happened and might well happen again.

Now in TKaMB, the fictional “victim” was lying and the sex was (until they were caught by her father) consensual.

Do you think it “absurd” that a woman might falsely accuse a man of rape? Or is every man accused by a woman of rape guilty? Or only if they are of a racial group that statistically commits crime disproportionately?

[ckilmer]

“Yet the stats show that overwhelmingly rape is done by blacks on white everywhere and not the other way around.”

No, the stats show that overwhelmingly rape is done by blacks on blacks and by whites on whites and not inter-racially.
............
Yes yes. So lets try that again. Whites mostly rape whites. Blacks mostly blacks. However, in the subcategory of interracial rapes — the incidents of blacks raping whites are much more frequent than whites raping blacks.

[ckilmer]

Oh and btw there is another category of prison rapes that ain’t no laughing matter either. Its pretty large but I havn’t seen the break out on it.

[allmendream]

Most women are afraid of rape, I don't think many sub-compartmentalize it into either same race rape or different race rape and think one is inherently worse than the other.

As such, the threat of rape facing most women will be from friends and acquaintances of the same race.

The fictional depiction of a black man falsely accused of rape is not absurd because of crime statistics; there have been false accusations of rape in the past, and there will be false accusations of rape in the future. Not everyone who is accused is guilty, and an innocent man being accused is the stuff of drama; lo and behold - the intent of any dramatic fiction! Conflict! Drama! A man falsely accused! A society fixated condemning any defense of the man! A valiant defender who is reviled for seeking the truth!

Yeah, how absurd! Could never happen! Any black man accused of raping a white woman is guilty and it is absurd to think he might be innocent!/s

[ckilmer]

Yeah, how absurd! Could never happen! Any black man accused of raping a white woman is guilty and it is absurd to think he might be innocent!/s
.............
Of course you can play games with it for dramatic effect. Still folk wisdom is based on truth. Women forewarned are armed. Same goes with guys going to prison.

[allmendream]

Your so called folk wisdom is neither folksy nor wise. The actual threat of rape most women face will be from friends or acquaintances, or even STRANGERS of the SAME race, not from a stranger of a different race.

You remind me of phrenologists, arguing either that that their client could not have possibly committed the crime, or that the defendant couldn't possibly be innocent; not based upon the actual evidence, but upon the shape of their skull.

“Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, you can clearly see from the defendants skull that he is of the ‘criminal type’ and if not guilty of this crime is most certainly guilty of others far more egregious and is by heredity incapable of being anything other than a criminal.”

[ckilmer]

Your so called folk wisdom is neither folksy nor wise. The actual threat of rape most women face will be from friends or acquaintances, or even STRANGERS of the SAME race, not from a stranger of a different race.
...........
Once again this is true as long as women only hang with friends acquaintances and strangers of same race.

However, this dynamic changes when women start to mix it up with people other races. This is especially true for white women mixing it up with black men. But not so much true for black women mixing it up with white men.

I don’t know why this dogs you out.

Put another way black women in an oriental neighborhood face less risk than an oriental woman in a black neighborhood. Heck, a significant number of black women would just beat up the little chinese guys if they tried to hit on them.

There’s some neighborhoods you don’t want to go into. Sadly too many white women never get the memo in time. Perhaps they watched to Kill A Mockingbird and so had on ideological blinders.