It makes cardboard villains of white hills people (redneck white trash).....
Agreed. A point of view which many persons simply have not read. Harper Lee, the author, certainly had in mind the existing left wing views of that era. Her portrayal of one of unpleasant whites in the book, hinted at incest amongst his kind. No one - not even the haters of southern poor white people could have hit any harder.
This against her own culture.
This against her own culture.
Yes -- and no. That didn't reflect "the existing left wing views of that era." Rather, it was the attitude of well-off Southern Whites to the PWT of the era. And they didn't think of class-based condescension as an attack on their own culture.
Left-wing attitudes were more complicated back. Of course there were all those images of violence in the South on the news, and of course liberals and radicals were on the side of integration, but lefties were singing all kinds of folk songs about working people, so their views were more nuanced back then.