Unfiltered Story #293717

The recent roundup with a few stories about “To Kill a Mockingbird” reminded me of this one from when I was in school.

Like most high school kids, I had to read TKaM, but somehow we didn’t have a discussion about it. I HATED it. It was such a STUPID story. I mean, there was all this evidence that the guy didn’t do what he was accused of, and they still convicted him! There’s no way that would ever happen! It was such a fake story, and I hated it.

It wasn’t until my sister had to read it, and I heard her talking about part of her discussion, that I actually understood what was happening in the story, and that things like that actually did happen. (I did know about lynchings, discrimination, etc, but I couldn’t believe that a jury would convict even with clear evidence for innocence.)

It says something about how far we’ve come that I had no idea that such things had ever happened. But now that I know what I know, I think I want to go back and re-read it, to see if I like it any better now, and to see what else I missed.