As a chronicle of our country’s racism, To Kill a Mockingbird is quaint, ill-equipped to deflect turds flung by an evolved state of bigotry. The teenagers of today, in my experience, chortle (and bristle) at racist memes on Instagram, explore trollish sectors of Reddit, and absorb frequent police shootings of unarmed black men. In the 2012 documentary Hey Boo, Oprah Winfrey calls it “our national novel.” Written by a white woman, To Kill a Mockingbird was published at the dawn of a civil rights movement distant to high school students accustomed to dutiful but shallow observations of Black History Month. In ninth-grade English classes around the country, To Kill a Mockingbird is supposed to deliver a reckoning with American racism.
We’re tasked with teaching a book that doesn’t live up to its longstanding responsibility. Most of us have to teach the novel every year, and our irreverence springs from discomfort. Just, you know, take a walk in her shoes, dude, I might sneer, interrupting a teacher’s account of an encounter with a difficult student’s unpleasant parent. A literary roast punctuated by sarcastic regurgitations of Atticus Finch’s sanctimonious advice. My English department colleagues and I can spend a whole lunch break making fun of To Kill a Mockingbird.