Now that you mention it, yeah.

[firecat]

Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird was published 50 years ago yesterday. This blog post by macon d points out some of the ways that To Kill a Mockingbird is racist. A comment by sanguinity suggests a couple of alternatives.

http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2010/07/warmly-embrace-racist-novel-to-kill.html

The comments on that post, as of right now, are mostly thoughtful.

Comments

[sqbr]

Well, I'm not sure it's as important for Australian students to be made aware of how racist the US is, being smug at how racist you guys are is a common Australian trick for avoiding confronting our own racism :/ Though we did poke a little at the racism in some of Great Australian Books we read too.

[firecat]

If the way the book is taught is "Look at the racist USians, at least we aren't like that," then I agree an opportunity is missed. :/