How Harper Lee made me who I am today
 

How Harper Lee made me who I am today
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When I was 11 years old, my father gave me a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. "Read this," he told me, "and then we're going to talk about it."

I instantly related to Scout. Like her, I didn't understand a lot of what the adults around her spoke about. She was **t much younger than I was. We both adored reading and both looked up to our lawyer fathers as men who knew everything

There followed a memorable conversation with my father about the book. In the car on the way to school, he asked what I thought the title meant — and discussed how comparing black characters like Tom Robinson to harmless mockingbirds was actually an example of racism, even if **t a malicious kind. This was, of course, years before Go Set a Watchman made Atticus' paternalistic racism clear and sparked hundreds of think pieces on the topic Read more...

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