We cast our Scout, our Atticus Finch, and the neighborhood recluse Boo Radley. But The Director-our white theater director-was determined to put this specific play on. I was in my sophomore year at Taft, an elite Connecticut boarding school, where students of color-as in everyone, Black, Latinx, Asian, Middle Eastern, Indigenous-made up 20-25 percent of the 450-ish person student body. Which was why I knew we were going to have a problem. But much like a Republican presidential candidate or any large city’s police union, To Kill A Mockingbird kind of falls apart without a Black man to scapegoat. In fact, in the original stage adaptation of the book, there are only two Black characters with major speaking roles: Calpurnia, the cook and de facto nanny of the story’s young protagonist Scout and Tom Robinson, the man falsely accused of raping a white woman and being defended by Atticus Finch. It’s not like there are that many Black people in To Kill a Mockingbird.
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