Malcolm Gladwell On Atticus Finch

Writing in the New Yorker, Gladwell argues that Atticus Finch, the fictional lawyer in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, was "a good Jim Crow liberal" who "dare[d] not challenge the foundations" of the white male jurors sitting in jugdment of his client, Tom Robinson. An interesting passage in Gladwell's piece: "But in cases where the status quo involves systemc injustice this [efforts at changing hearts] is no more than a temporary strategy. Eventually, such injustice requires more than a change of heart."