Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” has long been one of my favorite books. I’ve read the book several times; watched Gregory Peck’s Oscar-winning performance as Atticus Finch; and sat mesmerized by stage productions of this great book. I was excited to see Aaron Sorkin’s stage adaptation this past weekend at Denver’s Temple Hoyne Buell Theatre.
Then the video of Tyre Nichol’s brutal beating, which resulted in his death was released. Another video of an unarmed Black man killed by the police for no other reason than having the effrontery of being born Black in America.
While the rest of the audience sat silently as Scout, Jem, and Dill beautifully narrated the opening courtroom scene, I stewed in my own anger because I knew this work of fiction set in 1930 was all too real for far too many Black men in 2023.
Harper Lee’s fictional Black man, Tom Robinson, is not too different from Tyre Nichols, Walter Scott, Tamir Rice, George Floyd, and Eric Garner — all Black men who lost their lives due to the arbitrariness and capriciousness of America’s criminal justice system in the guise of maintaining law and order. A system that presumes the guilt of Black men. A system that over-incarcerates Black men and women.
A 2018 report by the Vera Institute of Justice provides some devastating statistics about race in America’s criminal justice system. While Black men are 13% of the U.S. population, we represent 35% of all those incarcerated. More distributing is that 1 in three Black men can expect to be incarcerated in their lifetime. This is compared to 1 in six Latino men and 1 in 17 white men. The numbers aren’t better for Black women: 1 in 18 Black women face a strong possibility of incarceration in their lifetimes whereas only 1 in 118 white women face that same possibility.
In “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the prosecution’s case is premised on racial animus and stereotypes about the criminality of Black men. At one point during Tom Robinson’s “trial,” the prosecutor, Horace Gilmer, says out loud what the all-white jury and those seated in the whites-only gallery was thinking. While cross-examining Tom Robison, he accuses the handicapped Tom of having superhuman strength and calls him a “big buck.” He confirmed for the jury and all those in the gallery that Tom Robinson was the stereotypical evil, cruel, and inhuman Black man.
The hypermasculinization of Black men and boys is not a new phenomenon in America. This is true even in fictionalized America. Harper Lee’s Mayella Ewell and her father, Bob, knew the enduring truth of this when they accused Tom Robinson of rape. They knew full well no one, not one soul would doubt their story because Tom Robinson was presumed to be an angry, strong, big brute of a Black man. His guilt was preordained because he was the stereotypical Black man unable to control his sexual desires. Emmett Till, Alabama’s Scottsboro Boys, Florida’s Groveland Four, New York’s Central Park Five, and Colorado’s own Clarence Moses-El, sadly, all bear witness to and shared Tom Robinson’s fate.
Tyre Nichol’s murder, at the hands of police officers, did not occur in a vacuum. A 2004 article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that when assessing potential crime suspects based on race-neutral information, police relied on certain stereotypes about the physical features of Black men to infer criminal behavior.
After fatally beating Tyre Nichols, the officers stood over his limp body saying among themselves “he’s on something” and that “he must have been high as a kite.” Similar words were used by fellow officers to justify then-officer Betty Shelby’s 2016 shooting death of Terence Crutcher. A police helicopter pilot flying over the scene said Terence Crutcher looked like a “bad dude.” Stereotypes about the physical attributes of Black men are often used to justify our inhumane treatment at the hands of police.
Saturday afternoon I left the theatre feeling deeply unsettled by Sorkin’s adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird” because it seemed out of step, having just witnessed the brutality of Tyre Nichols’ death.
Sorkin introduced some lightheartedness to Harper Lee’s Maycomb, Alabama because it allowed his mostly white audience to remain comfortable in their privilege while witnessing the legally sanctioned lynching of Tom Robinson, who was as innocent as a mockingbird.
Fictional or not, Tom Robison is Tyre Nichols and Tyre Nichols is all of us who leave our homes and jobs daily not knowing if our next encounter with a police officer will be our last.
Terrance Carroll is a former speaker of the Colorado House. The first and only African American to ever hold that position in Colorado. He is a Baptist preacher, attorney, and former police officer. He is on Twitter @speakercarroll.
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