Killing Mockingbirds

A High School in Edinburgh, Scotland has decided to stop teaching the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, in an attempt to “decolonize the curriculum” after teachers complained that the novel promoted the “white savior” narrative. This effort to remove To Kill a Mockingbird from curriculums is not exclusive to Scotland. School boards across the United States have been removing this book from their curriculums for the past few years.

This effort not only reveals these teachers’ ignorance of the subject matter that they were teaching, but also exposes their own racial prejudices. Instead of judging the morals and lessons Atticus Finch teaches his children based on their own merits, these people judge the merits of what he taught based on the color of his skin.