This topic is related to the previous topic. Could you see any actions of the characters separate from their racism? In other words, were you able to see good in what some of the sheriffs had done even though other things they had done were so bad? If you had been a black person in a segregationalist sheriff’s jurisdiction, would you be able to say that he had cleaned up the county or that he had always treated you fairly (as some of the people in the book said), or would you just see him as the wrong person to be in law enforcement?
Even though I felt somewhat sympathetic toward the sheriffs, I still had trouble thinking that they could do anything in their jobs that would deserve praise, because their racism more than made up for all the good they did.
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They were victims of a time and place. I sympathize with them on that level. That their hearts stayed mean, when the social pressure had dissipated, is less easy to understand.
I'm very taken with the angry white teenager who was immortalized in the Little Rock photo. She realized just a few years later — as a still very young person — how misguided she had been and she apologized for her wrongdoing. She couldn't have lived with herself otherwise; I thought it was very telling that all of the men in that photo had no problem whatsoever living with their selves.
It's easy to see how some black people in the county were able to say the sheriff treated them fairly or that he was an OK sheriff, even if he was a mostly quiet racist, even if he was driving hundreds of miles across the state to help enforce institutional racism. They were happy with what they could get. If the sheriff didn't make common practice of unprovoked violence against blacks -- even though he could have -- then he seemed like an OK sheriff.
It's so disappointing that these guys had gained no greater understanding of race relations in the four decades since the photo. They seemed to have the same basic attitudes.
Yes, it is disappointing. I think following up with the sons and grandsons (even though the point may have been belabored) was a great strength of the book.
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