Parents So Mad At New Racist Atticus Finch They've Renamed Their Baby 

By Hillary Crosley Coker  |  July 24, 2015 | 6:30pm
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Two Colorado parents are so mad that Harper Lee’s new book Go Set A Watchman revealed Atticus Finch, a person who is not real, as a racist protagonist they’ve renamed their real 14- month-old baby.

David and Christen Epstein told People that after realizing the To Kill A Mockingbird character was actually a guy who visited a Klu Klux Klan meeting and said “Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters? Do you want them in our world?” they were done with Lee and her cute old timey names.

“When the new book came out, we just felt like, this does not at all encompass the values that we want for our son to have and know,” Christen explains. “And we felt like our son was young enough that we could change his name.”

Now Atticus the baby is called Lucas or Luke, which is confusing the fuck out of his three-year-old older sister, Ayala who’s probably like ‘The kid’s name is Atticus, parents. What is going on around here? Adults are crazy.’

“We still slip up sometimes and call him Atticus and my daughter still slips up and people at his school still slip up,” she adds. “But I think he’s kind of slowly getting the new name just because we’re using it so much.”

Some of the Epstein’s friends and family agree with Ayala though. Who gets so mad at a fictitious character that they take these kinds of drastic measures in real life?

“Some people are so understanding and are like, ‘ I totally get why you would do that and we totally support you.’ Other people think it’s kind of odd and weird and they’re like, ‘I don’t think it’s necessary that you’re doing this,’ or ‘I don’t know how to respond to what you’re telling me.’“

LOL at “I don’t know how to respond.” What are childhood heroes, anyway?

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Image via Shutterstock.

 
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