Flannery O'Connor...

A recent article in "the New Yorker". Sigh. This is one of those times I wish I didn't know something about someone. That letter she wrote -- mentioning Baldwin -- just before her death is one of the ugliest things I've read in such a polite voice.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/22/how-racist-was-flannery-oconnor

Thanks for posting the link. I've read O'Conner for a few years (had to read her in college as well). It seems that she could have been role playing in that letter. I'm not sure, however. If not then she was a fairly young women still influenced by her culture, which can be one of the most difficult things to overcome. She died at 39 but it would be interesting to see what her beliefs would have been at age 49, 59, etc.

I recently bought the LOA version of her selected works and they can be shocking. She used racist terms but I noticed she used them to skewer the religious self righteousness to a greater extent. I think she wanted us to see the southern Christian hypocrisy concerning religion. It seemed to bother her that some people thought "great heavenly rewards for me but not for thee" simply based on skin color. She burst that bubble quite effectively (and humorously).