Paternalists, even if they might try, do not hold true equality in their hearts, and as a result cannot truly defend equality. Herein, perhaps, lies the true purpose of Crespino's revisionism, to discourage whites from participating in the racial healing process out of fear of having their motives questioned and being branded a paternalistic elite. In this sense, Crespino's revisionist interpretation of Atticus Finch must be politically motivated, because it certainly is not based on the text. Harper Lee's enduring friendship with Truman Capote seems as relevant here as the race question. When my son taught conversational English in Krems, Austria, he discovered that his Austrian supervising teacher always assigned To Kill a Mockingbird as both a way for students to obtain insight into American race relations and as a way of dealing with rising anti-Semitism and nativism in Austria.
Similar reports come from British, Irish, and Australian friends.
I have a suggestion. A hero or heroine is a person flawed in some way like the paternalist Atticus Finch, who still has the moral capacity to understand right from wrong and the moral courage to act on such assumptions despite great personal risk. Martin Luther King, Jr. comes to mind. So does Virginia Durr. And a long list of paternalistic, courageous southern white ministers who gave up jobs and professions because of their moral convictions, something I suspect Mr. Crespino has not experienced on behalf of a cause in which he believes.