Examples Of Racism In To Kill A Mockingbird

Harper Lee wrote To Kill A Mockingbird during a time where racism was prevalent. The book highlights many different ways racism occurred. It also shows what growing up as a child, in this case specifically a young girl, is like in the south during the time of the great depression.

Some disagree with institutional racism being more hurtful and instead claim that individual racism put others at risk. When the trial ended, the jury found Tom guilty. The next morning when Jem, Scout, and Dill went outside, the neighbors were looking at them like they did something mischievous. After, they went to Miss Maudie’s house to eat cake and went back outside. The neighbors were still talking outside when Miss Stephanie mentions to Jem and Scout that this morning “Mr. Bob Ewell stopped Atticus on the post office corner, spat in his face, and told him he’d get him if it took the rest of his life” (Lee 290). In this part of the noel, individual racism is shown. This is individual racism for the reason that this is one person, Bob Ewell,

Racism is the belief that characteristics and abilities can be attributed to people simply based on their race and that some racial groups are superior to others. This has been a problem in our world forever. In to Kill a Mockingbird there are so many racist events and it reflects on the society as a whole till this day. The book setting was the 1930’s in a small county of Maycomb, where most people were racist and discriminatory. People think racism has died off, but it is still a huge problem. People choose to raise their children and teach them that racism is okay and that is how there is still racism today. There are so many statistics out there based on skin color that right there is even racist if everyone is equal why are there polls being taken separating people by the color of their skin?

In To Kill a Mockingbird, and in the world today there is racial and social inequality going on all around us. I am sure that there will never be true racial and social equality, but I think that it will get dramatically better. Just like it has gotten better since the 1930’s, which is the time that To Kill a Mockingbird is set in.

How different people in Maycomb view the issue of race affects how those people treat others.

The article Racial Segregation is making America Sick, published by The Atlantic magazine, discussed racial segregation in the Unites States of America and the many effects it has on the quality of life of civilians. The topic of the article related to one of the major themes in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird: Racism. Lee used racism as a major theme throughout the novel and as the main reason for the false accusation and persecution of one of the characters, Tom Robinson. This case heavily affected the Finch family and Tom Robinson's widow Helen. The man defending Tom Robinson, Atticus Finch, was affected by this case because it altered his reputation in the town and put his children's safety at risk. After agreeing to take on the case,

Huck and Scout find themselves in the center of two societies that are welcoming to racism. Huck’s world takes place during a time before slavery was illegal and looked down upon. Slaves were everywhere in his home of the south and was seen as a part of life. He was surrounded by adults who owned slaves, accepted slavery, and were racist. His own father had been a racist man who looked down on African Americans as worthless trash. Because of the adults in his life had treated and viewed them in this way, Huck thought this was how it is. He viewed slaves as property and not much more than this. However, when Huck met Jim after running away from his abusive father, he seemed to have not been fully influenced from the racist adults he spent his

“Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome.” – Rosa Parks

Racism is a terrible thing and in this book it shows how it can affect someone's life and even thoughts. For example Tom Robinson is accused for beating and raping a young white women named Mayella Ewell.

Imagine what it would be like to be black in the time of change in the United States. People are always thinking that you came to steal their jobs just because you need to make a living in order to live. Harper Lee used historical references to write her book. The Great Depression was a time of great change for Americans. People were moving places and finding jobs in order to live and make it through the time period. Times were hard for blacks because the whites were totally unwilling to let them join society. Riots, mobs and conflicts were happening all over because people could not help but get the fact that other people needed jobs besides themselves. They just could not take the change that was happening and that is when racism

In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird prejudice is interwoven throughout the entire novel. There is black/white prejudice, prejudice against individuals in the town and even inside the Finch family. To Kill a Mockingbird was set in the 1930’s in a small town in Alabama called Maycomb County. The community as a whole is very racist. The novel is seen through the eyes of a young girl, which enhances the themes of developing prejudice.

Inside the small town of Maycomb County in 1933-1935, being segregated with colored bathrooms and maids was normal, but a white man defending a black man on purpose was unheard of. Jack, Atticus’s brother, has just punished Scout for fighting her cousin Francis, but little did he know Francis called Atticus a “nigger- lover.” Not only is it hard for the kids to be discriminated against and having prejudice thrown at them through the case, it is also hard for Atticus to watch it happen: “’You know what’s going to happen as well as I do, Jack, and I hope and pray I can get Jem and Scout through it without bitterness, and most of all, without catching Macomb’s usual disease’” (Lee 100). Atticus talks about Maycomb’s usual disease being prejudice, and infers that hopefully the kids will be unique, but also have an equal mind on blacks and whites.

The slave mindset of white families and slave-owners continued after the abolishment of slavery in 1865 in the form of segregation which state and local governments enforced through the use of Jim Crow laws. The levels of racism in the 1930s versus the lower levels of racism in the present correspond with the decline of Jim Crow laws beginning in the mid-20th century, which affected the societal status of black people, their economic status, and their continued effect on today’s laws.

The scars and stains of racism are still deeply embedded in the American society (John Lewis www.BrainyQuotes.com). In the book To Kill a Mockingbird there are real life events that Harper Lee used. There are different ideas such as the Jim Crow laws, mob mentality, and the Scottsboro trials that Harper Lee uses to help her write her book.

Racism is a topic that was starting to be explored by authors and members of society in the 1960’s. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee published in 1960 became one of the most memorable books to address the topic of racism in the south. The book is written from the point of view of a young tomboy named Scout whose mother died when she was very young. One day at school a kid started calling Scout’s father names because he was defending an African American man named Tom Robinson in a criminal case. Tom Robinson was accused of raping Mayella, a white woman. The book describes the almost impossible task of getting a fair trial for Mr. Robinson because he was an African American. This topic also was written about in a recent article in the CNN Wire titled “Dick Gregory’s Devastating, and Funny Attack on Racism” by describing how an African American comedian from the late 1900’s would tell jokes in the white community that showed how unfairly African Americans were treated in public. Both the book and the article illustrate how people were treated because of skin color.