To Kill a Mocking Bird Racism
In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, you will read that through all the hard times and hardship family and friends will always stay together in the end. Discrimination is a commonly used subject in To Kill a Mockingbird. With the setting of To Kill a Mockingbird being in the early 1900’s racism was very common. The author used this information to his advantage because he was able to show how discrimination changed everyday interaction and life with other people. Everyday of our lives we come in contact with racism and discrimination against people with different colored skin..
In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, there are inevitable examples on how racism has been used in Maycomb County. Bob Ewell accuses Tom Robinson, a young black man, of raping Mayella Ewell, a young white girl. Of course everyone knows that Tom Robinson is going to lose in the trial only because the court always favors white clients against black clients because: “In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s word the white man always wins. They’re ugly, but those are the facts of life” (X) Atticus tells Jem. This shows the power of racism in Maycomb County.
The power is that just because a man is black means he loses in court no matter what. In the court is not the only time that racism occurs. When Atticus decided that he was going to defend Tom Robinson Francis, Atticus’s nephew, he calls him a “nigger-lover”. When Atticus asks him what he means he says, “Just what I said. Grandma says it’s bad enough he lets you run wild, but now he turned out to be a nigger lover. ” (X) This shows that even though Francis is in his family it doesn’t matter, if you’re racist you will be put down and stereotyped by anyone and everyone.
Even when Atticus is defending a man in court he will be called names because of the man he is defending. Even though Atticus is everything but racist, Jem, Atticus’s son, were being brainwashed by the towns thoughts and opinions. One day as Jem and Scout were talking behind the courthouse Jem says something to scout that was very racist, “Once you have a drop of Negro blood, that makes you all black. ” This shows that the thought of racism is not only seen in adults, but it is now flooding into the minds of children. In conclusion there are many forms of racism that were showed and used in Maycomb county within children and adults.
