to kill a mockingbird

Lorem Ipsum Dolor Issue #, Date

Racism

In To Kill A M

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Tom Robinson This section discusses the way that prejudice is shown toward Tom and other characters in the novel.

Scottsboro Boys This discusses the Scottsboro trial as well as the prejudices going on in the deep South during the 1930s.

Our World Today This final section provides information about how prejudices are still around today, and how they are alike or different to 1930.

The Trial of Tom Robinson in TO Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

How is Tom being prejudiced against? Are there other characters that are also prejudiced against in the novel?

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Tom Robinson is probably the most obvious character that is being prejudiced against. He is wrongfully committed of rape when Mayella Ewell kisses him. When her father sees it Mr. Ewell gets very angry and accuses Tom of raping his daughter and she just goes along with it because there is a view that black men aren’t real people. "She was white, and she tempted a Negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable: she kissed a black man. Not an old Uncle, but a strong young Negro man. No code

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mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards." (20.44-‐45) This quote by Atticus very accurately sums up what is going on in the minds of most of the jury. They see that the worst thing that could possibly happen in the South is that a black man procreates with a white woman.

While racism is probably one of the easiest forms of prejudice to find in the novel, there is also a lot of prejudice toward Boo Radley in the novel as well. It

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isn’t until he saves Scout the she and Jem actually see him as the person that he is. Lee uses him as a way to point out that there is more prejudice than just the “black and white” and she uses it to show that people can overcome their prejudices and grow as people in a way that is not going to offend many of her readers. She is able to provide the information so that even the people in the South are going to want to read the novel and feel something for at least one of the characters.


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Historical Context for the Novel.

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The South during the 1930s was just prime with racial and social prejudices that provide a lot of historical context for To Kill A Mockingbird. Harper Lee actually took a lot of character stories in the novel from real life occurrences. One of the main things that can be linked to the novel is the Scottsboro trials.

The Scottsboro trials were several trials and retrials pertaining to an alleged gang rape of two white girls by 9 African Americans. They were taking the train through Alabama when a white boy stepped on the hand of a black boy and a fight ensued. Now being the South in the 30s, it only made sense to the white men in charge that the black boys had started the fight and since there happened to be a couple of woman on board the train, they must have been raped. So the boys were arrested and put on trial. Again, since they were in the South it was highly unlikely that they were going to get a fair trial, being black and all, and many people had them convicted before the trial had even started. They did have some motivation to believe this considering both women identified the nine men as having raped them, and a white boy said he was held against his will while the boys did it. A newspaper headline read “ALL NEGROES POSITIVELY IDENTIFIED BY GIRLS AND ONE WHITE BOY WAS

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HELD PRISONER WITH PISTOL AND KNIVES WHILE NINE BLACK FRIENDS COMMITTED REVOLTING CRIME.” So clearly a trial the likes of the one in To Kill A Mockingbird were not out of the realm of possibility and were actually quite likely to occur.

The setting in Lee’s novel provides a much more realistic atmosphere for this type of thing to take place as well. Alabama would have had several groups against blacks (such as the KKK) and was actually considered one of the most hostile towards African Americans. Having grown up there, Lee would have seen many things similar to the situation that she described in the novel, and probably some things that were a lot worse. The hostility would have been absolutely terrible to be in and would make many people cringe at the thought today. So To Kill A Mockingbird can serve as relevance for what occurred in the South during a time period that was not so friendly toward people who weren’t like the people around them.


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"As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it—whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash." Atticus was speaking so quietly his last word crashed on our ears. I looked up, and his face was vehement. "There's nothing more sickening to me than a low-‐grade white man who'll take advantage of a Negro's ignorance. Don't fool yourselves—it's all adding up and one of these days we're going to pay the bill for it. I hope it's not in you children's time." (23.40)

How Does the Prejudice In the Novel Relate to the World Today? The world today has changed in many ways since Harper Lee’s novel, and in many ways it has stayed exactly the same.

For one thing we don’t see public lynching anymore, and that I believe is a change for the better. We also don’t see nearly as many people being out rightly racist as is prevalent in the novel. (Unfortunately racism is still around in the U.S. today, especially in the South, but hopefully it will be eradicated some day for good.) But a majority of people are very against racism and work very hard to make sure that we don’t revert back to “old habits” in that way.

But prejudices are still around and prevalent all over in our society today. One of the most common prejudices is people’s adverse reaction to marriage equality. We see two sides that are very opinionated on the matter, much like when the U.S. pushed for civil rights, or women’s rights, or the end of slavery, etc. The list of things that have been fought for in this country could fill a book, and has in fact filled several. One of the biggest lessons that this novel can teach us is that there will always be people fighting for what they believe in and there will be people who push against those beliefs. It is important to know that there is always someone who wants to fight for that.

Toward the end of the novel, Jem says "Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time... it's because he wants to stay inside." (23.117) He says this to show that sometimes that world can be a scary place and all you want to do at times is confine yourself in the comforts and not let what is outside penetrate your exterior, but if we do that then nothing would ever change. We would all be too shy to do anything about it.

Prejudices will always be around, and everyone will have a prejudice of some kind, the important thing is how you interact with others and the way that you try to not let your prejudices get in the way of what you or others can accomplish.

Atticus Finch

This Article was Made by Michael German


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"Scout," said Atticus, "nigger-‐lover is just one of those terms that don't mean anything—like snot-‐nose. It's hard to explain—ignorant, trashy people use it when they think somebody's favoring Negroes over and above themselves. It's slipped into usage with some people like ourselves, when they want a common, ugly term to label somebody."

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"You aren't really a nigger-‐lover, then, are you?"

"I certainly am. I do my best to love everybody... I'm hard put, sometimes—baby, it's never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn't hurt you." (11.107-‐109)

Citations Quotes taken from the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Pictures from advanced Google search free of licensing agreements

Scottsboro trial information from http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/SB_acct.

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