How Does Harper Lee Use Racial Discrimination In To Kill A Mockingbird

Scout Finch, a six-year-old tom-boy, does not recognize people where they come from, or the color of their skin. Scout sees the world as a very innocent place, and she has not yet recognized the evils of the world. Scout contributes to the theme of the novel don't judge a book by its cover. Scout was raised that there is no difference in skin color and that everyone is the same no matter where they came from. Scout went to an all-black church with Calpurnia, scout did not act like it was a big deal, even though everyone else thought it was.

“There’s something in our world that makes men lose their heads- they couldn’t be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s word, the white always wins. They’re ugly, but these are the facts of life” (Lee 295). Judging someone based on their ethnicity and culture, and saying that one race is better than the other is expressed numerous times throughout the book To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus experiences a lot of racism because he protects Tom Robinson, a negro going to trial for getting accused of beating a white woman.

Why did a poor black man lose a court case because he’s black? Why are girls told they have to sit and be pretty? Why does it matter if you are wealthy or poor? We are all people, aren’t we? The answer is prejudice. Harper Lee gives many examples, race, class, and gender, in her fascinating book To Kill a Mockingbird. In the town of Maycomb a white man takes a case about a black man (Tom) raping a white girl, but at court, everyone knows Tom shouldn’t be found guilty. But tom is found guilty. To Kill a Mockingbird takes place during the Great Depression. Throughout To Kill a Mockingbird, prejudice is shown as a good and bad thing. Prejudice is shown through race, class, and gender.

Imagine that you are in a courtroom being accused of committing a crime that you didn’t commit, but they said you were guilty anyway just because of your skin color. This is one of the problems in To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and Must Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. Just Mercy is about a lawyer who deals with discrimination specifically in death row cases. To Kill a Mockingbird is about a young girl named Scout who grew up during the Great Depression. Racial injustice can be seen in To Kill a Mockingbird, Just Mercy and in modern day.

Prejudice and discrimination is looked down upon, yet people still continue to be judgmental and have preconceived assumptions about others. It is a common thing that still happens in today’s society. To be particular, racial discrimination is one example of prejudice and is based solely on the color of one’s skin. In the story To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson is a caring individual who tries his hardest to treat everyone he meets with appreciation and respect. However, he is African American, which influences him and the other characters' lives in different ways. All he wants to do is help out another character, Mayella, which inevitably costs him his life in the end. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses the character of Tom Robinson to illustrate the fact that innocent people are sometimes victimized to a racist society.

¨You never really understand a person until you consider things in his point of view-until you climb inside of his skin and walk around it.¨-Harper Lee. For many people, in their lifetime they have been misjudged or prejudged someone else. The story is all about the way you view people and who they actually are. The novel focuses on showing readers that skin color does not matter and that behavior is not based on race/color. In the novel ¨To Kill a Mockingbird¨ Harper Lee really focuses in on symbolism through many different objects, people, and situations.

Life is like a thrill ride; one never knows what will be in store for them. Many characters in the story To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee feel the same way about life, having experienced many surprising and unexpected turns of events. This story is about a sleepy southern town filled with prejudice, and a lawyer’s quest, along with his children Scout and Jem, to take steps in ridding the town of its prejudiced attitude. Despite being a white man, a lawyer named Atticus, defends an innocent black man accused of raping a white woman. However, everything does not go as was hoped, and the mindset of the society overpowered Atticus’s fair-minded argument. From this emerges a theme regarding the bigotry and bias overwhelming Maycomb: A

In Today’s Society, we continue to face racism even when our country has passed many anti-discrimination acts. It raises the question do we continue to have racism because we are not willing to admit that one race feels superior to another? In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses Atticus as an example of expressing how no matter the intelligence, economics status, or social status of a black person, the white person feels superior to those of color.

"The ultimate ignorance is the rejection of something you know nothing about yet refuse to investigate" -Dr. Wayne Dyer. During the 1930s, the period of the Great Depression displays various forms of discrimination in TKaM, a historical novel written by Harper Lee. Coming out of the Civil War, the 19th Amendment, and the Roaring Twenties people living in this poor Alabama county can not fix their racist and intransigent mindset. Racism towers over all prejudice in the tiny Maycomb County. Interaction with a black person to them is an interaction with a devil on earth. Besides the profound racism, the novel shows bigotry which affects the majority of citizens in the large society of straight-minded people. Having divorced parents, being exceptionally poor, and being a woman are just three examples of kinds of differentiation characters endure shame for. The most obvious form of discrimination in the novel is racism; however, there are other types of prejudice and

tries to give us an insight into what it is like for these very civil

Racism was very “popular” as you should say back in the 1930’s . Whites had all the power while blacks and other minorities were suppose to fear them. In Maycomb , Alabama racism was around and had effects on citizens. Segregating whites from blacks is a horrid thing. It’s inhuman to say you're better than someone else because of their skin color. We as humans are equal some may be more wealthy than others but when it all comes down to it we will all go in the same box in the same ground. Racism was and still is a horrible thing and it affected a lot people.

Clearly, then, throughout To Kill a Mockingbird there has been many ubiquitous effects of racism on the citizens of Macomb. The lives of many characters in this novel have been disrupted and deeply affected in many ways because of racism. Throughout this novel, Harper Lee shows that one's race and skin color can change other's opinions about a character, without knowing anything about the character. In the end, no matter the color of your skin or what race you are, we are all equal, and we should all be treated

Racism was a very large part of society in the south during the 1930’s. Many colored people were thought of as less than their peers. Whites were considered better than African Americans were, and almost every white person accepted the unjust judgment. Racial discrimination hit hard in the south. Many of the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird were impacted by racial discrimination, including Calpurnia, Scout, and Tom Robinson and his family.

In the riveting coming-of-age novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, the author Harper Lee projects the idea of acceptance of all people, through the eyes of a child. Harper Lee combats the prejudice of social standing when she proves that some of the poorest people have the best of character traits. While racism of African Americans is first and foremost in this novel, the acceptance of white people into the African American community shows racism can be beaten from both point of views. Finally, the disabilities that Arthur Radley portrays, is forgotten, when his actions help him soar above the bigotry of the people of Maycomb County. The most obvious topic is the overt racism based on a person's skin color, however, Harper Lee takes us beneath the skin to show that discrimination occurs in other ways.

The film, To kill a mockingbird, has portrayed the problem of racism on black people during 1960s. The main characters in the film are Scout, who was a white little girl, her father, Atticus, who is a lawyer, and Tom Robinson, who is a black male. Atticus as a white has seemed races equally. His ethnic identity is also white, but he is different with other whites because he did not have stereotype to black people. His daughter in the film acted as a pure generation that learned the darkness of society through the trial of Tom. Lastly, Tom Robinson’s ethnic identity would define as a free black man because he did not feel himself unequal as white people. Therefore, the film has connected with the spread color-blind racism, which can be seem as skin color does not matter, because people during the 20th