preview

To Kill A Mockingbird Discrimination Quotes

Decent Essays

“[Martin Luther King Jr.] was famous and he lived and gave his speeches and he died and now he’s gone. But we’re still here. Don’t tell students in this school about ‘the dream’” (44). In Savage Inequalities Jonathan Kozol quotes Christopher: a student of the underfunded, mostly black Clark Junior High School in East St. Louis. Christopher’s statement insinuates that efforts to eliminate a people’s racism can be futile. A similar point arises in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird when a black man is convicted by a white jury for a crime he did not commit. A theme that one may derive from both of these works is that discrimination can blind one to others’ circumstances, affecting an individual’s decision-making. In these two books, Kozol and Lee use this shared theme to expose the present-day issues of discrimination and racism. Although, in retrospect, these issues …show more content…

The plaintiff, Mayella Ewell, accused Tom Robinson, a black man, of raping her. Throughout the court case, there was substantial amounts of evidence that pardoned Robinson from strangling, beating, and taking advantage of her such as the fact that “His left arm was fully twelve inches shorter than his right, and hung dead at his side” (212). Several signs pointed to Mayella’s caucasian father, Robert Ewell, as the one guilty of the crime. For example, when questioned by the defendant on whether or not he called for a doctor, Ewell replied that “...he never thought of it, he had never called a doctor..” (200). Also, Robert Ewell’s dominant hand corresponded with Mayella’s injuries whereas Robinson’s corresponding hand was rendered useless by a permanent injury. However, after all of this evidence against Mr. Ewell, when the all-white jury was polled concerning Robinson, their responses were “‘Guilty… guilty… guilty… guilty..’” (241). They ignored the facts and branded Robinson a rapist because of the color of his

Get Access