Assumptions In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Even in today’s society, the influence of racism and assumptions based upon it are common and widespread. In a news article by US News, it is stated that black girls are twice as likely to be suspended in every state for the sole assumption that all black females are “angry” and “hyper sexualized”. This article shows that nowadays the influence of racism is not too different than in the 1930s, where racism influenced beliefs and created false assumptions. The events depicted in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird illustrate the prevalence of racism towards African Americans in the 1930s.
Take the racism in the Maycomb County courthouse as an example. From the beginning, even Atticus admits that he knows racism will prevail in this case, but …show more content…
Calpurnia is a prime example of this. Due to racism, she has to act as if she could not speak English fluently outside of the Finch household, even though she is perfectly capable of doing so. When Jem questions her about this, Calpurnia replies, “Suppose you and Scout talked colored-folks’ talk at home it’d be out of place, wouldn’t it? Now what if I talked white-folks’ talk at church, and with my neighbors? They’d think I was puttin’ on airs to beat Moses” (12.126). This quote explains why she didn’t speak fluently outside of the Finch household, but it also explains that a grain of racism has embedded itself deeply in both African Americans and white folks alike, making them both despise and not believe that an African American could outdo a white person. As explained in the paragraph above, due to white people enslaving Africans, they would obviously hold themselves superior to African Americans and reject the notion of having someone inferior to them be better at something than them. On top of this, “folks don’t like to have somebody around knowin’ more than they do” (12.126). That means some white people who aren’t as fluent in English as Calpurnia would resent her for just being better than
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