Examples Of Racism In To Kill A Mockingbird

Innocence and Racism If racism were not a huge aspect of the story and the lives of Jem and Scout, would they have grown up to be completely different? In Harper Lee’s book, “To Kill a Mocking Bird”, racism is presented through the view point of two, young and innocent children without any knowledge about the society’s perspective on racism. As the two children grow up both physically and mentally throughout the novel, they learn and absorb the true definition of equality in early 1930’s Alabama. The children are taught about racism in two ways, one of the societies and the other of their fathers teachings. As the main characters are being introduced, we learn that their father, Atticus has set out to accomplish one of his biggest cases yet. …show more content…
All of Maycomb’s citizens were outraged by Atticus’s actions, and therefore they also set off on the children. The negative reaction of the citizen’s towards the children, affected them mentally. As children, their minds could only take in so much, and the way the citizens treated them had them thinking about what equality truly was. After all the insults and negative remarks the county’s people had been stating, Atticus still stood strong to his word and kept reminding his children that no matter what people said, a wise person only reacted with patience. Atticus had many wise words to convey to his children and among them was this statement, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” (Chapter 3). This statement taught his children never to judge and to understand a person before creating assumptions about them. Macomb’s citizens always had a habit to judge people based on their color, this was by time reflecting on Scout and Jem’s personality as well. This statement had a connection with Jem’s reaction to Miss Dubos’s mean comments about Atticus defending a colored man. Jem was outraged and out of his temper he crushed her greatest possession. Jem just could not understand why people were insulting their father for doing justice to a poor man. As the innocent children …show more content…
He was going to deal with persecution just because of the color on his skin. This hatred that was born long ago into the county’s people was slowly slipping into the lifestyle of the children as well, it was like a disease taking over every person, controlling them and turning each child into biased and judgmental people. Racism was compared to a disease in the eyes of Atticus; he considered it to be a contagious and deadly sickness that took over everyone slowly. The children would become a victim as well, of this thinking process. As they are growing up in the book, we learn that the children are observing the different sections that split people. They are now aware that not only were colored people not allowed to speak of their opinion, but also were not even allowed to sit beside a non-colored

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