Racial discrimination is the act of treating an individual or an entire group of people differently and unfairly due to the color of their skin. Racism is the central type of prejudice in this novel. Therefore, racial intolerance is extremely common in this book since it takes place in Alabama during the 1930s. A way of showing racial bias in To Kill a Mockingbird …show more content…
This type is caused by rumors and people talking behind each others backs without knowing anything about a person. Simply, this describes the character of Arthur “Boo” Radley. When Boo Radley was younger, he made bad choices and hung out with the wrong crowd. His father ended up punishing him by forcing him to stay inside the house for fifthteen years. Since Boo has not been outside for a long time, the citizens of Maycomb would make up rumors and stories about him. One of these stories was that when he was 33 he stabbed his father in the leg. People would also describe Boo with monster-like qualities saying that he had bloodstained hands from eating raw squirrels and cats and a long jagged scar that ran across his face. Despite no one knowing if this was actually the truth, these rumors made him out to be malevolent and made people fear him.
The reason we talk about these various types of discrimination is because prejudice like all three of these examples still exist today. Currently, groups of people still get treated unfairly in society due to the color of their skin or the gender they are, or simply because they lead very private lives. Although there are a lot of examples you can point to present day, the novel To Kill a Mockingbird can teach people to not act in unjust ways. As a reader from a future generation, you would think that we would be able to learn from the past and hopefully find a way to