Social Inequality: To Kill a Mockingbird In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows how wrong and cruel social inequality can be, from White man’s decision to do the right thing to the accusation of rape because of a man’s color and to having rumors spread around about a man who has not left his home in seven years. This book takes place in the 1930s which is when it was very common in the South to find Black or Negro men treated as less than White men. Social inequality was extremely common because of the racism between the two and the White people feeling that they were better. It was also very common for small towns such as Maycomb to have everyone know each other and each other’s business. That also made it very capable of having social inequality because of people spreading rumors and giving the illusion to everyone including children that you’re something you are not.
To Kill a Mockingbird Essay After reading To Kill a Mockingbird, I have learned just as much as Scout and Jem do during the novel. Many life situations occur in the book that is still relevant to our modern day lives. One of which stood out to me the most. Racism is a big part of our society these days, people judge based on something that a person does, and thinks the reason they did it was because of their race. Throughout the story you learn about the horrifying society we live in.
Prejudice is Everywhere “There’s nothing more sickening to me than a low-grade white man who’ll take advantage of a Negro’s ignorance” (Lee 221). Atticus, the narrator’s father in To Kill a Mockingbird, expresses his disgust in the manner of how white men treat the African-American race. This part of the novel is only one example of the prejudices observed in To Kill a Mockingbird, as the novel highlights the issue throughout. Racism was a major issue a large number of men, women, and even children had to face during the time periods of the novels To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Scout, the protagonist of To Kill a Mockingbird, is a young girl living in Maycomb, Alabama.
He tries to teach the trait of not judging people by their social class to Scout and Jem, his young children.. This is shown when Scout is told not to criticize the cunningham boy for not eating the way she does. It can also be seen in atticus volunteering to defend people outside of his social class even if they may have trouble paying him. He accepts payment from the cunninghams in the form of hickory nuts. He defends Tom Robinson despite the fact that he knows that the odds of him winning the case are extremely slim because he is trying to defend a black man against a white woman.
However, Uncle didn’t know the truth behind this brutal and aggressive accident where Scout, not Francis gets in trouble. This accident shows the way it was normal to say about black people because parents who were disrespectful for slaves, were showing racism to their children. However, Scout accepts this phrase as a horrible thing because she knows that Atticus is not like other people-he respects everybody and does not teach Scout and Jem to be racists because it
The story is set in Maycomb in the Southern states of America where there were many black people still living in segregation. In the time the story was set the people of Maycomb treated black people as a minority and referred to them as ‘niggers’ Anybody who associated with black people were seen as ‘nigger lovers’ and were also frowned upon and even discriminated. Maycomb is portrayed to be a very welcoming place for white people where as black people were not particularly welcome at all. To refer to someone of a different colour with a negative name such as a ‘nigger’ is an act of racist prejudice and suggest that because someone is of a different colour or ethnicity that they should be treated with disrespect and ultimately treated inhumanly. The character Aunt Alexandra introduced in chapter 16 is a perfect example of the prejudice taking place against Atticus’ house keeper, Calpurnia.
Secondly, the white people thought they were inferior and so they felt no shame in making fun of them at minstrels. 2. Source 4, an advertisement for watermelons from 1918 shows many stereotypical characteristics about African Americans. One view displayed is that black people are not worthy enough like the white people are in the fact that they have to “eat seeds ‘n all” because they are not wealthy enough to afford decent food. This is also conveyed through “Piccaninny Freeze” because the child is cold due to the fact she isn’t wearing any clothes.
Stereotypes: Chronology of the African American Throughout history in America, it is no question that African-Americans have been subject to hardship and turbulence. The path of the black man and woman in America has been very tumultuous, but also very telling of the current state of the race. The African-American started out in the United States on the count of slavery, which progressed into segregation. Although segregation came to end, that does not completely stop what we know today as common present day racism—still a very prominent issue amongst the black community. This racism comes in many forms, blatant and not so obvious.
Racism What does racism mean to you? In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee has many examples of racism throughout her book; since the setting of the book took place in Maycomb, Alabama during the 1930’s, segregation was still occurring. Everyone should be treated equally regardless their color, etc. The narrator of To Kill a Mockingbird is Scout Finch; she is also the protagonist of the story. Harper Lee uses the character Tom Robinson as character to use as an example to show how bad racism was back in the 1930’s.
The Judicial decisions injustices that have taken place throughout the years, since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, have been institutionally (systemically) racist. Institutional racism is defined as the societal patterns that have the net effect of imposing oppressive or otherwise negative conditions against identifiable groups on the basis of race or ethnicity (Head, 2011). Institutional racism is pervasive throughout America’s judicial system. According to Risa L. Lieberwitz, African American and other individuals protesting discrimination have had difficulty winning cases that rely on proof of discriminatory effects of employment practices. Legal expert Michael Selmi’s study of cases between 1983 and 2002 confirms this, showing a low success rate for women and people of color, who won only 25.1 percent of their cases of discriminatory impact in federal trial courts and only 19.2 percent on appeal.