"Hounding the Innocent" Summary In “Hounding the Innocent” by Bob Herbert talks about how there has been more people being pulled over just so they can be humiliated by the police. The people that are being humiliated are Hispanics and African Americans but it’s really the minorities. The minorities are being stopped for no reason just so they can be seen as the “bad” people. More than 45,000 people have been stopped in 1997 and 1998. The State Police in Oklahoma humiliated an Army General Gerald for two hours and his son because they were African American.
The jury- Tom Robinson is accused of rape by a white family, the Ewells, who have been, according to Atticus, "the disgrace of Maycomb for three generations." According to Scout, Atticus considers the Ewells "trash," the only time Scout has ever heard her father speak so disrespectfully of anyone in Maycomb. However, the Ewells are white, and Tom is black. In the 1930s Deep South, a white man's word was always accepted over the word of a black man, and this was no exception. Atticus tells his brother, Jack, that "The jury couldn't possibly be expected to take Tom Robinson's word against the Ewells'..." and Atticus was right.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee tells the story of Tom Robinson. A black man falsely accused of raping a white woman, Mayela Ewell, through the eyes of Atticus’ daughter Scout. Atticus Finch chooses to take his case and defend him. Although the case was lost from the beginning, Atticus masterfully used logos, pathos and ethos in an attempt to win over the jury so they would declare him innocent. Atticus used logos to attempt at logically convincing this racist jury that there was no way Mr. Robinson could have committed the rape.
Tom Robinson, a Negro, is charged for the rape of Mayella Ewell, a white female of the age of 19. Even though all the evidence suggests and even proves Robinson is innocent, he is charged guilty. Scout, watching from the colored man’s balcony, sees this and asks her father about it later. He says that in this case, Tom Robinson was the mockingbird and racism is the ‘air rifle’ that was shooting him. Morally incorrect, that is what it is called.
She is tired of her people not being willing to stand up for themselves when their white counterparts take them for granted. Ann’s label of coward on her people for not standing up for themselves is justified because of the numerous of crimes being committed towards the African Americans during this time that nobody was doing anything about. Ann’s first real encounter with the savage racist crimes was in high school when she heard about the lynching of Emmitt Till, a fourteen year old boy found in the river. His death was passed off as a lack of respect, "The boy was from Chicago. Negroes up North have no respect for people.
He is a man who reacts with violence and confirms racist whites’ fears about black men. In a world that seems utterly hopeless, Wright offers hope and a way to address the racial divide. When Jan visits Bigger in jail, he says he isn’t angry at Bigger for framing him. Jan, a white man, understands how he confused, shamed and terrified Bigger by ignoring the social taboos that has governed Bigger’s life. In order to extend an olive branch, Jan recruits his friend, Boris A. Max to be Bigger’s lawyer.
The character Mr Robert Ewell is supposed to represent racism and we can see this by his action for example ‘Mr Bob Ewell stopped Atticus on the post office corner, spat in his face and told him he’d get him if it took the rest of his life.’ White people wanted to make sure that they were on the upper hand than black people. In the Deep South around 3700 people were lynched and we can see this in To Kill a Mockingbird when a mob came to take Tom Robinson to have him lynched. Though Scout came to the rescue by making the people go back to their homes, murder did happen numerous times in America in the 1930s. A real life example is Emmet Till, who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman. He was from Chicago, visiting his relatives in the Mississippi where he spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, a married woman.
Many parents were arrested for trying to enlist their children in to all white schools. Because enlisting them was not a crime they were falsely arrested for loitering. A man by the name of dennis was arrested for loitering while trying to enlist 11 African American students into a white school (document). At times like this racism was at an all-time high. Many African American parents were losing jobs if they supported the lawsuit.
If a solution can be found to reduce the amount of bullying then the number of school shootings will decline drastically. In a study done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) over half the offenders felt victimized in at least one way (Newman 241). The kids being teased may laugh the situation off, but it really hurts them on the inside. For example, in the book Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings by Katherine Newman the story of Michael Carneal is discussed. He was a freshman at Heath High School in Heath, KY, who was constantly picked on.
Mr. Gilmer, the prosecutor, used Tom’s race and physical strength to imply that Tom was just another stereotypical black man who targeted a fair skinned female. Mr. Gilmer hinted that because Tom was strong and coloured, Tom would rape and beat a white woman. Not only was Tom discriminated against on the stand, but after Tom was sent to the slammer, Tom was killed and shot at multiple times after he was already dead. “ ‘Seventeen bullet holes in him. They [the police] didn’t have to shoot him that much.’ ” (235).