Examples Of Racial Intolerance In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Atticus says, “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” (Lee 33). Due to our sinful nature, people are so quick to judge, deciding that they will not be around people who are different. The real truth is that America has become narrow minded, only believing what the world is saying before getting to know the person and placing judgement. The U.S. has a need to learn selflessness, ignoring what society thinks about other people by making what you believe is right the new view on situations. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the narrator, Scout, is surrounded by racial intolerance as she grew up because of her father’s job as an attorney in …show more content…

The first clear form of intolerance that the readers encounter in To Kill a Mockingbird is racial intolerance. Racial intolerance has been constantly passed down by generation, which dictates how a child is taught to treat people of different races. This approach does not allow new generations to form their own opinions of their peers that are of different races by getting to know them. As Nesbit said, “If racial prejudices are something that we learn, it means that we can unlearn them as well” (para. 15). This shows that even though the world’s opinions on other races might be only slightly better than they were during the times of To Kill a Mockingbird, and that there is always hope for new generations that can teach the world to look for their own opinions of others. In To Kill a Mockingbird, we can also see how this relates to when Atticus, the father of Scout and Jem, is involved in a trial as an attorney. He is nominated by the judge to defend a black man who is being accused of raping a white man’s daughter in hopes of giving the black man the best chance he has to winning the case and gaining freedom. Atticus says, “There’s a lot of ugly things in

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