Racial and Social Prejudice
Imagine walking into a hallway and being ridiculed and prejudged based off of race, social class, or gender. Most believe that prejudice is a form of judging, but prejudice is a preconceived idea of passed down generation’s opinions. Maycomb County is a little town in Alabama, where everyone knows everybody and gossip travels fast. Common prejudices used in Maycomb were racial, gender, and social. The victims of these prejudices were members of the Maycomb community: Boo Radley who was judged for choosing to abide in his home, Tom Robinson for being colored, and the Ewells because they live in poverty. Racial, social, and gender prejudice is wrong because it holds a back from creating relationships and divides groups of individuals causing other groups to gain control.
Blacks in Maycomb County were constantly being judged and criticized for things that have happened in the past, and were often over-looked due to the social hierarchy. Maycomb County has not seen change in its lifetime, which is consequently the reason that blacks were viewed to be an inferior population and were at the bottom of the social hierarchy. The social hierarchy in Maycomb is based on how well known and respected one was in the community. “There are four kinds of folks in the world. There’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, kinds like the Cunninghams out in the woods, kinds like the Ewells in the dump, then there are negroes”(226). No matter what level of respect or social status you have in the community, all whites were put before blacks; this explains the Tom Robinson trial. Tom Robinson was a colored man who was wrongfully accused and convicted for raping a white woman. Granted that some blacks may fall in...
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...lity in a community. Individuals in Maycomb County were often prejudged because they didn’t fit into a particular stereotype in that community. Maycomb County had not undergone change, which resulted in these prejudices and still continued to cause problems in their community. Children learn many stereotypes and believe that they are fact, and we behave as such. The citizens of Maycomb accepted prejudices that they once learned as children and acted upon it, which had detrimental effects to their community. Racial, social, and gender prejudice is a continuing battle that is in our society; Maycomb county had the potential to become a prejudice and stereotype free society, but let their upbringing hinder them from changing their community for the better.
Works Cited
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: HarperCollins, 1995. E-text. Medium of publication
Harper Lee wrote a story to express the different kinds of prejudice in the 1930’s in Maycomb County, Alabama. The thesis has been explained by using actual quotes from To Kill a Mockingbird, and then gave logical explanation on how it was relevant. Prejudices affect the world even today and still they are something that is a horrible thing.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a world where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” (“Quotes About”). Dr. King fought against prejudice for a number of years and was victorious in bringing awareness to the issue. However, there are many forms of prejudice and racism is only one of those forms. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, brings an abundance of social injustices to light, such as racism, gender rights, and lacking respect to others based on their family history and background. Lee uses her book to illustrate that prejudice and racism are constantly harming society and have done so for a seemingly endless amount
Sum up, the social relationship between these people here, this old town Maycomb is complicated and pretty tense. This novel has taught us so much, thanks to Harper Lee – one of the greatest writers of all time. It has opened our eyes wider about racism at that time and compared it to nowadays it has become so much better. People are equally, no matter what skin color you are, what religion you have, or where you’re from, what you’re appearance looks like, we are all equal, and we are all the same – human. So instead of treating badly to one another we should all united and make the world a better place.
Growing up in a prejudiced environment can cause individuals to develop biased views in regard to both gender and class. This is true in Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, where such prejudices are prevalent in the way of life of 1930s Maycomb, Alabama. The novel is centered around the trial of a black man who is accused of raping a white woman. The narrator, a young girl named Scout, is able to get a close up view of the trial because her father is defending Tom Robinson, the defendant. The aura of the town divided by the trial reveals certain people's’ prejudices to Scout, giving her a better perspective of her world. Throughout the story, Aunt Alexandra’s behaviors indirectly teach Scout that prejudice is a disease with deep and far reaching roots.
A small city nestled in the state of Alabama, Maycomb has got its faults, just like any other place in the world, but one of its main faults or (pg.88) “Maycomb's usual disease,” as Atticus calls it in the book is prejudice. Jem and Scout learn a lot about prejudice when a black man named Tom Robinson is accused of raping a white woman named Mayella Ewell and their father, Atticus, is called on to be his lawyer. They realize the hate that people have buried deep within their heart when they see a black man accused of doing something only because of his color. On pg.241, Scout starts understanding this and thinks, “Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.” As the case continues, up until the death of Tom Robinson, Jem and Scout learn more and more about prejudice and how the hate that people have towards others causes them to take wrong actions. They also see how unfair it is that a white man can get treated better and think of himself better than a black man only because he was born white. This prejudice and the trial cause Jem and Scout to get in argum...
In conclusion, Maycomb is a community where discrimination and prejudice are very common. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee introduces the three main prejudices or discrimination. The first one is the discrimination on the gender. Women are supposed to be wearing dresses and cannot be in the jury. Secondly, individuals are discriminated based on their social status. Aunt Alexandra doesn’t allow Walter to come in their home for dinner because he is a Cunningham. Thirdly, individuals are discriminate based on their race. Whites give neither any respect to them nor their worship places.
Throughout human history, prejudice has caused more violence than almost anything else. Prejudice and discrimination still happens till this day. Sometimes children can also be taken of their innocence with the horrors of prejudice which is true in the case of Jem and Scout. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch 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” (39). People often fail to examine a situation from someone else view because their opinions are biased. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows readers just how damaging prejudice really is when it is caused by rumors, race, and another man’s beliefs.
Think about a time when you made a decision without carefully thinking. What factors motivate us to make such decision? We often make quick and effortless decisions based on our stereotype of other people. The stereotypes we make are simply due to the difference between their nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age or ability, and ours. Racial stereotype, as one of the most commonly seen stereotype in our life, has an efficient job on how people form judgments of other people and then make decision through three situations.
As Scout grew up in Maycomb, she learned about the people who live in Maycomb. By being exposed to events with explicit discrimination, judgment, and racism, Scout has become aware of the negative aspects of Maycomb residents. Scout’s visit to First Purchase African M.E. church, showed her how discrimination impacts the lives of African-Americans. As justified by Dolphus Raymond, the people who live in Maycomb are awfully judgmental, and the lack of fairness and justice caused by racism affects serious situations, as demonstrated during the Tom Robinson trial. All of these experiences have opened up Scout’s eyes, giving her a better understanding of the residents of Maycomb County, and how negative many people can be.
A person becomes prejudiced by what he or she is taught as well as a lack of exposure and education. While many people are influenced by peers and family to become prejudice, others simply adapt to the surrounding environment. In the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird”, by Harper Lee, brother and sister Jem and Scout, are taught about the surrounding racism shown to members of the African American community and poor white citizens. Through the characters of Jem and Scout, Harper Lee, in her novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” suggests that through the experiences of Jem and Scout, their perspective on people should not be influenced and determined by others opinions and racist views.
"Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds among stones"- Charlotte Brontë. Nearly every problem and unfortunate mishap in Harper Lee's, To Kill A Mockingbird, has been somehow revolved around prejudice or discrimination. Many different forms of prejudice are found throughout the novel, with racism, sexism, and classicism the most common. The residents of Maycomb have discrimination running through their veins and were raised to be racist and sexist, without realizing. They see nothing wrong with judging other people and treating people that they find inferior harshly. Prejudice is a destructive force because it separates the people of Maycomb, both physically and mentally.
Harper Lee wrote, “when Atticus turned away from Mayella he looked like his stomach hurt.” during the trial. (chapter 18) People tried to force their way into prison and kill Tom Robinson. A group of white men including Mr Cunningham really wanted him killed as the town believed the white family’. They chose the Ewells over Tom Robinson because he is black. There were two churches in Maycomb, one for the blacks and one for the whites. This is another example of racism. They also had separate seating arrangements in the courthouse for white and black
Racism and prejudice has been present in almost every civilization and society throughout history. Even though the world has progressed greatly in the last couple of decades, both socially and technologically, racism, hatred and prejudice still exists today, deeply embedded in old-fashioned, narrow-minded traditions and values.
Racial prejudice is widespread in the county of Maycomb, and a prime example is the Tom Robinson case. Tom, a black man, was accused of raping Mayella, a white woman. Atticus puts forward all evidence from his witnesses that clearly proves Tom was innocent, Jem even says, ?and we?re gonna win Scout. I don?t see how we can?t? (pg 206), but Tom still received a ?Guilty? verdict. Atticus tried removing the prejudiced thoughts of the jurors by saying, ??the assumption - the evil assumption - that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings??. (pg 208). Atticus? saying insinuated the point that all of God?s children were created equal. To the jury, the only important thing was that Tom was black and the accuser was white, he never stood a chance under those conditions. These racial tensions between blacks and whites had made their way into the courtroom, a place where everyone should receive a fair trial no matter what race or colour, but an unjust verdict was reached. The prejudice that was felt towards Tom made him lose all hope of freedom, and as a result, he died upon an escape attempt. Tom was victim of racial prejudice and loss of hope.
If a young girl is walking alone through a park late at night and encounters three senior citizens walking with canes and three teenage boys wearing leather jackets, it is likely that she will feel threatened by the latter and not the former. Why is this so? To start off, we have made a generalization in each case. By stereotyping, we assume that a person or group has certain characteristics. Often, these stereotypical generalizations are not accurate. We are succumbing to prejudice by ?ascribing characteristics about a person based on a stereotype, without knowledge of the total facts?1.