To Kill A Mockingbird Prejudice Essay

“Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.” -Maya Angelou. Preconceived opinions and unreasonable thoughts are what determine one’s actions and path in life. Everything one does and is surrounded by develops some kind of prejudices in one’s mind and therefore resolves how people act in certain situations. Prejudices are the causes for discrimination and as people have developed unfavorable stereotypes from past experiences, this greatly affects decision making and creating a more ideal society for people of all kinds to thrive in. Prejudice, or judging and making decisions based on personal experiences force people to draw rash and hostile conclusions about people who fall into

People were and still are so quick to associate things they have seen before, such as a black man committing a crime, with all other African Americans. It is a ridiculous thing to do, but such a mindset was hardly uncommon in the 30’s. Since racism was so prevalent and people “witnessed” black people committing crimes so frequently, it was never doubted that a black man would be much more likely to be a criminal than a white man. Relying on prejudices is the simplest form of ignorance. White villagers from Maycomb need to look at the facts more and detach themselves from their judgmental, emotional sides, which draw conclusions before any evidence is shown. This is exactly how the court system worked, merely past experiences guiding their thoughts and judgements. A quote that shows this is when Atticus states, “They’ve done it before and they did it tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do it- seems only children weep.”. This shows that prejudices steal a man’s innocence and deprive him of the ability to think straight. Only a pure and honest child, who has no bad experiences with blacks, are able to see the cruelty of it all. In the