Should To Kill A Mockingbird Be Taught In Schools Essay

To the general public,

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is an exceedingly controversial book that has caused debate in the academic community for decades. The question is: should To Kill a Mockingbird be taught in schools? In my opinion, it should, due to its progressive nature and ability to teach critical morals to the reader. However, it should only be taught in schools if the teacher discusses the book’s controversy with their students.

Throughout To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee not only includes progressive ideas, she also emphasizes standing up for what you believe in and using words as a force for change, rather than violence. Lee uses the character of Atticus to teach morals to the reader through Atticus’s instruction to Jem and

It portrays African American people as bystanders who do nothing and don’t speak up for themselves, which is something historically inaccurate. Not only were African Americans involved in Civil Rights, African Americans were the Civil Rights activists. To Kill a Mockingbird wrongfully ignores the brave and inspiring African American Civil Rights activists, such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. The book almost “erases” history, and paints a false picture of the past by depicting a white savior. As Isaac Staney states in his article, “The Case Against To Kill a Mockingbird”, “...To Kill a Mockingbird gives no inkling of this mass protest and instead creates an indelible impression that the entire Black community existed in a complete state of paralysis.” The main metaphor of the book is that African Americans are similar to mockingbirds, but the way that Miss Maudie, Scout’s neighbor, describes mockingbirds paints African American people into something they’re not: “‘Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird’” (Lee 103). By saying that mockingbirds don’t do anything, Lee is implying that African American people were just bystanders. Additionally, saying that mockingbirds “don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy”, implies that the African Americans are only there to please the white people in Maycomb, a very ecocentric view. Throughout To Kill a Mockingbird, all the black characters in the book are portrayed as quiet passerby with no backstories or emotions, not taking action about the horrible way they are being