Brendan Cregan
Mr. Li
English 9 Honors
31 March 2017
The People of Maycomb and Their Prejudices
After reading To Kill a Mockingbird, one might ask if the people of maycomb are truly “bad” people. While a jury composed of purely Maycombians decided that Tom Robinson was guilty of a crime that he unmistakably did not commit, I do not believe that the general public of Maycomb is a foul or hateful group.
The reason that I would argue this is that while their actions have lead to a social injustice, they are unable to retrospect and recognise their own faults and prejudice. As an example, Miss Gates said the following, “‘...persecution comes from people who are prejudiced. Prejudice,’ she said carefully’” This quote shows how oblivious Maycomb is to their hypocrisy. Even so, how did nearly the entire population get indoctrinated with the idea that blacks are less
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To start off, the finest definition of racism that I have come across is this; racism is the act of knowingly and intentionally oppressing a certain ethnic group by way of either laws or societal stigmas. Using this definition to move forward with, I believe that it is fair to say that not everyone who is racist is a bad person. While this may be a completely abstract idea in our current social situation, not everyone lives in the same social climate and most are surrounded by incredibly polar ideals to that of our own. In this this tender subject, you have to think of any and every situation before you can generalise that absolutely all people who have carried out racially prejudiced actions. For example, if someone is raised with perfect morals, accept that from birth, they have been told that they are superior to another race in every way, and they believe what they are told because that's all the input they have ever had does that make them a bad person? I don't think it