Dont Censor To Kill A Mockingbird

Don’t censor To Kill a Mockingbird

Rosa Parks once said, “Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome.” In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird the author Harper Lee uses the n-word 48 times and negro 54 times. This alone could cause readers to feel uncomfortable, along with the vulgar language and references to sexual activities. Some people may think that the best solution to these problems are to take out these words and censor the whole book. But that is not a good idea. Like Rosa Parks said, we have to prepare ourselves for this racism in the world because it is here and we can’t just delete it from our lives. The racial comments, vulgar language and references

This case involved a black man named Tom Robinson who has been accused of raping white girl named Mayella Ewell. During the time period the novel takes place African American people were no longer slaves but were still denied a lot of rights that white people had. So one can only imagine how this whole town would react to someone who would help a black man who was accused of rape. This is why the novel contains vulgar language, racial comments and words like “nigger” and Negro, and to some people this is a problem. “To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most widely read novels of all time. Ever since its publication in 1960, it has also been one of the books most frequently challenged by would-be censors.” (Johnson-Durst) When this book is read in schools it can make the students

But that doesn’t seem like a good enough reason to change a big part of the novel. Taking out the “n-word” would not only be taking out some of the history but also some meaning and significance of the novel. Many readers see To Kill a Mockingbird as a racist book because it shows the whole truth about that time period. The “n-word” was just part of everyone’s vocabulary back then it was used many times even in the same few sentences like when Atticus’ daughter Scout asks: “Do you defend niggers, Atticus?” (pg 77). But no one really tries to look at the situation from any other perspective. Harper Lee didn’t intentionally use offensive words or examples of slavery and mistreatment to offend his African American readers. she uses them to show how horribly African Americans were treated back then, to make his novel more significant and