What Is Racism In To Kill A Mockingbird

For many centuries racism has plagued the world and hurt many lives.In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, a little girl named Scout starts to see the racism in her hometown. She was hidden from this racism and is now aware of it, this confuses her because she is so innocent. Racism is a major theme and it affects many things in this novel. Racism in to Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee affects the events in the novel when Tom Robinson had his trial, people had their emotions for Atticus, and when Calpurnia brought Scout and Jem to her church.

First off, Tom’s trial is affected by racism because the judge’s prejudice against black men clouds their sense of justice and call him guilty. This is saying that “when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins”(Lee 295). In other words, the judge’s racism makes them always believe a white person over a black one. The judge's prejudice against Tom’s color made them want for him to go to prison, so he was wrongly accused because of his color and not because of facts. This all shows how racism can completely ruin someone’s life.

In To Kill a Mockingbird it is shown that Atticus is a good person and that he believes that you need to “consider things from his point of view” until you judge a person because doing this would be prejudiced(Lee 30). This shows that Atticus is against racism and that sets him aside from most people in Maycomb and they don’t like that, so they are rude and unkind to him. Atticus is known for “lawing for n******” and for being kind to them, and this is why people criticize him because they are racist(Lee 117). The hate towards Atticus shows how racism can harm even the people who weren't being