“Your father’s no better than the niggers and trash he works for” (Lee 102). This shows how Mrs. Dubose thinks that Atticus should not be defending Tom just because of the color of his skin. She is not the only person that thinks this way. “Atticus,” I said one evening, “what exactly is a nigger-lover?” Atticus’s face was grave. “Has somebody been calling you that?” “No sir, Mrs. Dubose calls you that. She warms up every afternoon calling you that. Francis called me that last Christmas, that’s where I first heard it” (Lee 108). This illustrates how even Atticus’s relatives don’t think he should be defending Tom. Even though people that should be helpful and supportive aren’t supporting Atticus, he still sticks with his beliefs. Atticus wants to show everyone in Maycomb that they should be treating everybody else equally despite their race and that everyone is the same on the inside. The novel stated, “The evil assumption-that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber. “Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson’s skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. You know the truth, and the truth is this; some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not …show more content…
Atticus defends Tom Robinson and tries to prove to everyone that black and white people are equal. He believes that people should just look beyond skin color and treat people based on their personalities and the kind of people they are. Atticus doesn’t care if other people don’t think that he should be defending Tom because he knows that he is doing the right thing. I believe that Atticus was right to defend Tom because everyone should have an equal chance at