The Invented Practice of Racism A U.S. News article states that a black person is twice as likely to receive the death sentence for killing a white person than a white person is for killing a black person. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee used real-life events as inspiration to make her book more authentic. There are links to Jim Crow, mob mentality, and problems of racism in that time period. In To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the first historical references is the Jim Crow laws. Jim Crow was a system that set up inequality between the races. Numerous white people believed the Jim Crow laws were needed because they thought the blacks needed to stay below the whites in the social pyramid (Pilgrim). An example of the laws was that blacks
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Racism was a force during the Great Depression. A couple reasons why people are inclined to be racist are to boost their self-esteem, to have more power over black people, and because they do not think black people give them certainty and structure (Routledge). An example of racism is shown with the Scottsboro boys that are accused of something that never happened (Anderson). The Scottsboro boys example also shows racism because it took 18 years for all nine of them to be free when all evidence shows nothing happened (Anderson). Harper Lee uses these ideas in her book during the Tom Robinson trial. Lee uses the Scottsboro trial when demonstrating the Tom Robinson case. In both cases, there were black men that got accused of false rape by women. An example from To Kill a Mockingbird is how Mr. Underwood is against blacks and does not want to be by them (Lee). Atticus says, “He despises Negroes, won’t have one near him” (Lee 209). Here, Mr. Underwood shows his hate and prejudice towards blacks by avoiding them. Additionally, it is racist that the blacks have to live far away from the whites, and they have to go to their own church even though the whites and blacks have the same religion and God (Lee). It says in the novel, “Reverend Sykes then called on the Lord to bless the sick and the suffering, a procedure no different from our church practice” (Lee 161). Shown here, the black church preaches the same religion as the white church, so the churches should not have to be divided. Finally, the jury shows racism by saying Tom is guilty because he is black and Mayella is white (Lee). Ultimately, Lee incorporated the Scottsboro trial when writing about the Tom Robinson
Racism was a force during the Great Depression. A couple reasons why people are inclined to be racist are to boost their self-esteem, to have more power over black people, and because they do not think black people give them certainty and structure (Routledge). An example of racism is shown with the Scottsboro boys that are accused of something that never happened (Anderson). The Scottsboro boys example also shows racism because it took 18 years for all nine of them to be free when all evidence shows nothing happened (Anderson). Harper Lee uses these ideas in her book during the Tom Robinson trial. Lee uses the Scottsboro trial when demonstrating the Tom Robinson case. In both cases, there were black men that got accused of false rape by women. An example from To Kill a Mockingbird is how Mr. Underwood is against blacks and does not want to be by them (Lee). Atticus says, “He despises Negroes, won’t have one near him” (Lee 209). Here, Mr. Underwood shows his hate and prejudice towards blacks by avoiding them. Additionally, it is racist that the blacks have to live far away from the whites, and they have to go to their own church even though the whites and blacks have the same religion and God (Lee). It says in the novel, “Reverend Sykes then called on the Lord to bless the sick and the suffering, a procedure no different from our church practice” (Lee 161). Shown here, the black church preaches the same religion as the white church, so the churches should not have to be divided. Finally, the jury shows racism by saying Tom is guilty because he is black and Mayella is white (Lee). Ultimately, Lee incorporated the Scottsboro trial when writing about the Tom Robinson