To Kill A Mockingbird: Racism

“Racism is taught in our society, it is not automatic. It is learned behavior toward persons with dissimilar physical characteristics”. These words by Alex Haley perfectly describe the entity of how racism and discrimination is truly learned and so often used. Humans are not born racist. Racist and discriminatory behaviour is often developed from those around you. This is why there are many types of racists. Different people grow up discriminating against different groups and the causes are often that these people are uneducated, unaware or believe their race or religion is superior, so they feel as if they need to stand by their group and bash the ‘out groups’. For example, if a child is raised in a family which does not believe in the acceptance …show more content…
In the past, each culture, religion, or skin colour viewed others as a threat and felt the need to protect their own. This was natural human behaviour as the people were simply not educated and therefore didn’t know any better. However, this is continuous behaviour; regardless of the education and knowledge we have, racism and discrimination is very much present and is used in and causes war, by vulgar and insulting words as well as killing of innocent individuals solely because they are ‘different’. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, many instances in the novel involve a supposed superior group bashing or disregarding the ‘out group’ out of fear of betrayal and for the protection of their group. Racism and discrimination is not necessarily done out of hatred, but out of fear for the betrayal and protection of one’s type. This is demonstrated through the fear of loss and displacement of an individual, one’s ignorance, and the instinctive reaction for the protection of one’s …show more content…
These actions may include excluding certain individuals who are viewed as lesser of people and/or saying insulting or hurtful words. Fear is one of the biggest contributors of racism, especially from loss. It causes a person to see differences in people and view them as threatening based on what they view as their rights. When a ‘lower’ individual or group believe as if they have the same rights as someone who is ranked socially higher, the higher person views them as a threat. They feel threatened that someone of such low standing thinks they can do the same things or talk to those who are higher than them and evidentially use racism as a way of protection of one’s self or their group whether it be family, race, religion, colour or status. This fear was presented in To Kill a Mockingbird when Aunt Alexandra did not allow Walter Cunningham, a friend of Scout’s to come over solely because he is lower than the Finch’s, Scout’s and Aunt Alexandra’s family name socially, in the town of Maycomb. Regardless of Scout’s constant whining and reasoning for why she doesn’t see