Blind Spots In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Mr. Cunningham is a strong, kind, hard working man who struggles each day to provide the best for his family without government assistance; he is truly an upstanding citizen. However, he is one of the men that shows up at the jail, with violent intents towards Tom Robinson. The blind spots that Atticus refers to is the fact that Mr. Cunningham, like many of the men with him, is blind to the fact that black people are their equals. His racism makes him incapable of rationally seeing the cruelty behind his own actions. In terms of Jem and Scout, one would assume that they do not share these same blind spots, as they both tend to see people based upon the "content of their characters," not upon the color of their skins, or the social circles that they fit into. However, this is not exactly the case; their blind spot is not their racist bigotry, their blind spot is simply ******. For instance, the children in the book, Jem and Scout, have a blindspot they share…show more content…
Lula, a black woman, is racist to Calpurnia as well as Jem and Scout who are visitors of Calpurnia to her negro church. Lula approaches Calpurnia on her way to the church doors and claims, "Stop right there nigger...you ain't got no business briggin' white chillun here- they got their church..."(Lee, 1960, pg. 158). Most interestingly, Harper Lee uses irony again to highlight this kind of blind spot when Lula uses racist names on Calpurnia, while they are the same race. Also, surprisingly, Lula is racist to the children because they are white whereas at first it seems only white people are racist; this in itself is a blind spot. The racism blind spot appears to everyone in Maycomb, and in the book it is so common in everyday life that Lula can naturally take offence to the presence of whites in her church. These are all blind spots because whites and blacks cannot understand each other and therefore
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