How Does Gilmer Present Racism In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Racism In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird racism is very evident. The story takes place in the early 1930’s when racism was a common. Everybody was accustomed to it, even the colored folks were racist. In the novel, a black man by the man of Tom Robinson is accused of raping a white woman by the name of Mayella Ewell. He is found guilty even though he is clearly innocent, and the main reason for this is because of racism. In the novel, the racist sections were very obvious. During the trial Horace Gilmer, the prosecutor, was calling Tom Robinson “boy” throughout the whole trial (263-265). Horace calling Tom “boy” is one of the many racist signs. the way he uses the name, it leads on that he is thinking less of Tom. The way the situation presented…show more content…
This chapter contains Atticus being called a “nigger-lover”. He explains to Scout that the word was a meaningless word by saying, “‘Scout’... ‘nigger-lover is just one of those terms that don't mean anything -- like snot-nose. It’s hard to explain-- ignorant, trashy people use it when they think somebody’s favoring Negroes over and above themselves. It’s slipped into usage with some people like ourselves, when they want a common ugly term to label somebody.” Scout then replies with, “You aren't really a nigger-lover, then, are you?” Atticus responds to her with, “I certainly am. I do my best to love everybody… I’m hard put, sometimes -- baby. It’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn’t hurt you." (144-145) Him saying this to Scout shows how he is being the bigger person, and not stooping down and calling people names. The way people were calling Atticus was very immature on their…show more content…
The way she uses it is immature humor, because she doesn’t exactly know what the real meaning of the word it. It is fair enough to assume that she heard people use the word and just used it because everythsng was so influential. The way this relates in present-time is all the people starting fires and riots when it doesn’t help anybody’s case. The way this word was spread was very evident and that just shows how influenced people can get, back then and now. People should realize that the word back then and the world now isn’t any different. People are still doing things that probably goes against their morals because the world says it's ok. “Secretly, Miss Finch, I’m not much of a drinker, but you see they could never, never understand I live like I do because that’s the way i want to live" (Lee 268). The quote above can be interpreted in many different ways. One of these is, he is giving up everything for the woman he loves. It can also mean just because you hang out with one specific group doesn’t mean you are necessarily like everyone in that group, or that one person will risk everything for the person they
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