To Kill A Mockingbird Should Be Banned Essay

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Harper Lee’s critically renowned novel To Kill a Mockingbird has made its way onto the Library of Congress list of most banned or challenged books (Banned Books Week). Although, according to Lee herself, "To Kill a Mockingbird spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners” (Incredible Letter). To Kill a Mockingbird should not be banned or restricted by schools based on the un-American practices associated with book banning, the positive morals that are beneficial for child readers found inside the novel, and the valuable lessons on racism contained in the text. The general notion of banning and restricting content, in particular books, is…show more content…
One prominent example of explicit and racist vocabulary being used maliciously in To Kill a Mockingbird is in the courtroom when Bob Ewell calls Tom Robinson a n****r in an attempt to undermine him as a person (Censorship Dateline). Although, this argument does not hold merit as racially explicit language is only used negatively by antagonistic characters and is looked down upon by protagonistic characters. An main example of this occurring in the book is when Scout questions Atticus about what other people are calling him: “You aren’t really a nigger-lover, then, are you?” Scout asks. “I certainly am. I do my best to love everybody. I’m hard put, sometimes— baby, its 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” (To Kill a Mockingbird). This passage highlights how To Kill a Mockingbird does not advocate for saying racially explicit language, but rather shows that saying it makes you less of a person. In a world where the word n****r is used very commonly in the music industry, To Kill a Mockingbird provides readers transparency about the true meaning associated with these words and uses real characteristics of the past to learn

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