How Did Harper Lee Use Racial Prejudice In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Harper set To Kill A Mockingbird in the 1930’s where racial prejudice was very prominent everywhere. Segregation was a big battle. The Jim Crow laws stated that white people and black people must live separately, and the schooling must be separate. There was constant threat of violence towards black people, as well as black people constantly having to fight for freedom. Harper Lee wrote To Kill A Mockingbird in hopes to bring light and give a voice to the black communities during their hardships. She did so by talking about an unlawful court hearing, unsafely feelings outside of church, and prejudice. The Rodney King Case is the first case that proves this. In 1991 Rodney was beaten by the Los Angeles police. The officers were indicted on charges of assault with deadly weapons and excessive use of force by a police officer. This was caught on video tape, meaning there was proof of foul play. After a three-month trial, the predominantly white jury acquitted the officers. The white officers …show more content…

In public schools, white teachers tend to punish black students more than the rest. Suspension or expulsion for blacks is triple the rate it is for whites. Sixteen percent of blacks are suspended annually compared to five percent of whites. Black girls were suspended at a 12 percent rate compared to other ethnicities. Anyone caught socializing with black students is penalized the same way (Resmovits 1). In the story Scout starts to fight with her own cousin because she said, “I guess it ain’t your fault if Uncle Atticus is a nigger-lover besides, but I’m here to tell you it certainly does mortify the rest of the family (ch 9).” Scout’s cousin said that because all of the children were getting made fun of and talked about in the school because a white students dad decided to defend and associate with a black guy. This shows that from 1930 to now, prejudice against race in the public-school system is still very

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