Radley Racism Quotes

Racism in Maycomb

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (Lee 39). The previous quote is from To Kill a Mockingbird and the author Harper Lee is showing how people will judge in the world without positively knowing the person’s life or story. In her novel To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee portrays racial prejudice with characters making different negative assumptions mostly towards African Americans. Unfamiliarity and misjudgment quickens the views of racism.

After the kids were escaping the Radley’s yard, Nathan Radley was being racially prejudiced when he misinterpreted to Miss Maudie and Stephanie Crawford that an African American had entered his yard. “’What happened?’ asked Jem, ‘Mr. Radley shot at a Negro in his collard patch’” (Lee 72). This is when Nathan Radley assumed it was an African American that trespassed into his yard, but it was really the whites. This shows how he jumped to conclusions that it was an African American because there was slaves and runaway slaves back then. Their judgment in the book is the worst when they say it was a “Negro” instead of investigating and realizing it was the people that were in their face, Jem, Scout, and Dill. This judgement continues with negative comments towards the Finches.

Atticus and his children

receive threats or harsh comments for defending an African American, Tom Robinson. People will judge you for what you believe in such as defending an African American. “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…’You aren’t really a nigger-lover are you?’ ‘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” (Lee 144-145). Scout was told this by her cousin Francis that her father, Atticus, was favoring the “Negroes” over his own kind, whites. This shows how this negative comment toward the Finches was racist because Atticus was standing up for what believes in which is everyone should be treated equally, yet people in Maycomb prefer to go another direction of recognizing the African Americans as if their lives are not as valuable as the whites. From this quote, Atticus is saying he can be labeled whatever or gossiped about. However, Atticus knows right from wrong. Everyone, no matter what race, gender, or color, should be treated with equality and with respect. On the other hand, people will not expect some races to do the same habit as other races would.
When Calpurnia took Jem and Scout, white children, to her church which is a colored church, people at the church were immediately unfamiliar with the situation with whites now attending the colored church. In the past, races such as colored and whites were segregated to be separated but “equal”. A girl approached Calpurnia and the children to make a statement when it says, “Lula stopped, but she said, ‘You ain’t got no business bringin’ white chillun here- they got their church, we got our’n. It is our church, ain’t it, Miss Cal?’” (Lee 158). This is the first time that Jem and Scout experienced discrimination against themselves from Lula. Lula was stating that Jem and Scout did not belong at the colored church because they had their church, that is why segregation was created. In addition to this quote, this shows how unfamiliar Jem and Scout are to the situation of how an African American was discriminating towards them. Normally and usually it was the white race that were being prejudice, unlike an African American being bias to another race back then. Both white and colored races were racially prejudice back then, although it was mostly the white people who would discriminate more. In the past, there was a constant and regularly routine of races degrading another race for no logical reason.
In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee showed how African Americans usually suffered from rumors and assumptions people gossiped about them.

Back then, people would assume African Americans were the only ones who caused trouble, considered as “trash”, and did not deserve as much as whites did. Now, will you continue this wrong doing of treating people as if your life is far more precious or valuable than another human being, just like you, or be the change in this world and do what is right? The right is treating every human being on this earth with equality, respect, and how their life is as valuable as

yours.