Racial Injustice In To Kill A Mockingbird

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorHigh School, 10th grade February 2002

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To Kill a Mockingbird, by Nelle Harper Lee, was written in 1960. During the 1960's great movements towards equality and integration were taking place, there was great social injustice towards African-Americans. This was Lee's entire plot of the book he wanted to show how even when all evidence proofed a black man innocent when his word is faced the that of a white person or person of the privileged society, he will be found guilty. In To Kill a Mockingbird Lee wrote about a black man named Tom Robinson, who has been accused of raping a very poor white girl named Mayella Ewell, when in all actuality he did nothing but help her out. She made sexual advances towards him, and as he rejected Mayella's father walked in and became outraged and began to beat her, scared half to death Tom ran, and later was wrongly accused, then convicted.

This makes me ask, Can justice ever be colorblind? Being colorblind is not recognizing racial or class distinctions, this is an important part of finding true justice. Justice is the upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law. People cannot be treated fairly when they are being judged by a bias society, especially when the bias is against them. People often relate with people with similar backgrounds, to the jury the Ewells had the most similar so it was only natural that they would be looked at as being truthful. 'First of all,' he said, 'If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view-' 'Sir?' '-until you climb into his skin and walk...