Racial Prejudice: Past, Present, and Future "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

Essay by istpdyu4evr15High School, 10th gradeA, October 2009

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Social issues are problems in our society for a variety of reasons. One reason is the fact that the issues can't be solved overnight. Social issues include alcohol and drug abuse, sexism, and most importantly racial prejudice. Racial prejudice is morally wrong because a person has a deep hatred for another just for their way of living or the color of their skin. Racial prejudice continues to decrease as time advances, but little progress has been made to completely cease racism. Racial prejudice in history created issues between races, but have been continually and gradually decreasing as new solutions have been made to abolish it once and for all.

Major problems with racial prejudice were caused in the past by people who simply despised a certain race. One problem that arose was slavery. Slavery was one of the evils of racism because blacks were forced into poverty and to work for whites.

Whites believed that they were superior toward the blacks and had the right to call them dirty names and kill them viciously. "Africans endured whippings and beatings, as well as diseases that swept through filthy cabins. Numerous Africans died from disease or physical abuse, some even committed suicide. They were auctioned off to the highest bidder, often being separated from loved ones and friends. Many lived on little food in small dreary huts. They worked long days and suffered beatings. Slavery was a lifelong condition, as well as a hereditary one." (Beck, 569) Another problem that occurred in the past was massacre of certain races called genocide. (Beck, 937) For example, the Holocaust was an example of genocide. Hitler despised the Jews and his helpers, the Nazis, killed over six million Jews cold-heartedly. "Never shall I forget the faces of the little children, whose bodies I saw turned...