Mrs. Gates' Hypocrisy

Essay by fungi_the_greatJunior High, 9th gradeA, April 2007

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Miss Gates condemns Hitler's prejudice against Jews based on their belief, but condones racial prejudice against blacks.

Adolf Hitler and his incarceration of Jews came up during Scout's grade two current affairs class. Miss Gates, Scout's teacher, wants to impress upon the children the moral values that they should uphold, discussing this injustice and crime against humanity. She lectured the children at great length about how wrong it was for Hitler to persecute them that way. She was only talking about the injustice received by white people.

Once the verdict is given, Miss Gates says that she is glad that the jury did something about the blacks. That "they" were getting too high and mighty, and should be put back in their place (247). Now she shows that it is acceptable to kill an innocent black person.

She has now inadvertently taught Scout two points concerning morality: one of the injustices towards Jews, the other to slaughter other innocent human beings based on their skin colour.

These two combined confuse Scout. She has always been taught to be unprejudiced towards both, but not one or the other.

As Scout says: "How can you hate Hitler so bad an' then turn around and be ugly about folks right at home"