The prejudice that was used against Tom Robinson in the book To Kill A Mockingbird. It uses the OJ Simpson trial to compare and contrast.

Essay by Jwp1534Junior High, 9th gradeA, December 2002

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Prejudice In Justice

The case of Tom Robinson in the book To Kill A Mockingbird reminds me of a trial that actually occurred only a few years ago; that was the infamous OJ Simpson case. The two cases have many of the same traits, but ended up being very different. While the cases are a lot alike, there are some characteristics that are different.

One major point of interest for me is the race of the suspects in both cases. In both the Tom Robinson case and the OJ Simpson trial the men suspected of the crimes are black. Although this seems a little curious now, it wasn't in the time of Tom Robinson. In that time, in the south, a lot of people were racist and black people were frequently accused of crimes they didn't commit. The race of the suspects is something that is significant in the comparison of these two trials.

Another notable fact is the race of the victims in the two cases. In the two trials all the victims, Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman in the OJ trial and Mayella Ewell in Tom Robinson's trial, were white. In To Kill A Mockingbird the victim was Mayella, a poor white girl who was abused by her father. Although it wasn't proved her father abused her, Mayella knew she could blame the crime on a black man and get away with it because of the racial tension in the south. One of the victims in the OJ Simpson case was Nicole Brown, OJ's ex-wife (who was white). The second victim in the OJ trial was Nicole Brown's friend Ron Goldman who was also white.

Although there are a lot of similarities between the two trials there are some differences also. One difference is that a change of...