Racism and Prejudice

I think racism and prejudice stem out of a fear of the unknown, anger and problems that are blamed on a certain group of people to take the focus of off the real issue, or from basing your view of an entire group on the actions of a few members of that group. I think Harper Lee wants us to realize that there will always be prejudice around us but we need to stand for what we believe in and not be prejudice ourselves. A lot of the time people can have a bad experience with a few members of one group and then form a skewed opinion of the entire group based off that one bad experience. The evil assumption that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women (247). Many people make assumptions about a whole group of people based off of no real facts and that its wrong to do so and we need to judge people off of how good of a person they are not theyre race, religion, etc., or any group of people in general. In order for us to put a stop to racism and prejudice people need stop focusing on stereotypes and focus on personality instead. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird the majority of Maycomb is racist or prejudice in some way and it takes a person with strong personal beliefs to stand up against it. Before I can live with other folks Ive got to live with myself. The one thing that doesnt abide by majority rule is a persons conscience (114). You need to go with what you believe in instead of submitting to the views of those around you. And that you need to make educated decisions and not just go along with other peoples clouded views. The law should be fair no matter what and should not favor one person over another just because of the color of their skin but unfortunately the law is not always fair. the one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box (293). Sometimes people will jump to conclusions and automatically assume someone is guilty of a crime that they did not commit because of their race and that is very wrong, but sometimes people get so set in the beliefs that no matter how much proof you show them they will not listen. We need to stop focusing on what the person looks like and actually listen to the facts but some people will never put aside their racism or prejudice long enough to realize that theyre being judgmental and then someone innocent can be wrongfully accused of something they never did because it could be a stereotypical crime for someone of that race. The justice system is not fair even though it was designed to be and we need to change that so that everyone as an equal chance at justice and freedom. We need to realize that racism and prejudice are everywhere around us and that even if we dont consider ourselves prejudice we probably make subconscious judgments about people all the time based on nothing but their appearance. We need to work our hardest to eliminate prejudice from our lives and develop our own beliefs not based on popular stereotypes.

Works Cited
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Warner Books, 1960. Print.