“You never really understand a person until you climb into its skin and walk around in it.” – Atticus Finch
To Kill a Mockingbird: Parallels with the present times
The world is once again burning in the flames of #BlackLivesMatter protests after police killed an African American, George Floyd, during an arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Like George Floyd in the real world, it was Tom Robinson, a black man, who was in the receiving end of the brutality of the white men in the classic To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, which was set under a similar circumstance in Maycomb, Alabama during the 1930s.
To Kill a Mockingbird narrates the perspective of a child, Jean Louise Finch aka Scout. Her father Atticus Finch is a man with morals and works as a lawyer in the small town. Scout and her elder brother Jim, are well-taught by Atticus, mostly home schooled and are different from children of their age because of the teachings and values passed by Atticus. Both the children have different perspectives of the world, are curious questioning almost anything and everything, even the decisions of her father.
The core matter of the novel reveals after Atticus gets involved in a case of a black man, Tom Robinson, who is convicted of raping a white woman. Atticus gets to defend Tom’s case and has to go through various hardships to convince the judges of Tom’s innocence. The town dominated by white people start giving a hard time to Atticus and even to his kids. Some people even threaten Atticus as he supports Tom, only for Scout’s bravery and innocence to turn some sense into the white men at one instance.
Atticus, being a man of character, provides all the pieces of evidence of Tom’s innocence and detailed accounts of the event that led to Tom being convicted. However, it was a black man’s voice against a white woman in court. The court, despite all the evidence, nulls them and condemns Tom for a life sentence. Tom gets shot a couple of days later as he tries to run from jail.
Despite being set about 90 years ago, we can still draw the parallels between the cases of Tom Robinson and George Floyd. It shows that we as humans have never evolved from racism. Some people still chastise black people just because of their skin color. Inequality and injustice for the black lives are still prevalent in their daily lives, and they are compelled to accept it. Some white people have never accepted colored people as their equals. Even when they are at fault, the colored are the ones who get blamed. The result is the callousness against innocents like Tom Robinson and George Floyd.
What the world needs is the perspective of children like Scout, who respect all people as human beings, who have no idea of the concept of racism that gets taught by the society as the children grow up. The world needs people like Atticus, who are brave enough to pursue cases like that of Tom, even if it means to align against people of his community. People who do not prejudice that black people are always at fault. People whose behavior does not change based on the color of the skin of a person. Such a world will indeed be an ideal world for us to live as a community with mutual respect.
#BlackLivesMatter #JusticeforGeorgeFloyd
#ToKillaMockingbird #HarperLee