Racial Discrimination: What It Means to Be Colored USA

Charles R. Swindoll once said, “Prejudice is a learned trait. You are not born prejudice; you are taught it.” Prejudice can be created through ignorance, people’s surrounding opinions can potentially influence this. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, Maycomb is known to be a town where the people express their strong opinions and thoughts, which results in negative attitudes. In the speech, “What It Means to be Colored in the Capital of the U.S.” by Mary Church Terrell, the first black women to earn a college degree, she illustrates how society is prejudice towards black people based on their skin color.

Both Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Mary Church Terrell’s speech “What It Means to be Colored in the Capital of the U.S.” argue that race affects the way others view and treat one another. While Harper Lee explores Racial Discrimination by addressing that reason and morality in Maycomb is often overpowered by racism and ignorance, the speaker Mary Church Terrell explores it through her experiences with witnessing racism and discrimination around her.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee implies that racial prejudice and ignorance influence the people of Maycomb’s view of Tom Robinson. She uses an example from the event in chapter 21. After Scout, a young girl, Jem, Scout’s older brother, and everyone else present at the court had nervously been waiting for Tom’s verdict, the jury finally enters the room. As they return to their seats, they hand in their written votes to Judge Taylor.

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At this time, Judge Taylor reads through every single verdict, “‘Guilty… guilty… guilty… guilty…’ I peeked at Jem: his hands were white from gripping the balcony rail, and his shoulders jerked as if each ‘guilty’ was a separate stab between them.” (Lee 241) As Judge Taylor reads every “guilty” vote Jem becomes increasingly upset. Jem is aware of the amount of effort Atticus, Scout’s father had put into proving Tom’s innocence. Atticus had presented logic and reason to the jury while Bob and Mayella Ewell gave questionable testimonies. Despite the lack of evidence and conflicting testimonies by the Ewells, the jury let their prejudices blind them from thinking logically, thus, their strong opinions of race influence their verdict.

Following Tom’s guilty verdict and his unsuccessful escape which resulted to his death, Scout reiterates the people of Maycomb’s racist reaction by saying, “To Maycomb Tom’s death was typical. Typical of a nigger to cut and run. Typical of a nigger’s mentality to have no plan, no thought for the future, just run blind first chance he saw.” (Lee 244) After everything that had happened since the beginning of the book, the white people of Maycomb continue to believe their initial impression, that all black people are the same. Even after the case had undeniable proof of Tom’s innocence, they used his action to justify their mindset that everyone like him is cowardly and foolish.

Another person who proposes the theme of Racial Discrimination is Mary Church Terrell. Mary is a lady of color, presenting the idea that black people never seem to belong in society because of white people’s negative view of them. Essentially, she uses her past experiences and observations to prove that people treat others differently based on the person’s color. She demonstrates this by saying, “As a colored woman I may walk from the Capitol to the White House, ravenously hungry and abundantly supplied with money with which to purchase a meal, without finding a single restaurant in which I would be permitted to take a morsel of food, if it was patronized by white people” (Terrell paragraph 7) Mary states that skin color changes the amount of respect somebody grants to another. A black person who is innocently minding their own business might become judged and treated based on their physical traits.

Furthermore, if a colored individual were smart, respectful, friendly, the white people in the community would ignore all of their positive attributes, replacing them with negative thoughts. In Mary Terrell’s speech, she states that racially prejudiced mindsets could affect colored people when it comes to them receiving a job. A very intelligent and capable girl was rejected from a job opportunity because of her race even though she was the most qualified out of everyone else.

“She had received a letter from the firm stating that her references and experience were the most satisfactory … When she presented herself there was some doubt in the mind of the man to whom she was directed…he asked her point-blank whether she was colored or white. When she confessed the truth the merchant he said that employing a colored woman in his establishment in any except a menial position was simply out of the question.” (Terrell paragraph 12) Unfortunately, her color determined her future when it came to getting a job. Society viewed black people as lesser, and because of this they have limited job opportunities. Thus, society prioritizes racial identity over individual potential.

To conclude, both Harper Lee and Mary Church Terrell agree that society is biased towards people of color. Harper Lee addresses this by illustrating that race defines who the person is, even if the evidence clearly shows that they are innocent. Mary Church Terrell explores this by saying that black people tend to be discriminated despite their intelligence.