Scout was very young when the Tom Robinson situation started. She had limited understanding of the way the world worked. Like most children, Scout was a product of her environment. Although she had a father who was fighting for legal equality in court, she did not really understand the way the world of Maycomb worked.
Scout was surprised when people at school began to tease her because her father was defending a black man.
“Do you defend niggers, Atticus?” I asked him that evening.
“Of course I do. Don’t say nigger, Scout. That’s common.”
“‘s what everybody at school says.”
“From now on it’ll be everybody less one—”
“Well if you don’t want me to grow up talkin‘ that way, why do you send me to school?” (Ch. 9)
For Scout, racism was a mystery. Scout had limited understanding of class too, asking Atticus if they were poor. She complained when Walter Cunningham ate his food differently, but she also explained to the teacher that she couldn’t lend the students money they couldn’t pay back. It was a matter of determining how things worked.
Scout’s education in racism mostly resulted from watching people’s reactions to what her father did. She didn’t understand why others considered it wrong to defend Tom Robinson. She was offended by her cousin Francis when he insulted Atticus.
During the trial, Scout watched with limited understanding. Dill, who was about the same age, had a physical reaction to what he saw. He was so horrified at the blatant racism and how Mr. Gilmer treated Tom Robinson that he had to be taken from the courtroom. For Scout, this was another lesson in race.
Jem, who was definitely older and more experienced, was actually more naïve about racism before and during the trial. Although he explained to Scout that different types of people were treated differently, he still held out hope that Tom Robinson would get a fair trial.
“… I’ve thought about it a lot lately and I’ve got it figured out. There’s four kinds of folks in the world. There’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, there’s the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the Negroes.” (Ch. 23)
Jem really believed that Tom Robinson was going to be acquitted. He believed in justice. Scout, though younger, believed that Jem was counting chickens. She was not convinced that her father had proven Tom innocent. This was not a result of Scout being racist. She was just trying to understand the world around her.
Throughout the course of the book, Scout gets an education is race and class relations. She is aware on some level that the world is not fair. She knows, for example, that the ladies who meet in Aunt Alexandra's missionary circle are hypocrites, claiming to care about children in Africa while they turn their backs on needy African Americans in their own city.
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