Racial issue in election and Atticus’ faith in justice system

By Alex P. Vidal

 

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”—Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

WITH less than seven weeks until the US presidential election, the United States continues to reckon with its complicated racial history, and issues that impact communities of color are being highlighted in the platforms of each major political party.

Effective pitches during the recent conventions of the Democrats and Republicans would be crucial as nonwhite voters, according to Pew Research, make up about one-third of the 2020 electorate.

Democrats have introduced law enforcement overhaul legislation that goes far beyond what they have pushed before.

As the Republicans confront an increasingly forbidding political climate this year, the party is responding to fast-moving polling, which indicates that an overwhelming number of independents and even about half of Republican voters believe George Floyd’s killing represents a broad problem with policing.

More of these issues will be tackled during the much-awaited debate between President Donald Trump and Joseph Biden on September 29.

 

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THE concept of justice, meanwhile, is presented in a novel written by Harper Lee as an antidote to racial prejudice.

We found many parallels in the book, To Kill A Mockingbird, that reflect some realities in today events.

There’s the story of Atticus, described as a strongly principled, liberal lawyer who defends a wrongly accused black man, representing a role model for moral and legal justice.

In his explanation to Scout, Atticus stressed that while he believed the American justice system to be without prejudice, the individuals who sit on the jury often harbor bias, which can taint the workings of the system.

Atticus retained his faith in the system throughout the majority of the novel, but he ultimately lost in his legal defense of Tom.

Atticus expressed a certain disillusionment as a result of this experience when he agreed to conceal Boo’s culpability in the killing of Ewell, recognizing that Boo would be stereotyped by his peers, at the end of the book.

Atticus decided to act based on his own principles of justice in the end, rather than rely on a legal system that may be fallible.

The novel, a Pulitzer Prize winner, has remained enormously popular since its publication in 1960.

It also can be read as a coming-of-age story featuring a young girl growing up in the South of America and experiencing moral awakenings.

 

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The novel demonstrated the now-adult narrator’s hindsight perspective on the growth of her identity and outlook on life, as narrated from Scout’s point-of-view.

The tomboyish Scout challenged the forces attempting to socialize her into a prescribed gender role as a Southern lady, in developing a more mature sensibility.

Aunt Alexandra tried to subtly and not-so-subtly push Scout into a traditional gender role that often ran counter to her father’s values and her own natural inclinations.

As events around the trial became ugly, however, Scout realized the value of some of the traditions Alexandra was trying to show her and decided she, too, could be a “lady.”

The novel also explored themes of heroism and the idea of role models as well.

Lee has stated that the novel was essentially a long love letter to her father, whom she idolized as a man with deeply held moral convictions.

Atticus was clearly the hero of the novel, and functioned as a role model for his children. The children regarded their father as weak and ineffective because he did not conform to several conventional standards of Southern masculinity.

They eventually realized that Atticus possessed not only skill with a rifle, but also moral courage, intelligence, and humor, and they came to regard him as a hero in his own right.

 

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo)