Identity to Kill a Mocking Bird Essay

Picture this, a nineteen year old white girl blaming an older black man for her father’s actions in a jury of dominantly white people that wish to throw the Negro in a jail cell for eternity. This is one of the strongest contributions that race shapes one’s identity in the book To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee. Adding to race, what about a male African American walking down the street that gets stopped by a police man who suspected him of committing a crime. Now not only is he black, he is a male also. These are only two of the three aspects of how social forces can shape one’s identity. There are several that can shape an identity, three examples being race, culture, and gender.
One social force that contributes to one’s identity is race. One example to prove this is shown is in the article written by Leanita McClain, “The Middle-Class Black’s Burden.” In this article Leanita talks about how her sister was prejudged overall by the color of her skin and was driven to the back of her own apartment because the cab driver assumed she was a nanny, cook, or maid. “What a hollow victory we have won when my sister, dressed her designer everything, is driven to the rear door of the luxury high rise in which she lives because the cab driver, noting only her skin color, assumes she is the maid, or the nanny, or the cook, but certainly not the lady of any house at this address” (260). Unfortunately her sister got judged by the color of her skin even though she was in high-end designer clothing, this proves how race contributes to one’s identity. In the same light, another example from Leanita’s article tells about how hard her sister struggled to prove that blacks and whites are equal. “I am burdened daily with showing whites that blacks are people” (260). This quote builds to the main idea that race contributes to one’s identity because it shows that white’s feel more superior towards blacks. Furthermore in the same essence a quote in the book To Kill a...