To Kill a Mockingbird Notes

N-word and Jim Crow Laws

-unique in English language

-high controversial, still used in many countries to refer to people with dark skin, particularly of African origin

-carries connotation of personal worthlessness

-used to accurately depict like during Great Depression

-Created to be derogatory

-Comes from physical and emotional violence upon blacks

-tried to change connotation but has been unsuccessful

-Some blacks use it when referring to close friends

-an attempt to own the word

-diffuses meaning and makes it powerless

Jim Crow Laws

-blacks could not shake hands with whites-socially unequal/rape

-not supposed to eat together-whites first, partition

-not light a cigarette for a different color-intimacy

-not allowed to show affection-offended whites

-Blacks introduced to whites, never whites to blacks

-whites did not use Mr, Mrs, Miss, Sir or Ma'am, called by first names

-if a black person rode in a car driven by a white person, the black would sit in teh back or back of truck

-white motorists always  had the right of way at all intersections

Conversation

-never assert or intimate a white person is lying

-never impute dishonorable intentions

-never suggest from an inferior class

-never lay claim to or demonstrate, knowledge, intelligence

-never curse one

-never laugh derisively

-never comment on the appearance

-13,14,15 Amendments guaranteed blacks same legal protection as whites

-Plessy v. Ferguson legitimized Jim Crow, 1896

-Denial of voting rights

-Violence led to many whites claiming lynchings were necessary to keep blacks in line