Remember back to history class. The European migrants traversed the planet as explorers and claimed stake to the lands and the indigenous people who lived there. They extended slavery to exist around the globe, which slowly evolved to racism. That’s ages ago. The LGBTQIA+ group is fresh. Its new and less than 50 years old, which is quite a lot younger than other social issues. Nonetheless, it’s still a prominent issue. Authors like Harper Lee who wrote To Kill A Mockingbird and Dashka Slater who wrote The 57 Bus use relevant issues from their society such as gender equality and racism to help shape young minds and people. In To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Lee demonstrates the social justice issue of racism in much of the second half of her book. A few examples are the multiple uses of the discriminatory n- word and colored (“Negroes” (Lee 258 & Lee 280) “Colored” (Lee 272 & Lee 276)). Harper uses this language in her book not only because it is relevant to the time period, but to also prove that injustices like labeling a person by the color of their skin was nearly fully accepted.
In another spot in the book, Jem tells Scout “Atticus says cheatin’ a colored man is ten times worse than cheating a white man” (Lee 269). Lee puts this into her book because she is showing that Atticus is teaching Jem who is furthermore teaching Scout about right versus wrong. She is showing rather than telling that Atticus is teaching his children that not only is it bad to cheat a person, but it is much worse to cheat somebody of color because in this era of time, the person of color would have been treated as guilty and much worse than if the white person was found guilty. She is showing that there is white supremacy and injustice without directly saying those exact words.
Lee also has Scout say “Sinful man who had mixed children”, referring to Mr. Dolphus Raymond, a white man who had colored children (Lee 265). This small word sinful alters the whole phrase. This tinge of racism coming from Scout is completely overlooked by most readers. This tinge, during Tom Robinson’s trial, brings forth the subconscious racism that still exists, even though Scout has been shown what is right and what is wrong. One can assume that because Scout has been raised in such a racist community, Scout, even though she knows that being unjust to another person for any reason is wrong, can’t help but let a few subconscious thoughts pass. Just as if one was raised in a setting where it was okay to use certain language, one might accidentally let it slip sometimes.
Later on, when Tom Robinson was put in jail for being guilty on a count of rape, Jem says “It ain’t right, Atticus”. This shows how the Finch family knows the difference between right and wrong, even if the most of their small town of Maycomb does not. Throughout the whole novel, Harper Lee uses her use of words to portray a great story that encompasses themes which she thought were important enough to write a book about. Overall, in To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee does an exceptional job of placing the conflict of racism into the young minds who are reading her book. Though Lee’s intensions as she wrote this book could be debated, they all sprout from the idea that racism is a real problem and that we should recognize and do our best to eliminate it. Though she may not have realized that she would be shaping not only the literature of the future, but also the minds of the future, Lee does in ways that only a classic piece of literature can. Because of the numerous universal themes, the relatable characters, and because of how Harper Lee ordered the words that poured generously out of her thoughts, To Kill A Mockingbird is an outstanding example of a classic novel.
As it is considered a classic novel, it is often required reading in a school setting furthermore educating everybody who chooses to pick it up and read the words of truth from the pages. Because it is required reading, it means that her book is getting into the minds of those who read it. Harper Lee, whether intentionally or not, brings up real and tough issues in her book To Kill A Mockingbird that existed then and still exist now. In another book, The 57 Bus, the author, Dashka Slater shows more types of social inequality. Slater uses facts straight from events that actually happened in our world in multiple spots. One of these spots is on pages 93 and 94 where they list statistics on teen gun violence in Oakland, California. The 8 examples show without question that this is relevant in today’s world as this is happening today.
One of the main things to stress with this book and other books that are addressing newly recognized issues and themes is that this is a modern problem. In more spots on pages 44, 49, 276, and 297-302 of The 57 Bus, Slater does the same thing. Through the book, Slater uses examples of how people are being ignorant, uneducated, and not open to seeing new problems or not open to seeing solutions to problems that are hurting other people, which is very common when it comes to some social injustices. For example, going back to To Kill A Mockingbird, not everybody saw treating people of a different race differently as wrong or immoral.
Even today, this problem exists with different topics. Another way that Slater writes about social inequality is by addressing the topic of bathrooms twice within their book. By writing “It was tough sometimes, watching Sasha navigate a world that didn’t even have a category for them” (Slater 41), they prove silently that not all genders are equal enough to even have a restroom that is neutral for anybody to use. In the chapter named Bathrooms, Sasha’s mom is describing the struggle with going public places and finding a restroom for Sasha to use. She is upset at seeing her child not have a place to simply empty their bladder and the reader is thinking something along the lines of “Why can’t there be a gender neutral or agender bathroom for people to use? Why does it need to be binary?”. Not only is Slater getting across the point of social inequality, they are also engaging the reader without the reader necessarily realizing. When Slater writes about Richard being interviewed by police it is quite an important part of The 57 Bus’s themes because Richard mentions that he is “homophobic” (Slater 143).
However, upon clarifying the word with Richard, he is not truly homophobic. This is probably because of a lack of education about this topic in today’s society. In the beginning of the book, on pages 33-35, the book defines some terms for the reader which clears a lot of things up. If people could educate our society on some of these same things, like we do with the topic of racism, then we could progress to a point where there is a clear line of what is right and what is wrong or possibly even a point where everybody knows the terms and to respect people and their beliefs. In many events today, our society feels the wrath of social inequalities like racism and gender inequality in events such as the rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August of 2017 and the Orlando Shooting early in the morning of June 12, 2016. To recap the Charlottesville rally, there was a group of white supremacists, Ku Klux Klan members, and neo-Nazis protesting when counter-protesters protesting their beliefs got involved, Politico’s article titled “Man who drove into Charlottesville counter-protesters is convicted of first-degree murder” called this “one of the largest gatherings of white supremacists in a decade” and that “Some dressed in battle gear.” A car was driven into the group of counter-protesters and killed a woman.
The man responsible was charged with first degree murder and could have been charged with a lifelong sentence under federal hate crime laws. Whereas in the Orlando shooting, a man with a semi-automatic gun walked into a gay nightclub. He shot just over one hundred people and killed forty-nine of those people. ‘We know enough to say this was an act of terror and act of hate,’ President Obama said as he addressed the nation after this event. A CNN article about this event titled “Orlando shooting: 49 killed, shooter pledged ISIS allegiance” interviewed a few of the victims and wrote “The gunshots went on for so long that the shooting ‘could have lasted a whole song,’ he (the victim) said.” The Orlando Shooting and the Charlottesville Rally are prime examples that our society is still struggling with the issues of race and gender and trying to make them equal. In the books that both Harper Lee and Dashka Slater wrote, the two portrayed themes that are relevant today, no matter how old.
Slater wrote about a theme that is really popular, gender inequality, in The 57 Bus. Slater’s book shows how society is currently reacting to these new events like gender identity becoming more accepted. It shows both the good and the bad of society just like Harper Lee did. Harper Lee brought up topics that were circumstantial and captured the good and the bad of that specific time in dealing with race issues in our history. Both authors took their experiences and their societies views versus their own views and created powerful statements and messages for their audiences. Both authors, whether intentionally or not, ended up influencing the young minds who read their books, and eventually, the young minds who will be in charge of our nation.
