To Kill a Mockingbird paints a hyperrealistic picture of country U.S.A during the 1930’s. Thus, there is a perfectly imposed picture of 1930’s they/us racism. Additionally, a centre plot line of a false rape allegation, drive home the repugnant attitudes of white elitism.

Its very easy to spot and notice racism in this context. There exists the sense of “other”: The houses are in seperate communities and blacks occupy jobs which are considered “lesser” from the opinions of whites are just two examples. I feel in this specific context, it is appropriate to call that racism. There is a general sensability around racial groups and a not-so-apparent, but still general sense around the white elitism. Black people are considered lesser. The court case is the greatest example and metaphor for this line of thinking from the 30’s. However, for 2025 I do not feel that the word racism has lost it’s meaning. Its ubiquitous use combined with modern multi-cultural contexts render “racism” a word which has become transient.

The depth of argument here is twofold:

1. Not liking someone simply for the colour of their skin in a globalised world seems increasingly dishonest and untrue. We all grow up with people from different cultures, we all know that the generalisations that the news tries to make are harmful. Even if this is true: if I hate Brazilians because they are arrogant, ignorant and narcissistic, what colour skin do I hate? The original people’s from the Amazon have olive coloured skin, whilst the people who are descendants from the slave trade maintain their dark skin. There are also a lot of Japanese immigrants in Brazil, their skin tone is the same as ours!
2. I’m not arguing that there isn’t localised injustice and prejudice. I am arguing that the name ‘racism’ shouldn’t be used as the noun. There is internal racism in Brazil around the descendants of slaves, there is general racism in almost every coloniser country against their colonised.

My argument is that the colour of skin is not the defining feature of the prejudice and therefore shouldn’t be the moniker given. If someone hates black people it’s because their skin is a symbol of an unliked culture. This is more akin to xenophobia.

Xenophobia is a “prejudice against other countries”, as defined by Oxford. However, it’s more common use is in sci-fi as a dislike of other alien species. I believe this term should become the de facto noun for the prejudices we see. Thus, skin colour is a marker for a culture someone is prejudiced against.

The inundation from news outlets, social media, “statistics” and statistics, all paint a picture that isn’t the total, absolute truth. There is no such thing as an absolute truth. But, the conclusion’s drawn from such data as an individual drives them to make a personal truth about other cultures. It’s not that they simply hate black skin, it’s that for whatever idiotic reason, they hate the entirety of black culture.

To Kill a Mockingbird let’s us see into the history of racial relations. It is a window into a past which doesn’t exists any more. The development and changing of society has made such rudimentary notions non-existant. Thus we need to update the vernacular to maintain equilibrium with the more complex demands of the 21st century.