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In To Kill a Mockingbird, what are three events that support when Atticus says, "We know all men are not created equal"?

Atticus says, "We know all men are not created equal" in chapter twenty during his closing remarks for the Tom Robinson case. His first example pertaining to this phrase is what he sees in public education, which might make one think of Scout's experience on her first day of school in chapter two. The children who show up for first grade that day are certainly not created equal. For example, Scout is a great reader and can read everything her teacher puts in front of her. Walter Cunningham, on the other hand, has been going to the first day of first grade for a couple of years and still can't read. Atticus would not consider them equal academically. Ironically, though, Scout is pressured by her teacher, Miss Caroline, to stop reading with her father and to forget everything she knows so she can learn to read with her class. It's as if Scout is being forced to act on an "equal" playing field with people who did not learn to read prior to starting school.

Another event regarding Walter Cunningham shows how unequal his life is compared to Scout's. When he is invited over for lunch in chapter three, Walter pours maple syrup on his vegetables. Why? No one really knows. It could be because he's so hungry that syrup sounded good at the time. Scout overreacts and screams about it. Calpurnia gives her a lecture about how unequal the two are and her responsibility as a result of that inequality:



"Don't matter who they are, anybody sets foot in this house's yo' comp'ny, and don't you let me catch you remarkin' on their ways like you was so high and mighty! Yo' folks might be better'n the Cunninghams but it don't count for nothin' the way you're disgracin' 'em" (24-25).



This event drives home in Scout's mind that Walter is unequal to her financially and socially, but she should not use that as a reason to rub her privilege in his face or to be rude to him. 


The biggest unequal event is the Tom Robinson case. That a white man has the power to accuse a black man of a crime, without any evidence, and have that case actually goes to trial—that is unequal. Not only that, but black people in Maycomb are treated like second-class citizens, not equal to the white residents. The power that white privilege provides to white people is substantially unequal to the opportunities black people have. Life between whites and blacks in Maycomb in the 1930s was an unequal event in and of itself. Black children didn't go to school with Scout. In fact, Scout doesn't even mention where black children went to school. Many of them probably worked alongside their parents in the fields to help make ends meet. Therefore, the three events that show how people are not created equal is academically, financially, and socially, as seen by examples from Scout's reading ability in school, Walter Cunningham's life with hunger, and the black community's second-class treatment. 

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