What is Swept Under the Rug

Maycomb Tribune
Pg A35
Dec 9, 2008 Edition
What is Swept Under the Rug
By:



Things are pretty simple in Maycomb County, Alabama in 1931. Ipods, cell phones, and computers are unheard of, (if you can believe it.)Kids going to school for one day a year is just “something that happens”,and if you feel a sense of déjà vu when you look at the faces of the different people in the town, you’re not mistaken. When everyone marries their second or third cousin, everyone is bound to start looking alike! and a mad dog coming into the street is the talk of the town for weeks. Gossip is a top form of entertainment and nit picking details of your neighbor’s life is practically a sport-there is no such thing as a secret in Maycomb County. Kids entertain themselves by spying on the neighbors, playing football, and, dare I say it, using their imagination. People aren’t very wealthy, and the titles dump truck driver or garage worker hold honor.
Not only that, in Maycomb being racist is a trait that people have no shame in. In this town, the saying goes, “If a black man is accused of a rape, he’s as good as dead.” The thought of giving someone who is considered half a person a fair trial just doesn’t register- the relationship between most blacks and whites is worse than acrimonious. In our modern, “progressive” society, most people like to think that kind of stuff doesn’t go on anymore. Yet, if we stop to check for a moment what has been discreetly swept under the rug, what you find may surprise you.

13 year old girls walk around you donning Uggs, denim miniskirts, and Abercrombie polos. Their eyes are unrecognizable, smothered in layers of mascara and liner. In their hands, being used with such speed the French manicured nails are almost blurred, are EnV cell phones, and iPod buds are shoved into their pierced ears.
We’re not in Alabama anymore, Toto!
Welcome to (removed to keep identity safe ha), home to families of wealthy lawyers and businesspeople. In school the kid’s don’t know a third of the people they see in the halls, and if they do they certainly don’t know much about them! Unlike Maycomb, time after school isn’t spent in tree houses or playing pretend-these kids stopped that business when they were about six. Instead, sports practices, tutors, music rehearsals, clubs, and homework dominate their time. Parent’s lives are just as hectic, with all of the chaperoning and scheduling they have to do just to keep their kids up to speed. (Let alone all of the concerns they have with their own lives.) With everyone having such demanding, stressful lives, we don’t really have the time to gossip about everyone. The most we can handle thinking about is our own problems, and even that gets overwhelming! Yet, the biggest difference by far between modern day Fairfield and the once-was Maycomb County is the racism factor. Of course, as the song goes, “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist,” but we’re not so much so that we wouldn’t provide a fair trial, talk to, or be friends with someone! In fact, those that are racist are the ones who keep it secret, not vice versa!

Yet, believe it or not, there are a fair amount of similarities between farm town Maycomb County and Lawyerville (removed). Just because people’s lives in (removed) are crazy doesn’t mean they’re so busy that they aren’t even “curious” about others. A fair amount of judgment and gossip go through the mill, just like everywhere else. People from both places make assumptions about others the second they see them, and connect the “facts” they’ve heard to the faces. We can also act a little bit snobbish towards the people that we know are “lesser” than us-families on welfare, those kids whom it’s common knowledge are freaks, etc. We do it because it makes us feel better about ourselves, it’s human nature. Neither time, nor location, can change that.

I have a hope, however, that one day acting higher than others will take the same path being racist has. By this I mean that I hope eventually people will be ashamed that they think others are lesser than them, and that most will not give a second thought to others being extremely different. Right now, yes, in Eastern America, 2008, people who aren’t considered equal to, or the same as, everyone else are not necessarily given the benefit of being looked at with an unbiased eye. For example, some of these groups would be gays, Hispanics, middle Easterns, Goths, etc. I fervently hope that one day these people will not be the butt of our jokes, and we will be rightly ashamed for having those prejudiced thoughts. As we are looking at racism against blacks now, I hope in a few years time we will have the same perspective about other minorities.