Discrimination to Destruction: The Impact of Individuals on Communities in Harper Lee and Anne Frank Anonymous 8th Grade

Throughout history, racism has been the cause of thousands of historical events that have ripped populations apart. To be more general, the discrimination of individuals always leads up to the split of the community itself. Within Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, and Anne Frank’s Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl, it can clearly be seen how racism in both novels tore apart the communities within the books. The racism of African-Americans in the town of Maycomb led to the death of an individual, while the racism of Jews during World War I resulted in the massacre of thousands of Jews. Both of these novels prominently display how discrimination and segregation effectively tear societies apart by singling out individuals with different characteristics.

Being different from others typically causes discrimination; the main causes of discrimination are usually ethnicity and religion. This occurs in both novels when the communities begin to segregate African-Americans (Lee) and Jews (Frank). In To Kill A Mockingbird, many citizens make comments about the African-Americans and create a numerous amount of stereotypes for them. When one of the African-Americans in the town of Maycomb, Tom Robinson, was shot and killed, the book stated...