The prospect of being raised by Aunt Alexandra, who would fire Calpurnia, is enough for the children to suffer a severe trauma, another example of Harper Lee presenting an outrageous situation with underplayed humour. Atticus provides the psychoanalysis that him accepting threats with good humour may save the Ewell children from abuse, a rather dubious looking assertion. It seems obviously wrong that the threat would be the end of the matter, but Atticus seems happy to accept this delusion. Alexandra warns him to expect a furtive attack to revenge his grudge.
Tom Robinson is on death row in one of those awful prison farms, at Enfield. I have read about the Angola plantation prison in Louisiana, which sounds like modern slavery.
Atticus and the children debate whether merely circumstantial evidence should be enough to justify execution, given the reasonable doubt criterion. But the factor of race is recognised as overwhelming any such sensitivities.https://www.grunge.com/204945/the-viole ... la-prison/ says
Conditions were so horrific that in 1884, the editor at the Daily Picayune concluded that it would be “more humane to punish with death all prisoners sentenced to a longer period than six years.” Between 1870 and 1901, 3,000 inmates died. Amid reports about the barbaric treatment of inmates, the state of Louisiana took over the prison. But some might argue that the brutal plantation mentality persisted under government-approved overseers.
According to Newsweek, in 2018, more than two dozen inmates peacefully refused to perform farm work, and called for an investigation into "slavery" at Angola.
Atticus explains that adulthood affects reason, white against black, but that means cheating based on racial power makes a person trash.
He presents a classic statement:
The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it— whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.” Atticus was speaking so quietly his last word crashed on our ears. I looked up, and his face was vehement. “There’s nothing more sickening to me than a lowgrade white man who’ll take advantage of a Negro’s ignorance. Don’t fool yourselves—it’s all adding up and one of these days we’re going to pay the bill for it. I hope it’s not in you children’s time.”
There is constant psychology. Atticus surmises that a Cunningham on the jury wanted to acquit because of how the Finches stopped the lynching at the jail, as a matter of honour. But for Alexandra, that is nowhere near allowing a Cunningham to darken the Finch threshold. Scout presses the point, and Aunty explains
Jem has it figured:“I’ll tell you why,” she said. “Because— he—is—trash, that’s why you can’t play with him. I’ll not have you around him, picking up his habits and learning Lord-knows-what. You’re enough of a problem to your father as it is.”
The concept of trash as a social category provides a constant refrain. Alexandra's rests on the belief that for children to associate with those who encourage theft and indolence tends to validate those norms and undermines prospects of social success. For an individual, associating with people who are as prestigious as possible tends to be the way to get ahead in the world, both in terms of seeing successful role models and building networks of support. Which of course validates and reinforces prejudicial views about class, race and caste. For an individual to reject these norms invites the sort of reaction Atticus received from Bob Ewell.“Atticus said one time the reason Aunty’s so hipped on the family is because all we’ve got’s background and not a dime to our names.”