Ignorance is not bliss

My wife and I went to see To Kill A Mockingbird tonight. It's been a while since I'vve watched this great movie and it moved me to tears and to thought. It's shocking to think what hatred and intolerance can make us do. That people would disregard plain and obvious facts is incredible and yet it happens in our world every day. We judge people we've never met and certainly have not taken the time to know.
Atticus Finch says of Mae Bell that she is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance and this is the great truth of the story. Hatred and intolerance are more often born of ignorance than anything else. I have a family member who is a prime example of this. He and his family live in the suburbs and just can't understand why I would choose to live in a poorer part of the city. They are constantly trying to persuade my wife and I to buy a house near theirs, or anywhere outside of the urban core. When I first moved to the urban core, he wanted to give me a shotgun. When he helped my wife and I move into our latest apartment he brought a gun with him. He's never met our neighbors and their two wonderful children. In fact he's only been to our neighborhood once for a total of 1 hour. His only exposure to the inner city is through the evening news and public opinion. Just enough to make it and him dangerous. He believes that every person in the inner city is like the one on the news who shot someone or committed some other crime. He's never taken the time to meet the people who live here just as the people in the novel had never taken the time to meet Boo Radley.