Even though Tom was just expressing his compassion to a weak poor young woman in need, his comment was automatically taken offensively and the courtroom was flipping head over heels. The black community was not respected in the 1930s' for this reason they weren't trusted either. .
Black peoples credibility was much lower than the white communities in the 1930s', they weren't considered trustworthy. The largest demonstration of this in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird is Tom Robinson, he was guilty the moment that Bob Ewell reported him to the Sheriff Heck Tate. There wasn't much hope if any for Tom to win the juries verdict; the trial was more to make a point and show Tom Robinson is innocent and did not rape Mayella, even though both Atticus and Tom knew he would be convicted. ".Atticus Finch won't win, he can't win, but he's the only man in these parts who can keep a jury out so long in a case like that. And I thought to myself, well, were making a step-it's just a baby step, but it's a step." (Lee p.216) People knew there was no chance the jury would deem Tom innocent. The fact that the jury took so long meant that they were debating it seriously, for a prolonged period. A large step in the fight against racism. The racism in To Kill a Mockingbird was ridiculous, not in the fact that there was so much of it and it was so strong, but in the fact that a community would take the word of a trashy white man over that of a clearly innocent black man; that is what makes it so ridiculous. Atticus finch shows that Bob Ewell is a left handed man, he asks him to sign his name and he uses his left, and Mayella's bruises are on her right, meaning she was attacked by a right handed man. Tom Robinson clearly could not have done the damage to Mayella, his left arm and hand were left useless after a previous incident. "As he raised his right hand, the useless one slipped off the Bible and hit the clerk's table" (Lee p.