In Harper Lee’s TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, one of the main characters is Atticus, an attorney who stands up for a falsely-accused “Negro” and “rapist.” We see much of the story through the eyes of his children. He tells them that they must see prejudiced people as simply ill-informed.

He insists that his daughter, who is prone to get into fights with antagonistic males in her second-grade class, is to simply turn away and ignore the fact that these kids are bringing their parents’ attitudes into the school. Attitudes developed because of malicious talk about her father, because of his role as the defense attorney for his client.

Yet he contradicts his mild-mannered approach at one point, near the end of the novel, when he tells his son: “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.” A far cry from being ill-informed.

Perhaps you sometimes struggle with how to live with what you know about the bigotry and collusion you’ve seen, especially among people like those in this small, fictitious Southern town of Maycomb.

Fact is, as Atticus really understood deep in his heart, no matter what we believe or feel about people who are ignorantly cruel, it serves us well to remember that they are not necessarily evil. Acting aggressively or in a manner that puts us on the level of repulsive people does not serve anyone’s best interest.

Mature Love IS all that counts for anything.