In Chapter 23 of To Kill a Mockingbird Jem and Scout have a conversation about what Jem calls “the four kinds of folks,” saying, "You know something, Scout? I've got it all figured out, now. I've thought about it a lot lately and I've got it figured out. There's four kinds of folks in the world. There's the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, there's the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the Negroes." Scout responds “Naw, Jem, I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.”
Harper Lee contrasts Jem’s categorization of people, something human beings do naturally as we try to understand the world around us, but that can also result in discrimination, with Scout’s innocent, pure view of human beings as just “folks". Scout has a level of tolerance often found in the young. She does not separate people based on skin color or income level or gender.
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