wain had to display Jim's treatment in this manner, even if it is not the way he felt. Huck, however, does not treat Jim as most whites do. Huck looks at Jim as a friend, and by the end of their journey, disagrees with society's notion that blacks are inferior. There are two main examples of this in the story. The first one is where Huck is disgusted by Jim's plans to steal his own children, who are "someone else's property." While Huck is still racist here, Twain has written the scene in a way that ridicules the notion that someone's children can actually be the property of a stranger because the father is black. The second example is where Huck denies that Jim is a runaway nigger to the group he meets with the duke by saying Goodness sakes, would a runaway nigger run south? (102). This is again Twain making a mockery of Southern values, that it is a sin to be kind to black people. Another reason that is given to say this novel is racist is the use of the word "nigger." This is not a good reason because this is how blacks were referred to then. To have used the word Negro or African-American would have taken away from the story's impact and make it sound candy-coated. If Twain wanted to write a historically accurate book, as he did, then the inclusion of this word is completely and utterly necessary. The claims that Huckleberry Finn is racist are not simply attempts to damage the image of a great novel. They are extreme radical views of a certain group of people who are offended by racial terms and hold grudges against the way blacks were treated throughout American History. By turning a blind eye to the actual meaning of this novel, many people have managed to give a great novel and author a bad name. Huckleberry Finn and Mark Twain are neither racist nor offensive. The novel should be considered one of the first attempts to relocate blacks into the class of human beings and not animals....
