Essay 4

Racist, I Think Not

Unfortunately, even today, nobody is blind to the matter of race. There is not a single person that does not see diversity in the color of skin, but that does not make them a racist. A racist is not somebody who realizes there is a difference between these races. Unfortunately, every race is judged differently, which is wrong, but not yet racist. A racist is a person calling out another according to their skin color. Any person who takes the initiative to call someone else by a racial slur is considered to be racist and for that they are looked down upon. It is not an honor to be called a racist, so to be wrongfully called this creates unearned shame. It is humiliation for Samuel Clemens to be considered a racist, and it really lowers his value of a great novelist. Samuel Clemens, more commonly known and referred to as Mark Twain, wrote one of the greatest, yet controversial, novels in America, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This book is inaccurately considered as a racist text due to the common use of the word nigger and the fact that a slave is treated cruelly. There are several strong reasons why the book should not be considered racist including, the fact that there are racist characters does not make the book and author a racist, truly many of the complainers about the racism are only basing what they know off what they hear, and the book needs to have these racist ideas otherwise it would be historically inaccurate.

Huckleberry Finn is only a thirteen year old boy who hardly knows right from wrong, and he is always getting into mischief. Is it right to blame the racism of the entire novel on things a child like this does? Keep in mind this is a child with an overly abusive father, no doubt where he gets many of his mannerisms from, and lives with a couple women he despises. He has never learned what not to do, and he truly does not care if he disobeys the few things he is told to do. He is not a role model that any mother would hope their son looks up to because of his coarse language and bad attitude. Nobody taught him how to treat people and he only acts from what he sees. Growing up in the 1830’s Huck saw many acts of hatred on several groups of people, and the majority towards slaves and black folks. For thirteen years he heard the term nigger thrown around so much that how could he not say it. Of course Huckleberry Finn was a racist, and obviously Tom Sawyer, his idol and friend, is a racist as well. And surely they are not the only two racists in the novel. Miss Watson is a slave-owner and so are many of the other characters that come across in this play. Mrs. Phelps owns several slaves. All these slave-owners are racists.

The fact that there are racists in this text is obvious. When referring to Jim, the slave that lives in Miss Watson’s house, Huck states, “Miss Watson’s nigger, Jim, had a hairball as big as your fist” (44). This is the type of stuff that could askew the minds of many into thinking the novel is racist, when truthfully it is just what Huck thinks. It is already confirmed that Huck Finn is a racist. Therefore many of the things he says will be racist, but just because there is a racist, or even many, in a novel does not make the author a racist, and it does not consider the book chauvinistic. Mark Twain never has in the book, “I hate black people.” There is not one time that he says anything like, “Slavery is good and I wish the emancipation never occurred.” Twain never put his input into the text. It is possible that Mark Twain is a racist. Many southerners were at the time, but the book is incapable of letting us know whether he was or not.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the most talked about book by the number of people that have not truly read it. This can easily be seen by the number of times Jim is referred to as Nigger Jim during discussions of the novel. Not once, Jim is ever referred to as such, thusly creating a flaw in the idea of those believing the book is racist. It is tacky and embarrassing for a group to have so many people believing something that has proven to be wrong. It just shows how many people have not read the novel, but still discuss its values. So many harmful things said about the novel that many people think they know what is going on, therefore they too can fight that it is racist. Maybe if everybody who argues it is a racist text actually takes a few hours to read the book they will realize how wrong they sound.

We all know that there is racism in the text, but Twain makes all the racists in the novel appear to be idiots. Nobody can take Huck Finn seriously, nor can they about the people met on route, such as the Duke and his fellow actor. Anybody with a right mind who reads the book realizes the racism shown in this novel is accurate, but wrong. Nobody is going to read the book and think to themselves, “You know Huck Finn was right, black people are property.” That is not what Mark Twain is portraying. He is portraying a time when slavery was legal and racism was a huge part of the southern lifestyle.

The novel was written fifty years after the time it was set in, causing the author, Mark Twain, to adjust much of the dialogue and behaviors of characters. The act of doing so is called historical realism, and it is one of the main arguments as of why The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not racist. The use of the word nigger was all too common back in the 1830’s and to leave it out of the text would make it inaccurate and unbelievable. Nigger in the early 1800’s in southern California was used as much as hella is used in northern California nowadays, and if a novel was written about Santa Rosa in forty years I would hope they include the word hella. It was just part of their dialect back then. If a novel set in New York was written, which there are plenty, it would be best if the characters did not have a Mexican accent.

Some people look at the book as racist because slavery exists in the novel, and it was illegal by the time anybody read it. One of the critics, Lester, states, “But in 1884 slavery was over.” Lester’s error in thinking is the fact that the novel took place in the 1830’s when slavery was legal. A good author would not include any hints of when the novel was written if it was meant to take place at a different time period.

(not finished)