Verict

Mark Twain is not guilty of being a racist because of how he makes racists look in the book, his accurate writing, and his role in the Confederate army and with his family. 

Mark Twain is clearly not racist for many reasons.  He makes this very obvious with how he depicted all the white racist characters in the book.  All the characters who are made to be racists are written as very bad people. For example, Pap is one of the most racist characters in the book, and he is also one of the most hated.  Pap is seen as a mean, horrible man and Twain wrote him in this way on purpose, just like every other racist character in the book.  Another example of this is the king.  The king openly admitted that he was a racist and thought he was superior to blacks.  He was also a con-man who tricked people out of their money.  He too is a bad person in the story.  Every character Twain wrote as a racist, was also written as a bad person.  With that, Twain made it very clear that he is not a racist, and does not like the idea of racism. 

Many people argue that Twain is a racist because of the dialogue he uses in Huckleberry Finn.  The main problem people have with his dialogue is his use of the word “nigger”.  Today this word is very offensive and disrespectful.  Back in the setting of Huckleberry Finn, the word “nigger” is just what they called every black man.  It wasn’t a derogatory word back in the 1800’s in the state of Mississippi.  In the 1800’s Mississippi was a slave state.  It was a common occurrence for most people to own their own slaves.   The way Twain had people talk down to blacks was not through personal feeling at all.  The only reason why Twain wrote this way was to be accurate when he wrote his book.  The dialogue in Huckleberry Finn is accurate for the time period and does not make him racist.

When Mark Twain was a boy his parents owned slaves.  This wasn’t a big deal at the time, but would be later in his life.  Once he got old enough he would have to make a decision about owning slaves.  Either buy a slave like his parents, which would be what most do, or decide not to own a slave.  Twain chose what he felt was most right, his choice was to not own a slave.  If he hadn’t truly believed in slavery he would have bought a slave without a question.  He obviously cared about other people and was against slavery.  At another point in his life Twain was in a rut.  He was poor and needed to make money.  His only choice to make money was to join the Confederacy and fight in the war.  After two weeks Twain couldn’t take it, he could not be on the side that was for slavery.  So he left the Confederacy even if it was his only form of money he could make.  This is a strong example of how much he was against slavery and how he looked at blacks equally.  Therefore, Mark Twain is not a racist.