Mark Twain?s writing appears racist in the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The use of a certain word to describe African Americans does serve a purpose beyond simple racial discrimination. Twain uses these harsh words to show how horribly African Americans were treated. The whole novel is actually against slavery. At times, it seems that Twain has something against African Americans, when in reality, he was an abolitionist. The novel was wr