RWPossum
He was very briefly a soldier in the Confederate Army, but deserted before he ever fought. Maybe the best argument against the idea that he was racist was his very vocal opposition to US foreign policy that involved subjugation of other nations.
As this article shows, he opposed the US war against the Philippines and said that a flag for the colony could include the pirate's skull and cross-bones.
http://www.historiansagainstwar.org/blog/2008/04/mark-twains-flag-for-american-colony-in.html
He opposed military action in China justified by protecting Western interests, saying that the Chinese could use that pretext to sail up the Mississippi to protect their laundries.
It's clear that the narrator of the Huck Finn book is Huck, an ignorant but likable youth.
If people say children shouldn't read Huck Finn, who said Twain wrote it for children?
Kimberley
Mark Twain was a product of his time and place, but he was not a racist.
Thomas
No, I would not say he was racist. He wrote honestly about the world as he saw it. He was a satirist and he poked fun at the human condition. He wrote in a way as to bring attention to problems, the way many comedians do today. No, he was not a racist. Today we live in a politically correct world where people are afraid to be honest and so things do not change. Twain was honest so that things could get gradually and honestly better.
Marli
Twain grew up in Missouri, a slave holding state, in the mid-1800s. That probably meant that he was indoctrinated in the beliefs of his parents and neighbours. He could speak the language, since his characters in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn spoke the language. But he was not racist as an adult. He showed up racism in Huckleberry Finn as a damned blight on both Jim (a black man) and on the characters of Huck and the good-souled white people in the book, such as the Grangerfords and Tom's aunt and uncle.
I think that most people look upon persons of races not their own as "different" and think, even subconsciously, that "different" people should not be entitled to everything he or she is entitled to. I don't like some of the thoughts I realize I think. I have to keep reminding myself that my Moslem or Black neighbours are just as entitled as I am. Many of them are born here, or their children are, and many have jobs and contribute to the nation. Syrian refugees who just got here and don't have much are giving to the people of Fort MacMurray who lost their homes in the fire. That's a great contribution. Twain might have had attitudes we'd call racist today. You can't entirely shake off what you learned as a child. But I think he was ashamed of them when he realized he had them.
Anonymous
Not i'm not American but i know that some of word used in original English text like ****** are very controversial, for good reason, but this not meant that Mark Twain was racist, he just used language that was used in his time, language change.