Racism in Huck Finn?

While reading Huck Finn, I constantly went back and forth trying to figure out if Huck was indeed racist or not. This also makes us wonder if Mark Twain was racist himself. I think for Twain’s time, this was a highly controversial book. It made a black slave and a white boy have a friendship that overpassed racism, or did it? Huck and Jim become friends and I believe his innocence allows him to look passed his skin color in many cases, but this is not always the case as later see. Huck constantly battles in his head if what he’s doing is right, and claims that he is going to hell. Jim always listens to Huck no matter what he asks him to do, and although Huck is not always mean about what he asks of Jim we do see a mean side to Huck. He tricks Jim and messes with his head, leaving Jim upset and emotional. Huck gets amusment out of that and shows us how he takes advantage of him and treats him like a lesser human being. The end of the book really annoyed me and here I thought that Twain and Huck were indeed showing signs of being racist. In the end, the “escape” of Jim is just plain frustrating. They put Jim’s life and freedom in great danger just for their own amusement. The "gang" could leave at any point in time but instead treat Jim as an object and make him do all of these ridiculous things for their own benefit. They taunt him and tell him that he needs to have a rattle snake in his shed, and Jim is basically in tears telling him he is afraid. While in class on Tuesday, I think this is what really made me think that racism was present. When Amber gave her presentation about the pictures in Huck Finn, it made me think deeper. In a previous English class here at Plattsburgh, we did a lesson on Black Face and the usage of these terrible images. Although I often did not even look at these pictures, when I looked back in class it showed me that racism was indeed present. Twain did not have to include these pictures in this book if he did not want to. I wish that the pictures in the book were different because Jim is looked at as a very good man in the book, and I wish that the pictures gave him a little more justification. Jim helps Tom in the end when he gets shot and always is a loyal friend throughout the whole book. He is a good man and never disobeys a single thing that he is told. The last few pictures in the book are what really got me the most. Jim is almost praised a little at the end when they find out that he has helped Tom with his wound, yet his typical “Black Face” photo is still present. His mouth is always open and he is seen as an animalistic figure that doesn't know a single thing. The pictures of Jim could have evolved and the game that Tom and Huck put him through could have ended. Instead Jim is treated like an object and only used for amusement which makes me see that Twain and Huck can indeed be seen as racist.