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You make some interesting points here. I actually taught a class recently on HF and the various controversies surrounding it, primarily those pertaining to race and religion. By and large my students were white and thoroughly inculcated with liberal guilt, but we did still manage to have some productive discussions about race, institutional authority, language, etc. Several students actually started out arguing the typical public school line that Twain was a horrible racist, but changed their arguments when they got into the actual facts for the research paper.

One book several of them found useful, and which you might also like, is The Jim Dilemma by Jocelyn Chadwick-Joshua. She's a black scholar and educator who has conducted many pedagogical seminars on the book and why she thinks it should be taught, uncomfortably accurate vocabulary and all.

The meaning of the "n" word has no doubt changed over time. Still you have to wonder why its mention in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn arouses such indignation when all things consided, the NAACLP buried the "N" word last year. Either racism is dead or it isn't. I just wish the Left would make up their minds, since their repeated playing of the Race Card isn't a credit to them.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

“Several students actually started out arguing the typical public school line that Twain was a horrible racist,”

Well, those students have been subjected to some horrible indoctrination and mis-education. There is no greater American writer than Twain.