Several days ago, schools in a district of Virginia announced that they will be implementing a temporary ban on Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird", effectively removing two novels of high literary renown from their respective curriculums. The move comes as a result of a biracial mother who expressed concerns that racial slurs employed by Twain and Lee were having a negative impact on her son.

In light of this recent controversy, along with other issues that have arisen concerning race and ethnicity since the election on November 9, which have plummeted America into a disarray of uncertainty, the debate of whether Mark Twain was indeed a racist is a discussion that has persisted since "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" was published back in the December of 1884. Hailed as the first "Great American Novel", critics and scholars alike have praised Twain's work as a riveting tour-de-force in the canon of literature. However, the book has also given rise to its fair share of dissenters. Disenchanted with Twain's satire, a trademark that led the author to be regarded as the greatest humorist of his time, some negative backlash was conceived on what his critics believed was the use of the n-word to incite a sense of jocularity with his readers.

But was Twain indeed exploiting his literary prowess to enact some inner cruelty he harbored towards the African-American Community? Or was he simply trying to capture the reality of the times he was writing about?

Although he did not grow up in the South, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, or Mark Twain -- the pen name he would become best known by -- was born and raised in Hannibal, Missouri, a state, as per the ramifications of the Missouri Compromise in 1819, where slavery was legal. Quickly becoming disenchanted by the dehumanizing actions he witnessed as a result of this business practice, Twain spent the duration of his writing career and life as a staunch abolitionist, and was vocally supportive of Abraham Lincoln's commitment to finally outlaw slavery in America and to reintegrate disenfranchised African-Americans as full citizens of the United States.

As a persisting theme in his work, Twain took to literature to express his critical attitudes towards slavery and the social codes of the Antebellum South, hoping the discussions and outrage he raised in his publications would lend a hand in its eventual dissolution, along with the prejudices that came as a result of denying the proper dignity from an entire race of humans for the better part of two centuries.

Among his many achievements, Twain is best remembered for (along with Henry James) being one of the first pioneers of literary realism in the United States. In favour of being direct and presenting circumstances as they existed in everyday life, Twain firmly adhered to this aesthetic when it came to drawing from his experiences of growing in close proximity of the Old South. But if he was going to accurately portray how problematic the prejudices that dominated the social codes which policed the behaviour of the South were, one thing he could not shy away from was the application of language, especially when it came to the manner in which white people spoke to, and of, African-Americans.

Unlike the 21st century, where the rise and growing acceptance of progressive ideology and policy has tabooed the use of classifying an individual due to the colour of his/her skin, the era of the Antebellum South (1776-1865) was entirely different. Here, African-American slaves were only regarded as three-fifths of a human being, while the influential presence of racist theory that slavery relied upon to sustain itself was taught to white children as early as their preschool days so that when they grew up, the idea that anyone who wasn't white was just property was a belief so deeply embedded in their mental fabric that they adhered to such inhuman doctrines like it was a code as moral as the bible. Plus, with not legal regulations to protect slaves, masters were allowed to say and do to their subjects whatever they so pleased (whether it was dropping the n-word, or the commission of something as indignant as torture, or sexual violence). Thus, in a society where a framework entirely robbed of morals was imposed to limit and degrade the African-American Community, Twain's use of the n-word was to show how racism towards people with dark skin was not deemed racist, but accepted as a normal, everyday habit of life in the Antebellum South.

Therefore, while the use of racially derogatory language in the preclusion of one's regard beneath the measure of human dignity should never be condoned, Twain's use of it was to illustrate how such a prescription informed the perception of reality concerning the human condition in a bygone era, and exists as a necessary representation if we are to properly remember and educate society on why such a system was utterly erroneous. Because whether it is beautiful or atrocious, the past pervades in how we strive to build the tomorrow of our desire, even when the sun rises, and shines upon one fine morning.