Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn

Whenever discussing Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, we have to deal with the issue of racism. Mark Twain was not a racist. He used the word nigger so much in order to put a mirror up to the white people of America at the time. Twain used Jim to show that only embracing the slave as a full human being can humanize the slave master.

Real Wealth

     We often hear of the amount of money that some in our society make and think about how great it must be to have that wealth. We have been taught that money equals wealth. This, like most things that this system teaches, is not true. It is control of resources and labor that equals wealth. If you are a millionaire you can buy diamonds or gold. If you control the diamond and gold mines along with refineries, then people have to buy gems from you, and that is real wealth. So many people complain about the elite gathering so much of the wealth. How can they be blamed for gaining control of land , water, and air when all we do is chase dollars and cents so that we can buy finished products.


     I know what you are thinking, if everything that I am saying is true, what can you do now? First you must realize that even if you are poor you have control of a resource, yourself. As human beings we all have abilities and talents. All we have to do is begin to use these talents to benefit us and our communities instead of selling it all to people that do not care whether we live or die.

The Power of the West

The question often arises. How does the western world dominate so much with so few people and resources? Many scholars get tied up in outlining factors like the Europeans advancing because of their ability to fight well and conquer everyone from their neighbors to the furthest strangers. I once heard a news story that revealed the power behind Europe and the U. S. The story was about countries in the East starting a movement to get all original artifacts back from western museums. The West sits atop the East because all of the wisdom of East is locked up in the West. All of the scrolls, writings, paintings, and philosophies are all locked up. This is why places like Africa and parts of Asia cannot unite in ways that are beneficial to them. Everyone needs instructions or codes of conduct to develop higher human understandings. If those instructions are hidden away, we are left with base instincts without progress. This is why people who were parts of great and productive dynasties are now struggling to get a bowl of rice and a clean glass of water.

African Centered Learning

When Afrocentric people complain about the education system in the western world, they will often say that it is not African centered. Outsiders have no idea what this means. What does African centered learning look like in real time and space? Beyond the obvious fact that African people should learn more about Africa, the current presentation is flawed. We now learn in fragments, but African people are wholistic by nature, so we absorb information in the whole more easily than we do in part.


Let us use wholism on the current economic depression. If we were learning in an African way we would study it in all of our classes. In English class we would study literature about the economically deprived. In Math class we would study economics and private vs. public industries. In Government class we would study the difference between plutocracy and democracy. In History class we would study what happened during the last depression. In Art class we would create work that reflects how we see our society in the midst of this depression. In Music class we would create music that reflects and sustains us during this depression. We would learn these things together until our understanding was complete.