Twain, Part One and more

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

From: "David Morris" <fqmorris at hotmail.com>

 >Twain was more exploitative than the white rock 'n rollers. Twain did not 
 >purloin primarily the art of 'niggers' and turn it into a successful 
 >career, he tried to steal their souls. Some would say he WAS successful.

 ["Steal" and "purloin" imply harm done and thus the negative sense of the 
 word "exploit." ]

Is it exploitative to make a career out of portraying the
misfortune of others and selling the product to those
responsible for that misfortune- either actively or passively-
under the guise of being a writer of fiction, and then to lead a
comfortable upper class life with black servants, some of
whose tragic real life stories Mr. Twain even capitalized on?

[I think you are playing fast and loose with words and 
 analogies, and are thus wrong in your charges.]

And I think you are playing fast and loose with how you are
snipping up my posts!


[ >[If anything, Twain was educating a white audience about its own racism, 
 >and thereby helping real black people.

> And therefore he wasn't exploiting blacks in the negative sense of the 
 definition (see below).]]

You seem to be agreeing with yourself here, but your first
assertion is no proof of your second. 

[ Main Entry: ex·ploit
 Pronunciation: ik-'sploit, 'ek-"
 Function: transitive verb
 Date: 1838
 1 : to make productive use of : UTILIZE <exploiting your talents> <exploit 
 your opponent's weakness>
 2 : to make use of meanly or unjustly for one's own advantage <exploiting 
 migrant farm workers>]

Twain was cultivating his own reputation. I do not think him
"evil" but I am not persuaded that he wasn't as interested 
in his own aggrandizement as he was in "helping" the plight
of the characters he was portraying. He would be the last
person to cast himself in the saintly light you are trying to
shine on him. He lived well. What happened to Jim?