>>http://www.cnn.com/2011/SHOWBIZ/01/04/new.huck.finn.ew/index.html
>
>Seems that some idiots don't understand that "nigger" was a common word at that time.

Or why it was used in the book - it served a very clear purpose in telling the story. It is a reflection of the deep south twenty years before the civil war and how one boy learns to make moral choices and rise about the common views of the day -- Jim is the moral center of the story and portrayed as more of a human being than the other characters.