Huck Finn and Jim on multicultural sensitivity

Mickey Rooney and Rex Ingram as Huck and Jim in the 1939 film. On the raft, Huck tries to explain to Jim that the French are different from them and they don't speak like them, either. Jim, no Francophile, is scandalized. Great stuff.

From Twain's book itself:

So I went to talking about other kings, and let
Solomon slide. I told about Louis Sixteenth that got
his head cut off in France long time ago; and about
his little boy the dolphin, that would a been a king,
but they took and shut him up in jail, and some say he
died there.

"Po' little chap."

"But some says he got out and got away, and come
to America."

"Dat's good! But he'll be pooty lonesome -- dey
ain' no kings here, is dey, Huck?"

"No."

"Den he cain't git no situation. What he gwyne
to do?"

"Well, I don't know. Some of them gets on the
police, and some of them learns people how to talk
French."

"Why, Huck, doan' de French people talk de same
way we does?"

"NO, Jim; you couldn't understand a word they
said -- not a single word."

"Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat
come?"

"I don't know; but it's so. I got some of their
jabber out of a book. S'pose a man was to come to
you and say Polly-voo-franzy -- what would you
think?"

"I wouldn' think nuff'n; I'd take en bust him over
de head -- dat is, if he warn't white. I wouldn't 'low
no nigger to call me dat."

"Shucks, it ain't calling you anything. It's only
saying, do you know how to talk French?"

"Well, den, why couldn't he SAY it?"

"Why, he IS a-saying it. That's a Frenchman's
WAY of saying it."

"Well, it's a blame ridicklous way, en I doan' want
to hear no mo' 'bout it. Dey ain' no sense in it."

"Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?"

"No, a cat don't."

"Well, does a cow?"

"No, a cow don't, nuther."

"Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a
cat?"

"No, dey don't."

"It's natural and right for 'em to talk different from
each other, ain't it?"

"Course."

"And ain't it natural and right for a cat and a cow
to talk different from US?"

"Why, mos' sholy it is."

"Well, then, why ain't it natural and right for a
FRENCHMAN to talk different from us? You answer me
that."

"Is a cat a man, Huck?"

"No."

"Well, den, dey ain't no sense in a cat talkin' like a
man. Is a cow a man? -- er is a cow a cat?"

"No, she ain't either of them."

"Well, den, she ain't got no business to talk like
either one er the yuther of 'em. Is a Frenchman a
man?"

"Yes."

"WELL, den! Dad blame it, why doan' he TALK like
a man? You answer me DAT!"