Racist Lovecraft

[Tsuyu]

Racist Lovecraft

Lately I've been reading up on my Lovecraftian literature I've got all over the place. Been a while since I did.

Anyway, I'm picking up a lot of racism in some of the works, intentional or unintentional, I don't know. But with the way he describes a lot of the non-white characters, as well as the way his mainly white male protagonists describes and thinks about the other characters is... quite disturbing at times.

For example, here is a piece from "Herbert West: Re-animator" describing a dead black boxer:

Spoiler

He was a loathsome, gorilla-like thing, with abnormally long arms that I could not help calling fore legs, and a face that conjured up thoughts of unspeakable Congo secrets and tom-tom poundings under an eerie moon. The body must have looked even worse in life - but the world holds many ugly things.

What's your thoughts, oh fellow forum-goer?

 

[Soldier By Name]

Re: Racist Lovecraft

Overt Racist. lol.

 

[Arseface]

Re: Racist Lovecraft

How long ago was it written? Back in the day, everyone was a racist.

 

[Tsuyu]

Re: Racist Lovecraft

Around the turn of the 1900. Lovecraft was born 1980 and died 1937. I'm not sure it's commonplace, because I've read quite a few works from that time and the racism doesn't really shine through in all of them.

 

[Arseface]

Re: Racist Lovecraft

Well most people back then would be overtly racist by our standards.
Even Abraham Loncoln (who fought against the enslavement of black people) was a racist by our standards. He says

There is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbit the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.

 

[Tsuyu]

Re: Racist Lovecraft

Maybe. Nontheless it's very unnerving to read some of the stuff - and not in the way a good horror tale should.

 

[Walker]

Re: Racist Lovecraft

Lately I've been reading up on my Lovecraftian literature I've got all over the place. Been a while since I did.

Anyway, I'm picking up a lot of racism in some of the works, intentional or unintentional, I don't know. But with the way he describes a lot of the non-white characters, as well as the way his mainly white male protagonists describes and thinks about the other characters is... quite disturbing at times.

For example, here is a piece from "Herbert West: Re-animator" describing a dead black boxer:

Spoiler

He was a loathsome, gorilla-like thing, with abnormally long arms that I could not help calling fore legs, and a face that conjured up thoughts of unspeakable Congo secrets and tom-tom poundings under an eerie moon. The body must have looked even worse in life - but the world holds many ugly things.

What's your thoughts, oh fellow forum-goer?

Yes, definitely sounds like racism of the unthinking, "oh, of course, we, all believe this, perfectly acceptable" variety. Doesn't mean that everyone thought like that, just that Lovecraft saw it as perfectly normal and acceptble.

Well most people back then would be overtly racist by our standards.
Even Abraham Loncoln (who fought against the enslavement of black people) was a racist by our standards. He says

Weeeeel. Strictly speaking, you are correct. Lincoln, at first, believed that the way to freedom for black Americans was to ship them all to Africa, irregardless of the fact that at that point a lot of slaves, if not a majority, were American-born, especially since the import of slaves was banned.

Even after he allowed the recruiting of black soldiers, they were segregated. But I do think that he changed his mind somewhat. We'll never know, because that asshole John Wilkes Booth killed him; but I believe that he would have moved steadily towards a more integrationist policy.

But keep in mind, Lincoln was a moderate. Originally he believed in limiting slavery's expansion in the US, not allowing it to move beyond the states it currently infested. He was not initially an abolitionist-- that came later. I think it would have been the same with political equality.