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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3150 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 24, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I'm been slowly working through HP Lovecraft's complete works. I uh... gotta be honest. I'm starting to see the claims that Lovecraft was abnormally racist even for his time. His description of an African boxer in Reanimator as a grotesque apelike creature, before the reanimator serum makes him even more monstrous is pretty brutal. Although the black cat named "Nigger Man" in The Rats in the Walls is kind of funny.

But I guess I never really felt strongly about whether Lovecraft was or was not racist. I more got up in arms about the over reactions about what to do about "it". But that's a discussion for another thread.

Check out Medusa's Coil, the ending is so racist it's actually hilarious!

"ONE... PERCENT... WELSH!?!?!"

Especially in comparison with the whole raising from the grave stuff lol.

Lovecraft is an unabashed white supremacist, which has no bearing on my opinion that "The Rats in the Walls" is one of the best horror stories I've ever read.

I find it helps to see him as a flawed man of his time from an era where many ideas we take for granted today were still unheard of.

That modern racist authors are capable of reaching far greater heights of racism means only that they stand upon his shoulders, and we owe him a great debt for paving the way for them long before the invention of tools like genetics or FBI crime statistics.

I'm starting to see the claims that Lovecraft was abnormally racist even for his time.

Huh? Was that claim ever in question?

It's very much in question, still.

There was an anonymous questionnaire given to GIs during or shortly after WW2 that found that they'd basically all qualify as far right extremists today. There's also this book that claims a 1943 poll found that Americans at the time would have rather lost the war than given full equality to blacks.

People back then were very racist. The infamous Rosedale book about 'White Flight' mentioned the utter disgust and contempt with which elderly whites treated a white woman running away from an abusive black boyfriend - they'd not let her in, they'd not let her use the phone, they'd not call the police on her behalf. And this was 1970s.

I can easily see how someone who is just a run of the mill racist and fond of describing the grotesque in his stories can seize upon the more unusual features of the black phenotype - say, the wide nose, the prominent lips, etc and go on about them.

I don't think you have to be a particularly heinous racist to be that way. Someone who is truly bigoted and racist would be far more obsessed and far less likely to ever use neutral language.

Meanwhile, if my memory serves, Lovecraft describes blacks as usually primitive, more in tune with their animal nature than whites, but not irredeemable or wholly evil. Note that he sometimes mentions various obscure tribes or races of men that were wholly given to serving alien powers, etc..

As WhiningCoil notes, I suppose it's not in question that Lovecraft was racist, at least by our modern standards, it's more the question of how to handle Lovecraft. I'd say that, as far as degree goes, Lovecraft is maybe a notch above the typical old-timey Anglo racism, which probably stems from him having such a sheltered life.

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