The 'racist Lovecraft' thread

[Kryptych]

In essence, it's an ANTI-racist story, about a mans dealing with and working though his own xenophobic views.  I would almost argue that the protagonists journy dealing with racism reflects HPLs evolving views on race.

Y'know... not to change the subject, but the thing I've noticed about a lot of the Lovecraft critics, scholars, disciples... they tend to omit certain details about the man and his stories to suit their own specific views. And of course, we all do that; we're only human and we take the best elements of the things we enjoy and apply them to our views. On the surface, The Shadow Over Innsmouth is a reversion to Lovecraft's earlier over racism, but you're absolutely right that the realization and eventual embrace by the protagonist of his heritage is a reflection of Lovecraft's own evolving views. As well, it's a revision of his earlier themes explored in The Rats in the Walls - to see and hear horrid things about an ancient family, and then to go insane at the realization that he's part of the family. Now, he's not gone insane (well, that's debatable since we as humans would probably find it abhorrent that he'd welcome this).

I'd made the point in the thread about The Dunwich Horror about how S.T. Joshi decries that story as a standard "good vs. evil" story as opposed to his usual cosmic horror, when I think a closer examination would show that The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is more so that scenario. John Carpenter in the documentary refers to Cthulhu as "our destroyer," when I think Lovecraft's point was that we are insignificant to entities like Cthulhu - if Cthulhu is our destroyer, it's not his function in the way that the devil is the anti-God. Not unlike how in the Podcraft's discussion of Castro's relaying of how the Old Ones will teach them new ways to revel and kill and all that... Mr. Fifer points out that there might be younger members of the cult who think it's "bulls**t," and Mr. Leman says, "He'll teach by example and it won't last long." No... it wouldn't... because technically, Cthulhu's not teaching anything. We are ants to the likes of him; do we bother to teach ants anything? No.

This is not to insult or downplay the intelligence or significance of what Joshi, Cannon, or any other Lovecraft scholar have accomplished. Indeed, they are still our best sources of information on Lovecraft and his work, and we should always be grateful to them. Similarly, while I'm no fan of Derleth or his "Lovecraftian" works, he still deserves recognition for carrying the torch, as do every author to follow.
But really, I think as brilliant as the documentary is - and this point was made earlier - there is a little too much emphasis on Lovecraft's racism without a real examination of how those views changed over time. It's mentioned a few times, but if it is a topic to be given any weight, then that could probably take up a whole documentary of its own.

[bar1scorpio]

Hate to revive this thread, but in re-reading The Shadow Over Innsmouth, I must agree that the people on the documentary Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown are too harsh at on that story.  It can be interpreted as a thinly-veiled polemic against immigration, BUT that ignores the fact that at the end, the narrator is actually a deep one, he will be quite happy living forever in the city Y'ha-nthlei!  In essence, it's an ANTI-racist story, about a mans dealing with and working though his own xenophobic views.  I would almost argue that the protagonists journy dealing with racism reflects HPLs evolving views on race.

Essentially, The Shadow Over Innsmouth is a direct precursor to Melvin Van Peebles' Watermelon Man.   

Agreed, but I'l take it a step further and say that the narrator almost seems gleeful at the prospect in a "We'll show THEM!" kind of way. Like he's about to become the Malcom X of the Deep Ones.  "We didn't land on Devil's Reef!  Devil's Reef landed on us!"

DEEP POWER! DEEP PRIDE!  DEEP POWER!  DEEP PRIDE!

[old book]

What you propose is a species of Old Zadok-ite liberation theology! The Order of Dagon will not countenance such heretical views! I better shut up, I don't know anything about this Watermelon Man or Fear of the Unknown. All I know is that it is a slippery slope once you start eroding Devils Reef, the moral backbone of our community. Free Huey! Free Angela Davis!

[Genus Unknown]

I was reading HPL's love letter to the cat, "Cats and Dogs," when I found this... er... gem?

Between dogs and cats my degree of choice is so great that it would never occur to me to compare the two. I have no active dislike for dogs, any more than I have for monkeys, human beings, negroes, cows, sheep, or pterodactyls; but for the cat I have entertained a particular respect and affection ever since the earliest days of my infancy.

Notice how "human beings" and "negroes" are listed separately.

[MediaGhost]

I can just picture HPL thinking how fair he's being to include "negroes" in the list at all.  Mighty white of him, as the saying was back then.   

[Lambda]

Oh, Cats and Dogs... a gem, yes, a gem of latent racism and snarky comments about democracy. I read that one a few years ago and - man, what was he smoking? It's almost worse than The Street! 

[MediaGhost]

Cripes, I first ran across The Street in audiobook form a couple years ago.  (Glen Hallstrom's reading from Librivox.org.)  That story should come with some kind of Surgeon General's label:  "WARNING: THIS STORY CONTAINS TOXIC LEVELS OF OLD-TIMEY BIGOTRY."

[old book]

Someone wrote the Street has parallels with a Hesse story die Stadt (der?)... I note there was a book of some popularity in Hitler's Germany, although it might predate it, called Stadt ohne Juden, the City without Jews. Coincidence? "Levantines" in Red Hook, oh noes!!!111

I wonder what a Surgeon's General warning would read like.... "Warning: this short story was written in a period of unenlightenment and may cause deep disgust." "Contains racism." Anyway, I liked how Harlan Ellison renamed the cat in the Arthur delaPore thing and the way he recounted the Northern attack on the Confederate family. If the Confederate States had survived as a confederation, would there be confederate science now, in the same way the Third Reich promotoed "Aryan science"? Confederate psychiatry? Confederate particle physics?

[HappyMephistopheles]

Someone wrote the Street has parallels with a Hesse story die Stadt (der?)... I note there was a book of some popularity in Hitler's Germany, although it might predate it, called Stadt ohne Juden, the City without Jews. Coincidence? "Levantines" in Red Hook, oh noes!!!111

I wonder what a Surgeon's General warning would read like.... "Warning: this short story was written in a period of unenlightenment and may cause deep disgust." "Contains racism." Anyway, I liked how Harlan Ellison renamed the cat in the Arthur delaPore thing and the way he recounted the Northern attack on the Confederate family. If the Confederate States had survived as a confederation, would there be confederate science now, in the same way the Third Reich promotoed "Aryan science"? Confederate psychiatry? Confederate particle physics?

Uh, yeah I would love this warning on top of the aeneas. "Warning: Contains high amount of ethnic-genealogical justification for ruling the earth and killing natives" ^^
And "die Stadt" is right.
Anyway. Towards Lovecrafts Racism I have just these few words: I do not think he meant to be racist, because he believed in some sort of superiority (I think in Lovecrafts Universe superiority was a concept held solely by everything except humans), but rather as some kind of this schizophreniac background and views of him, regarding his family. I mean, he regarded his family as somewhat dreaded and bad, with all this "do not search for your ancestors!" in his storys, but apparently disregarded Minorities as not within these twisted and cursed ancestry.
I do not like the racism in his early works, though. But I do not like the Orcs of Tolkien for that particular reason or all the
But a very funny thing regarding racism (which normally is not funny, just in this particulary case, because it is pointing out our everyday racism) is a german cabaretist with turkish roots organising readings of Mein Kampf and stuff in front of a hundred Nazis or so, and discussing with them why he sucks so much. All in sophisticated manner (by the artist, not the nazis), just two minutes before he jumps to turkish racism against greeks and jews again. Very funny indeed. It is funny, because the turks are somewhat the modern jews in parts of germany. And just brought up here, because I do not know any english versions to show you. :/ And I am sorry to revive this, too. Just my 2 cents.

[vortexgods]

Someone wrote the Street has parallels with a Hesse story die Stadt (der?)... I note there was a book of some popularity in Hitler's Germany, although it might predate it, called Stadt ohne Juden, the City without Jews. Coincidence? "Levantines" in Red Hook, oh noes!!!111

I wonder what a Surgeon's General warning would read like.... "Warning: this short story was written in a period of unenlightenment and may cause deep disgust." "Contains racism." Anyway, I liked how Harlan Ellison renamed the cat in the Arthur delaPore thing and the way he recounted the Northern attack on the Confederate family. If the Confederate States had survived as a confederation, would there be confederate science now, in the same way the Third Reich promotoed "Aryan science"? Confederate psychiatry? Confederate particle physics?

Uh, yeah I would love this warning on top of the aeneas. "Warning: Contains high amount of ethnic-genealogical justification for ruling the earth and killing natives" ^^
And "die Stadt" is right.
Anyway. Towards Lovecrafts Racism I have just these few words: I do not think he meant to be racist, because he believed in some sort of superiority (I think in Lovecrafts Universe superiority was a concept held solely by everything except humans), but rather as some kind of this schizophreniac background and views of him, regarding his family. I mean, he regarded his family as somewhat dreaded and bad, with all this "do not search for your ancestors!" in his storys, but apparently disregarded Minorities as not within these twisted and cursed ancestry.
I do not like the racism in his early works, though. But I do not like the Orcs of Tolkien for that particular reason or all the
But a very funny thing regarding racism (which normally is not funny, just in this particulary case, because it is pointing out our everyday racism) is a german cabaretist with turkish roots organising readings of Mein Kampf and stuff in front of a hundred Nazis or so, and discussing with them why he sucks so much. All in sophisticated manner (by the artist, not the nazis), just two minutes before he jumps to turkish racism against greeks and jews again. Very funny indeed. It is funny, because the turks are somewhat the modern jews in parts of germany. And just brought up here, because I do not know any english versions to show you. :/ And I am sorry to revive this, too. Just my 2 cents.

I'd say a lot of Lovecraft's racism was in the form of pseudo-scientific eugenics.  I often picture him as Mr. Burns from the Simpsons when he's giving a lecture to Smithers on phrenology:

Burns: Absolutely! Who could forget such a monstrous visage? She has the sloping brow and cranial bumpage of the career criminal.
Smithers: Uh, Sir? Phrenology was dismissed as quackery 160 years ago.
Burns: Of course you'd say that...you have the brain-pan of a stagecoach tilter!

The sad thing is, we still see this kind of pseudoscience today, like in a recent Psychology Today article.

[MediaGhost]

The sad thing is, we still see this kind of pseudoscience today, like in a recent Psychology Today article.

WTF!     Well, it's sure nice to see that modern psychology hasn't progressed past the point it was at in Lovecraft's time.

[catamount]

As someone involved in psychology, you have to take anything which is discussed in Psychology Today with a grain of salt...it's not a peer reviewed journal by any means...I'm sure if you search hard enough, you'll still find blogs by "experts" on PT that believe in the value of phrenology...although I will say I do profess for a belief in Terry Pratchett's Discworld Science of Retro-phrenology or the practice of altering someone's character by giving them bumps on the head. You can go into a shop in Ankh-Morpork and order an artistic temperament with a tendency to introspection. What you actually get is hit on the head with a series of small hammers, but it keeps the money in circulation and gives people something to do.

[vortexgods]

As someone involved in psychology, you have to take anything which is discussed in Psychology Today with a grain of salt...it's not a peer reviewed journal by any means...I'm sure if you search hard enough, you'll still find blogs by "experts" on PT that believe in the value of phrenology...although I will say I do profess for a belief in Terry Pratchett's Discworld Science of Retro-phrenology or the practice of altering someone's character by giving them bumps on the head. You can go into a shop in Ankh-Morpork and order an artistic temperament with a tendency to introspection. What you actually get is hit on the head with a series of small hammers, but it keeps the money in circulation and gives people something to do.

Hmm, Tony Fodera must have visited Ankh-Morpork, because he used this technique to improve my punctuality when I was tardy with the 40 large I owed him and his "associates" on a recent Knicks game...  just kidding, Mr. Fodera's actually a great guy! 

[old book]

Um, I was just listening to some underground internet radio podcast thing, with a fair bit of quackery of its own, talking about some bogus (they called it bogus) "treatment" that involves re-opening the cranial sutures that harden with age. According to this podcast thing, all they were doing was scalp massage, not trepanning or anything like that.

That Turkish comedian or whatever sounds interesting. I think a lot of European neo-Nazis find themselves in somewhat of a conundrum on whom they should be hating more: Jews or Muslims. To remain faithful to pure Naziism they should hate Jews, but most of the immigrants they really feel like hating are Muslim, and well there aren't many Jews around anymore. If they "go with their heart" and hate Muslims, they find a natural ally in right-wing Jewish circles who also hate Muslims. It almost seems like someone was trying to exploit that "wedge issue" with the silly Breivik manifesto recently. I'm sure the neo-Nazis will become wise to such tactics and rally, deciding to hate everyone equally.

[Genus Unknown]

old book: That reminds me of black metal musician Varg Vikernes (the only neo-nazi whose opinions I ever come across in the ordinary course of the day). He wrote this big article in response to the Oslo attacks, basically saying "this Brevik guy is nuts; he blames Muslims for the problems in Norway, when the more pressing problem is clearly the Jews!" It's a little dismaying and a little hilarious to watch fringe lunatics eat each other.