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@Silberfarben & (Skurn)
The same happened to me with Issac Asimov.
He also was from another age
It was just casual racism
I'd say that (from what I know of Isaac's work) that his examples of how earth colonists on mars were looked down up on by "real" earthlings was certainly racist in tone, but the fact that the story Isaac wrote eventually revealed one of the earth politicians that expressed such beliefs was named Hilder AND the fact that I.A. was a jew, meant that, if anything, I.A. was telling us he did not approve of the poisonous mental garbage of racism.
Whereas, H.P.'s racism took pretty ugly forms, such as stating how miscegenation was a terrible thing that could destroy this nation. He also once wrote a story that at first seemed to be describing mythical beasts living along a waterfront, that turned out to be various types of foreigners and "negros" as he called them. To be fair, H.P.'s achievements in his genre make him a towering literary great, but (IMHO) we cannot dismiss the real man that he was and the kind of things that were true horrors in his personality.
The same happened to me with Issac Asimov.
He also was from another age
It was just casual racism
I'd say that (from what I know of Isaac's work) that his examples of how earth colonists on mars were looked down up on by "real" earthlings was certainly racist in tone, but the fact that the story Isaac wrote eventually revealed one of the earth politicians that expressed such beliefs was named Hilder AND the fact that I.A. was a jew, meant that, if anything, I.A. was telling us he did not approve of the poisonous mental garbage of racism.
Whereas, H.P.'s racism took pretty ugly forms, such as stating how miscegenation was a terrible thing that could destroy this nation. He also once wrote a story that at first seemed to be describing mythical beasts living along a waterfront, that turned out to be various types of foreigners and "negros" as he called them. To be fair, H.P.'s achievements in his genre make him a towering literary great, but (IMHO) we cannot dismiss the real man that he was and the kind of things that were true horrors in his personality.
