# H.P. Lovecraft Was A Racist, or Blake, you condescending Junior-Modding twit **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 23, 2005, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241 "2005-08-23T08:29:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/81 "2005-08-24T02:12:15Z")
> [@HPL](#): > > Unfortunatly, it doesn’t help that Lovecraft considered himself to be of a rather scientific bent, and despite his affinity for scinifitic journals and such, he apparently never got the message that the scientific basis for racism was somewhat lacking by the 1930’s. Also, keep in mind that the (vile) poem in question was written in 1913. ---
**Author:** ![uglybeech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/82dd89/32.png) [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/82 "2005-08-24T02:35:40Z")
> [@Hunter Hawk](#): > > :eek: Third rate??? Awright, you 'n me, pistols at dawn. I’ve been waiting all day for that. 😃 And 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Nocturne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9fc348/32.png) [@Nocturne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nocturne)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/83 "2005-08-24T04:14:16Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > I’m speaking generally here, rather than in direct relationship to Lovecraft, but I don’t agree. It is a skill worth cultivating to be able to separate yourself from your own context…to consider something from an historical viewpoint, as it related to that person. Fair enough. I’m an English major, and part of my “job” in interpreting a passage is being able to do that, especially in regards to different theoretical criticisms. It still doesn’t change the fact that at the end of the day, I have my own interpretation of the work that I can support using HPL’s (or whomever’s) own words, in my specific cultural context. I’m sure with sufficient evidence I could “prove” HPL was a dendrophiliac. But I’m also not going to ignore evidence in his work or life to the contrary, and I sure as hell won’t condescend to people, especially if they have good reason to think my logic might be just a tad off. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/84 "2005-08-24T04:19:08Z")
_big baby doe eyes_ Askia, when I grow up, will you teach me to rant just like you? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/85 "2005-08-24T04:42:26Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Blake is an ALIEN? :eek: I have it on authority that he has Marsh features. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/86 "2005-08-24T04:53:38Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Blake is an ALIEN? :eek: Does that mean he can jump more than two feet? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/87 "2005-08-24T05:06:27Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > Also, keep in mind that the (vile) poem in question was written in 1913. True. That slipped my mind momentarily. Though it can still be argued that his emotional growth in this area was somewhat unaffected by new scientific studies. ---
**Author:** ![Sarah\_Woodruff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sarah\_Woodruff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarah_Woodruff)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/88 "2005-08-24T08:18:45Z")
Among the students in the Gothic Lit class I attended at Uni, H.P.Lovecraft was known as “the guy with the ISSUES.” As in, he made Edgar Allan Poe look sunny-dispositioned, laid-back and extroverted. 😉 It suprised me not at all to read _Shadow over Innsmouth_ and think, “Mmm, a bit of the old ‘foreign peoples are EEEVILLL!!!’ creeping in here. Issues, issues.” He appeared to be terrified of anyone who was in any way unlike himself. Which in a way is one description of a racist. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/89 "2005-08-24T08:48:39Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > Askia, you’re a _guy_? > > New rule–No having names that end in ‘a’ if you’re a guy. Why? ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/90 "2005-08-24T08:56:52Z")
> [@Sarah Woodruff](#): > > Among the students in the Gothic Lit class I attended at Uni, H.P.Lovecraft was known as “the guy with the ISSUES.” As in, he made Edgar Allan Poe look sunny-dispositioned, laid-back and extroverted. 😉 It suprised me not at all to read _Shadow over Innsmouth_ and think, “Mmm, a bit of the old ‘foreign peoples are EEEVILLL!!!’ creeping in here. Issues, issues.” > He appeared to be terrified of anyone who was in any way unlike himself. Which in a way is one description of a racist. Though, strangely enough, it helps a lot with the horror fiction(the fear of things, not the racism). ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/91 "2005-08-24T14:14:17Z")
> [@Duke of Rat](#): > > Sarah Silverman described herself as a hairy Jewess (I think that was her words), and I wouldn’t mind a little of _that_. [Whoa!](http://images.zap2it.com/20040817/celebs_actingout/018_sarahsilverman_schoolofrockpr.jpg) Now THAT’S what I’m talking about! ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/92 "2005-08-24T16:01:51Z")
> [@Askia](#): > > **Knowed Out.** I’m not grasping at straws. I may be overstating the obvious. Boy, did you completely disregard my point! Did Lovecraft try to bring down blacks? Did he purposely call for harm to them? No! There’s a fucking cat and stupid poem he wrote more out of fear and ignorance than purposeful hatred. There’s a monster race in one of his stories that has nothing to do with blacks. Sometimes a banana is just a banana. You’re going at this like it’s an established FACT that Lovecraft was a racist. Remember what Cardinal Richilieu once said? “Give me six lines written by the most honest man in the world and I will find something to hang him.” Lovecraft’s just some guy who wrote weird stories. Why bust a vein making him out to be some kind of advocate of racial cleansing or something? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/93 "2005-08-24T17:20:00Z")
The fear of insanity and prejudice against racial “impurity” can also tie in together. This man fears his genetic destiny, of becoming insane, and he also feels that when races mix, they can end up destroying their descendents. Make sense? BTW, whenever I hear “Jewess”, I think of Gilda Radner’s “Jewess Jeans”. ---
**Author:** ![pesch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pesch/32/4925_2.png) [@pesch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pesch)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/94 "2005-08-24T22:12:36Z")
> [@Knowed Out](#): > > You’re going at this like it’s an established FACT that Lovecraft was a racist. Remember what Cardinal Richilieu once said? “Give me six lines written by the most honest man in the world and I will find something to hang him.” Lovecraft’s just some guy who wrote weird stories. Why bust a vein making him out to be some kind of advocate of racial cleansing or something? I regret to say, after perusing L. Sprague DeCamp’s biography of Lovecraft, that he was an intense racist. His letters give him away. In one, commeting on his correspondent’s excellent black maid, he said that he could probably get at least $900 for her down in Charleston. He also said unsavory things about blacks, Jews, foreigners in general. I can’t quote them now — I’m at work and the book is at home — but it’s clear that he believes that, while other cultures deserve to exist in their oun countries, they had no place in America. Now, you can put his attitudes in the context of his times. He grew up in an intensely repressed environment (as an older man, he looked back on opinions he expressed in his 30s as juvenile). His family was of Old American stock, and he accepted uncritically the prejudices of his class against the immigrants. He also expressed his racist views solely in letters. Several friends quoted in DeCamp’s biography said they never heard him say anything prejudicial. He had manners, at least, and knew not to say something that would wound his hearer. A major part of his life was a conflict between what was expected of a gentleman, and the need for income. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, “earn” his way through his writing, and while he passed it off lightly — he would blame the quality of his writing for his failures, or his outsider status — it angered and depressed himside that he could not find a way out of his dilemma, and it could be argued that he transferred that anger into xenophobia. He was a deeply unhappy man. When I opened this thread yesterday, I thought I had remembered that Lovecraft had moderated his racist views near the end of his life, and turned to DeCamp for confirmation. I had misremembered. While his racial views were commonly expressed at that time, and while he never acted on them to hurt others, he still held them. That cannot be denied. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/95 "2005-08-24T23:02:46Z")
> [@Knowed Out](#): > > Boy, did you completely disregard my point! Did Lovecraft try to bring down blacks? Did he purposely call for harm to them? No! There’s a fucking cat and stupid poem he wrote more out of fear and ignorance than purposeful hatred. There’s a monster race in one of his stories that has nothing to do with blacks. Sometimes a banana is just a banana. > > You’re going at this like it’s an established FACT that Lovecraft was a racist. Remember what Cardinal Richilieu once said? “Give me six lines written by the most honest man in the world and I will find something to hang him.” Lovecraft’s just some guy who wrote weird stories. Why bust a vein making him out to be some kind of advocate of racial cleansing or something? You don’t have to be an advocate of racial cleansing to be a racist, just believe that one race(yours) is superior to another(all the others). And we do know that lovecraft was no doubt a fan of racial segregation. Dude, Lovecraft is one of my favorite authors because of his fiction(and to a lesser extent, much of his poetry). I have no problem seeing that Lovecraft was, among other things, Racist. I have no trouble holding these two facts in my mind at the same time, and seeing that Lovecraft the Author was a bit different then Lovecraft the Racial/political philosopher(in fact, a lot of his letters and essays rub me the wrong way, so I tend not to read them). ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/96 "2005-08-24T23:44:46Z")
> [@Knowed Out](#): > > Boy, did you completely disregard my point! Yeah, I did. Why aren’t you more properly grateful? **pesch** and \*\*HPL \*\* said all what I might have said, much more politely and without the invective and mockery I would have added. Now where is **That Twit Blake?** I should have verbally eviscerated his ass by now. Got this whole crate of whupass I’ve been drinking during downtime at my sucky, menial job… Fucking pussy. Here, **Blakey Blake.** (Kiss noise.) Who’s my pussy? Where’s my pussy-cat? C’mon, boy. Come on out. Come on! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/97 "2005-08-24T23:53:13Z")
I’d put money on **Blake** not showing up in this thread. Like **Colibri** said, the guy knows a lot about biology, especially anthropology, but he does come out with some real doozies now and then that he won’t back down from. We’ve butted heads a few times, but all in all, he contributes quite a bit. I spend most of my time in GD, where you learn to develop a pretty thick skin, so his arrogance doesn’t seem all that unusual to me. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2005, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/98 "2005-08-25T00:05:38Z")
**John Mace.** I agree he probrably won’t show up. Oh, oh, but if I’m wrong? Man, I wanna be here if he does have the nerve to show up. I also hope he gets so desperate to talk on the boards that he creates a sock identity and gets caught by the Mods and _banned._ Oh, oh, the irony would be deliciously fatteningly sinful. I disagree that **Blake’s** particularly thick-skinned. He tries to dish it out, but look! He can’t take it. I’ve decided to persevere a few more days at which time I’ll let the thread die a natural death. Dude must be taught the error of his ways. All must be warned: NOBODY FUCKS WITH ASKIA UNLESS IT’S MRS. ASKIA. Besides, to be frank, bullying a twit is hella fun. ---
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2005, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/99 "2005-08-25T00:14:51Z")
> [@Askia](#): > > Besides, to be frank, bullying a twit is hella fun. Have you considered getting a life? ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2005, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241/100 "2005-08-25T00:35:49Z")
I’m being advised on having a life by a Doper from Seabrook, Maryland? Kindly fuck off. Stand not between me and the object of my wrath. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/h-p-lovecraft-was-a-racist-or-blake-you-condescending-junior-modding-twit/318241.md?page=6)