World Fantasy Awards may drop H.P. Lovecraft's likeness from award statuette due to author's racism.

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

I usually don't do this, but I will be remiss in everything I believe in if I don't call this bullshit out.

As a Black man I am ashamed of you, Nnedi Okorafor. Very much so.

Whatever righteous anger you have, it's been misplaced since you received the trophy. Why? you said it yourself.

I knew of Lovecraft?s racial issues, anti-Semitism, etc., but I never knew it was this serious. [http://nnedi.blogspot.com/2011/12/lovecrafts-racism-world-fantasy-award.html]

So, basically what I'm getting is this; Well established and Documented Antisemitism: a centuries long campaign to keep down, disparage, and essentially rid the world of the Judaic people... a weird personality quirk.

A poem about Black people? Vile.

If you knew about his feelings and still had any pride of that thing adorning your house, this whole thing is mistimed. Distaste of prejudice does not start when it finally comes to your doorstep. True distaste of prejudice happens when you find out ANYONE received prejudice. Your righteous anger now sounds like you got butthurt, instead of true desire for change. While the sentiment I'll support, your reasoning leaves me cold.

 

[RandV80]

Criticize him if you want but he probably wouldn't have written anything interesting like he did if he wasn't at least a little wrong in the head!

 

[Kotaro]

Completely fine in my opinion. If they don't devaluate his books they have all reason to use a much more non-controversial likeness (or better, just no statuette of a person at all. Hell, get a dragon for that) for the statuette.

I think in Lovecrafts time racism was much more accepted. He maybe just did not know better (I have not enough information about him to say something for sure).

Pretty much this. Guy lived from 1890 to 1937. Casual racism was pretty much the default at the time. I'd be far more surprised if he WASN'T.

 

[EternallyBored]

I usually don't do this, but I will be remiss in everything I believe in if I don't call this bullshit out.

As a Black man I am ashamed of you, Nnedi Okorafor. Very much so.

Whatever righteous anger you have, it's been misplaced since you received the trophy. Why? you said it yourself.

I knew of Lovecraft?s racial issues, anti-Semitism, etc., but I never knew it was this serious. [http://nnedi.blogspot.com/2011/12/lovecrafts-racism-world-fantasy-award.html]

So, basically what I'm getting is this; Well established and Documented Antisemitism: a centuries long campaign to keep down, disparage, and essentially rid the world of the Judaic people... a weird personality quirk.

A poem about Black people? Vile.

If you knew about his feelings and still had any pride of that thing adorning your house, this whole thing is mistimed. Distaste of prejudice does not start when it finally comes to your doorstep. True distaste of prejudice happens when you find out ANYONE received prejudice. Your righteous anger now sounds like you got butthurt, instead of true desire for change. While the sentiment I'll support, your reasoning leaves me cold.

While I can't speak for what Mr. Okorafor actually meant, to me it didn't read like he was ok with Lovecraft's anti-semitism, but got outraged at the poem about Black people, he even mentions in the quote you linked that he realized that Lovecraft was racist. Even a casual reading of his popular (and less racial) works reveals Lovecraft had a very low opinion of Black people.

The author in the article seems to have changed his opinion because he didn't realize just HOW racist Lovecraft was. Mr. Okarafor seemed to be operating on the assumption that Lovecraft was racist and and an anti-semite in the way that was normal for his society but not accepted in today's society. The surprise and outrage in the article seems to have surfaced when he realized that Lovecraft's poetry, which was much MUCH more racist and anti-semitical than his writings, was revealed to him, and he realized that Lovecraft was outside of the norm for even the early 1900's.

As someone who has read and enjoyed quite a bit of Lovecraft, this is how I read the article, because Lovecraft's popular books and short stories are, while racist and xenophobic, nothing like his poetry, which reveals a level of racism and xenophobia that even a number of Lovecraft's devoted fans are often unaware exists until someone shows it to them.

There's a reason that his more popular stories are widespread, whilst his poetry and correspondence are much harder to find, even people around his era realized that some of Lovecraft's works would not be well-received, even with the excuse of being a product of his era.

 

[J.j. Cintia]

Well its about time they entered the 23rd Century! They should make the award reflect the people they intend to give it to, and get rid of H.P. Lovecraft and use Aunt Jemima! No one of these diverse scholars has read Lovecraft, because his stories are found in books! But, surely they know about Aunt Jemima because they need to leggo their eggos before they get shot. Mmmm, eggos. Science Fiction today is no longer about science and what does fiction mean? Does anyone even know? This is about inclusion. Publishers don't want readers, that's old news. The new hotness is quotas based on overly generous patronizing attitudes!

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

While I can't speak for what Mr. Okorafor actually meant, to me it didn't read like he was ok with Lovecraft's anti-semitism, but got outraged at the poem about Black people, he even mentions in the quote you linked that he realized that Lovecraft was racist. Even a casual reading of his popular (and less racial) works reveals Lovecraft had a very low opinion of Black people.

The author in the article seems to have changed his opinion because he didn't realize just HOW racist Lovecraft was. Mr. Okarafor seemed to be operating on the assumption that Lovecraft was racist and and an anti-semite in the way that was normal for his society but not accepted in today's society. The surprise and outrage in the article seems to have surfaced when he realized that Lovecraft's poetry, which was much MUCH more racist and anti-semitical than his writings, was revealed to him, and he realized that Lovecraft was outside of the norm for even the early 1900's.

As someone who has read and enjoyed quite a bit of Lovecraft, this is how I read the article, because Lovecraft's popular books and short stories are, while racist and xenophobic, nothing like his poetry, which reveals a level of racism and xenophobia that even a number of Lovecraft's devoted fans are often unaware exists until someone shows it to them.

There's a reason that his more popular stories are widespread, whilst his poetry and correspondence are much harder to find, even people around his era realized that some of Lovecraft's works would not be well-received, even with the excuse of being a product of his era.

While you might be correct, it still rings false to me. You can not be aware of Lovecraft's anti-semitism and not be aware of how he spoke about them. We're not talking "Jews are bad", we're talking complete repulsion. There is no mention of Lovecraft's antisemitism where it was quoted to be 'milder than the average person at the time'. He quoted science with a deep seeded hatred.

I fail to see how anyone can be aware of his Antisemitism and not understand how deeply rooted in hatred it was.

 

[ElMinotoro]

Before anyone wants to defend Lovecraft as a product of his time, read some of his poetry first. He was pretty far out there, even for the 20's and 30's.

 

[The Madman]

This is a man that drove his own wife away with his racism and paranoia, in a period of time where divorce was generally looked down upon when initiated by a woman, although Lovecraft never officially filed the divorce despite telling his wife that he did, leaving his wife to move to California and marry a doctor, unknowingly being in a bigamous relationship for over a decade.

This is blatantly untrue, or at least nothing I've been able to find backs it up.

'A few weeks after the death of his mother, Lovecraft attended an amateur journalist convention in Boston where he met Sonia Greene. Born in 1883, she was of Ukrainian Jewish ancestry and seven years older than Lovecraft. They married in 1924, and the couple moved to the borough of Brooklyn in New York City. Lovecraft's aunts may have been unhappy with this arrangement, as they were not fond of Lovecraft being married to a tradeswoman (Greene owned a hat shop). Initially Lovecraft was enthralled by New York but soon the couple was facing financial difficulties. Greene lost her hat shop and suffered poor health. Lovecraft could not find work to support them both so his wife moved to Cleveland for employment. Lovecraft lived by himself in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn and came to intensely dislike New York life[3]. Indeed, this daunting reality of failure to secure any work in the midst of a large immigrant population?especially irreconcilable with his opinion of himself as a privileged Anglo-Saxon?has been theorized as galvanizing his racism to the point of fear.


A few years later he and Greene, still living separately, agreed to an amicable divorce, which was never fully completed. He returned to Providence to live with his aunts during their remaining years. Due to the unhappiness of their marriage, some biographers have speculated that Lovecraft could have been asexual, though Greene is often quoted as referring to him as "an adequately excellent lover".'

Everything I've found indicates that the main reasons for the pairs separation were financial and location. Indeed Sonia spoke highly of Lovecraft, and even went on to defend him after his death despite having no motivation for needing to do so.

Call Lovecraft racist, by all means. Hell, the article I'm quoting above does. But at least be truthful about it or find a source to back it up. I can't.

 

[JimB]

Why exactly do we need to judge people of the past by current-day sensibilities?

Because if you believe racism is wrong, then you don't get to weasel out of it by saying, "It's okay because it was older," or, "It's okay because he's a good writer." Either you believe racism is wrong or you don't.

If this award group I've never heard of wants to focus on his racism or ignore it, either of those outcomes are basically fine by me (though I'd lean slightly toward preferring that his likeness be removed from the medal as to avoid potentially alienating writers of color, whose voices are underrepresented in the genre). How much his racism ought to affect a person's enjoyment of his work is an inherently subjective question I have no interest in debating, because no matter what anyone feels about it, that person's feelings are right. I'm only tackling the defense of moral relativism, which is one I have no patience for; I think it tries to falsely ennoble a lack of conviction.

 

[EternallyBored]

While I can't speak for what Mr. Okorafor actually meant, to me it didn't read like he was ok with Lovecraft's anti-semitism, but got outraged at the poem about Black people, he even mentions in the quote you linked that he realized that Lovecraft was racist. Even a casual reading of his popular (and less racial) works reveals Lovecraft had a very low opinion of Black people.

The author in the article seems to have changed his opinion because he didn't realize just HOW racist Lovecraft was. Mr. Okarafor seemed to be operating on the assumption that Lovecraft was racist and and an anti-semite in the way that was normal for his society but not accepted in today's society. The surprise and outrage in the article seems to have surfaced when he realized that Lovecraft's poetry, which was much MUCH more racist and anti-semitical than his writings, was revealed to him, and he realized that Lovecraft was outside of the norm for even the early 1900's.

As someone who has read and enjoyed quite a bit of Lovecraft, this is how I read the article, because Lovecraft's popular books and short stories are, while racist and xenophobic, nothing like his poetry, which reveals a level of racism and xenophobia that even a number of Lovecraft's devoted fans are often unaware exists until someone shows it to them.

There's a reason that his more popular stories are widespread, whilst his poetry and correspondence are much harder to find, even people around his era realized that some of Lovecraft's works would not be well-received, even with the excuse of being a product of his era.

While you might be correct, it still rings false to me. You can not be aware of Lovecraft's anti-semitism and not be aware of how he spoke about them. We're not talking "Jews are bad", we're talking complete repulsion. There is no mention of Lovecraft's antisemitism where it was quoted to be 'milder than the average person at the time'. He quoted science with a deep seeded hatred.

I fail to see how anyone can be aware of his Antisemitism and not understand how deeply rooted in hatred it was.

From my encounters with other Lovecraft fans, it actually seems to be fairly common, whilst Lovecraft was very anti-Semitic, his racism and xenophobia appear far more often in his writings, and the full brunt of his paranoia and antisemitism only becomes clear if you look into the poetry or correspondence of the man himself, which actually isn't nearly as easy to find as his popular writings, because even when he became popular posthumously people realized that his personal correspondence and anti-Semitic diatribes wouldn't go over well.

Hell, his poetry was really really damn hard to find before the advent of the internet I remember being completely unable to find any assembled works on it before they started appearing online. Even some of the staunchest Lovecraft fans I've met, who have read all his stories, don't realize the extent of his racism and anti-Judaism until the last 6 years or so when his obscure stuff and personal writings started appearing on the web with regularity.

The issue seems to come up so often because just reading his popular works doesn't really reveal the extent of his anti-Semitic beliefs, his popular works come off as more generically xenophobic and racist than they do against Judaism specifically. You really have to look into his obscure writings or biography to really reveal the extent of his beliefs.

 

[JimB]

Lovecraft's racism was a neurosis, not an ideology. He was sick and terrified and that's basically where most of his horrors come from. Yes he was far beyond the norm and he felt like shit because of that.

A rabid dog doesn't bite for pleasure, it bites because it's sick; and I hope knowing the beast wasn't motivated by meanness comforts you while you're bleeding.

Or, if that metaphor is too obscure, I do not care why he felt and spoke the way he did. "Why" is an interesting piece of trivia, and a useful question in scientific disciplines, but it does not change the content of his speech.

 

[Ratty]

Call Lovecraft racist, by all means. Hell, the article I'm quoting above does. But at least be truthful about it or find a source to back it up. I can't.

I think Lovecraft himself would have been the first to admit that he was racist. And quite strongly so even for his time. Here's the poem he wrote which I mentioned in the original post.

On the Creation of Niggers (1912)
by H. P. Lovecraft

When, long ago, the gods created Earth
In Jove?s fair image Man was shaped at birth.
The beasts for lesser parts were next designed;
Yet were they too remote from humankind.
To fill the gap, and join the rest to Man,
Th?Olympian host conceiv?d a clever plan.
A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
Filled it with vice, and called the thing a ******.

Can you understand why some black authors would feel uncomfortable having this man's head given to them as a literary honor? Why some fans would also be uncomfortable with holding his work up as a golden standard? This is not an isolated incident.

As mentioned above his racism was pervasive in his stories. As Soviet Heavy mentioned the short story "The Rats in the Walls" has the protagonist own a black cat named "****** Man" just because. And in the story "Medusa's Coil" which he co-wrote and I mentioned earlier, the big reveal was that not only was the woman who seduced a poor plantation owner literally a Gorgon, the story ends with the SHOCKING (GASP!) twist that she was also "a negress". Which the narrator treats as far worse than the whole Gorgon thing.

The Cthulhu cults are often described in racial terms as "degraded" cults of non-whites and non-British whites. In "Herbert West-Reanimator" West reanimates a black man and he acts like a crazed gorilla etc.
You can't really separate Lovecraft's racism from his work, it's part and parcel. I edited the initial post to reflect this.

 

[JimB]

On the Creation of Niggers (1912)
by H. P. Lovecraft
[snip]

Holy shit, dude. I've never read any Lovecraft, and about the only thing I know of his racism is a friend insisting most of his hate was reserved for Asian people, but holy shit. That is some weapon-grade hatespeech right there.

 

[VVThoughtBox]

Why is this news though? Weren't most fantasy authors around Lovecraft's time racist?

 

[JimB]

There's a choice to judge someone by words or by deeds and it is all yours.

I do not understand your point. Are you saying that I should excuse his racism as irrelevant or as fictional because he didn't act on it; that it's okay to be racist as long as you aren't lynching anyone, or burning crosses on someone's lawn? Or are you saying that publishing hateful, racist speech doesn't count as a deed? Or are you saying something else I haven't guessed?

 

[The Madman]

I think Lovecraft himself would have been the first to admit that he was racist. And quite strongly so even for his time. Here's the poem he wrote which I mentioned in the original post.

Um, are you quoting the right person? I ask because I'm not disputing that Lovecraft was racist, just the idea that he apparently drove his wife away or somesuch. Like I said in the post you quote, call him racist to your hearts content. He was. I don't think any rational person could even argue otherwise.

 

[JimB]

Damn, I can't even keep up with this thread.

Why is this news though? Weren't most fantasy authors around Lovecraft's time racist?

It's not news that he's racist. Everyone, including people like me who have never read his work, knows that. It's news that an award committee has decided it maybe doesn't feel comfortable handing out an effigy of a racist as a reward; that someone has thought maybe this information should actually be put to use instead of being cataloged as an oddity with no effect on anyone.

 

[EternallyBored]

This is a man that drove his own wife away with his racism and paranoia, in a period of time where divorce was generally looked down upon when initiated by a woman, although Lovecraft never officially filed the divorce despite telling his wife that he did, leaving his wife to move to California and marry a doctor, unknowingly being in a bigamous relationship for over a decade.

This is blatantly untrue, or at least nothing I've been able to find backs it up.

'A few weeks after the death of his mother, Lovecraft attended an amateur journalist convention in Boston where he met Sonia Greene. Born in 1883, she was of Ukrainian Jewish ancestry and seven years older than Lovecraft. They married in 1924, and the couple moved to the borough of Brooklyn in New York City. Lovecraft's aunts may have been unhappy with this arrangement, as they were not fond of Lovecraft being married to a tradeswoman (Greene owned a hat shop). Initially Lovecraft was enthralled by New York but soon the couple was facing financial difficulties. Greene lost her hat shop and suffered poor health. Lovecraft could not find work to support them both so his wife moved to Cleveland for employment. Lovecraft lived by himself in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn and came to intensely dislike New York life[3]. Indeed, this daunting reality of failure to secure any work in the midst of a large immigrant population?especially irreconcilable with his opinion of himself as a privileged Anglo-Saxon?has been theorized as galvanizing his racism to the point of fear.


A few years later he and Greene, still living separately, agreed to an amicable divorce, which was never fully completed. He returned to Providence to live with his aunts during their remaining years. Due to the unhappiness of their marriage, some biographers have speculated that Lovecraft could have been asexual, though Greene is often quoted as referring to him as "an adequately excellent lover".'

Everything I've found indicates that the main reasons for the pairs separation were financial and location. Indeed Sonia spoke highly of Lovecraft, and even went on to defend him after his death despite having no motivation for needing to do so.

Call Lovecraft racist, by all means. Hell, the article I'm quoting above does. But at least be truthful about it or find a source to back it up. I can't.

Lovecraft's wife Sonia Greene is actually hard to find concrete information on, for a time, Wikipedia had even deleted her article and just redirected to H.P. Lovecraft's page. She was a Jewish woman herself (which is one of those things that tends to surprise fans when they find out just how anti-Semitic he was.

Also, I apologize if I made it sound like she left him in disgust over his beliefs, or that it was the only reason she left, that was me being stupidly vague in my original post, she writes about hating his racist and anti-Semitic rants which was the main thrust of my point, but it was wrong of me to paint that as the only reason she left him, as the Wikipedia lists she also left because he was kind of a deadbeat, she hated New York, and she wanted to travel, there is no singular reason that the two separated, and while she writes about them arguing over his beliefs, I never actually said she hated him, most of her writings seem to indicate that she was just more frustrated with his beliefs and attitudes.

Sonia Greene is actually herself a fascinating woman, and if you can find some of her writings I would recommend them. She was a bit of an anomaly for her age, and was a fiercely independent woman for the early 1900's. Tragically, she burnt many of the letters from Lovecraft after their separation, some of which were very very long, but she did write about him after his death. She mentions being perplexed by his explosive temper, and that they had many arguments over his beliefs, she also writes about how his anti-Semitism (with her being Jewish and all) was a topic of contention for her, and that she would often point out her own Semitic origins, which Lovecraft would often proceed to ignore.

Here is a little bit about her: http://archive.wired.com/table_of_malcontents/2007/02/the_mysterious_/

Her direct writings on Lovecraft can be difficult to find, but I would recommend them if you can find them, I again apologize if I ever gave the impression that the two hated each other, their relationship is as odd as Lovecraft himself in some ways.