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

[Ratty]

So this is interesting. Apparently since 1975 the World Fantasy Awards has been giving out a likeness of Howard Phillips Lovecraft to winners. Some authors have begun to be put off by this award statuette because of the undeniable[footnote]Seriously go read "The Horror at Red Hook" or "Medusa's Coil" and tell me Lovecraft wasn't a racist.[/footnote] racism of Lovecraft himself and much of his work.

The ball to get the award changed got rolling when African author Nnedi Okorafor, who won for best novel in 2011, became disturbed after a friend showed her an extremely racist poem Lovecraft had written. Since her blog post on the subject other authors and fans have come forward to ask for a change as they feel a statuette with the likeness of Lovecraft no longer represents the ideals and aspirations of the science fiction and fantasy genres or their authors. What do you think?

Original blog post that got the ball rolling.
http://nnedi.blogspot.com/2011/12/lovecrafts-racism-world-fantasy-award.html

Salon editorial
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/11/its_ok_to_admit_that_h_p_lovecraft_was_racist/

The Guardian article
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/17/world-fantasy-awards-hp-lovecraft-racism-row-statuette

 

[Silence]

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).

 

[The Lunatic]

I guess we should just stop using any likeness to anyone born 80 years ago or more.

 

[BeeGeenie]

A reasonable thing to do.

Lovecraft seems an odd choice for a Fantasy award anyway. I suppose they felt sorry for him, since Poe is the natural pick for the horror genre.

Maybe they thought Tolkien would be too obvious?

 

[Happiness Assassin]

In other news, there are talks to remove George Washington from the $1 bill, as his ownership of slaves has been deemed racist by today's standards.

This does in fact bug me, maybe more than it should, but I really dislike it when people try to diminish the accomplishments of people due to being products of their time. You don't have to endorse someone's personal views to still appreciate their work for what it is. And that is why they chose his likeness in the first place: because of his influence on entire genres of literature and story telling, not because they agreed with his racist views.

But ultimately, they can do with their awards what they want, but I would still be disappointed.

 

[The Madman]

I imagine the point of making the award in Lovecraft's likeness was that he died in poverty and with little recognition to his name despite the massive influence his works would end up having, thus the point in putting his likeness on an award to promote author recognition as a sort of 'lets not let this happen again' sort of thing.

As for removing his likeness, I'm torn. On one hand it's pretty undeniable that the guy was racist (Although the argument could be made he just disliked humans in general) but on the other he really is the poster child for the whole 'never got the recognition he deserved' ideal and in spite of his racism the impact of his works cannot be denied.

Tough call.

Re-reading about his life to refresh my memory really nails hope how sad Lovecraft's life was near the end:

'Throughout his life, selling stories and paid literary work for others did not provide enough to cover Lovecraft's basic expenses. Living frugally, he subsisted on an inheritance that had almost gone in his last years, by which time he sometimes went without food to afford the cost of mailing letters. He was forced to move to smaller and meaner lodgings with his surviving aunt. He was also deeply affected by the suicide of his correspondent Robert E. Howard. In 1936, Lovecraft was diagnosed with cancer of the small intestine, and as a result he suffered from malnutrition. He lived in constant pain until his death on March 15, 1937, in Providence.

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft#Last_years

He didn't even get his own headstone till fans later paid for one made over his grave. How depressing is that?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

In other news, there are talks to remove George Washington from the $1 bill, as his ownership of slaves has been deemed racist by today's standards.

This does in fact bug me, maybe more than it should, but I really dislike it when people try to diminish the accomplishments of people due to being products of their time. You don't have to endorse someone's personal views to still appreciate their work for what it is. And that is why they chose his likeness in the first place: because of his influence on entire genres of literature and story telling, not because they agreed with his racist views.

But ultimately, they can do with their awards what they want, but I would still be disappointed.

Pretty much what I wanted to say.

The award isn't for being a great humanitarian, it's for being a great author, and HP Lovecraft clearly is. Whether or not you agree with his personal world views doesn't take away from that fact and therefore shouldn't matter to an award that's given out based on writing ability.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I guess we should just stop using any likeness to anyone born 80 years ago or more.

How about we look at something more modern, then? Orson Scott Card. Wrote some great books, but is also a homophobic asshole who actively slanders gays and funds anti gay bills.

Lovecraft was a racist. So were a number of poets considered today to be influential. It is an amiable goal to separate an author's work from his own life, but sometimes it just isn't possible. One of Lovecraft's novels featured a cat called ****** Man. Even when he was writing, that was pretty overtly racist.

I'm not saying that an author's personal opinions should tarnish his contributions, but when his contributions are influenced by his racism, it is hard to separate the two.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I guess we should just stop using any likeness to anyone born 80 years ago or more.

How about we look at something more modern, then? Orson Scott Card. Wrote some great books, but is also a homophobic asshole who actively slanders gays and funds anti gay bills.

Lovecraft was a racist. So were a number of poets considered today to be influential. It is an amiable goal to separate an author's work from his own life, but sometimes it just isn't possible. One of Lovecraft's novels featured a cat called ****** Man.

The difference here is that Orson Scott Card still gets money from people buying his books, money which he then uses to help fund campaigns against homosexuals. Lovecraft is DEAD, and in life I don't think he ever had enough money to contribute to any kind of pro-racist agenda, so buying his books has never and will never actually have an effect on racism. That's a big difference. Lovecraft held racist views, just like the vast majority of his generation, but there's no evidence he ever did anything that negatively impacted the life of anyone. If he never wronged anyone with his racism, so why should his racism matter, especially to an award that's about contributions to writing?

 

[Asita]

...A man born at the end of the 19th century and died before the American Civil Rights Movement even started[footnote]H.P. Lovecraft: Born 1890, died 1937. American Civil Rights Movement: 1954-1968[/footnote] was obviously racist by modern standards, you say? Well color me surprised. *eyeroll*

Now they certainly have the right to choose whatever likeness they want (provided they have the right to use it), but because he was racist at a time in history when racism was prevalent, accepted, and both blatantly and actively institutionalized? And for an award that has nothing to do with social progressivism? Come on now.

 

[The Lunatic]

How about we look at something more modern, then? Orson Scott Card. Wrote some great books, but is also a homophobic asshole who actively slanders gays and funds anti gay bills.

Lovecraft was a racist. So were a number of poets considered today to be influential. It is an amiable goal to separate an author's work from his own life, but sometimes it just isn't possible. One of Lovecraft's novels featured a cat called ****** Man. Even when he was writing, that was pretty overtly racist.

I'm not saying that an author's personal opinions should tarnish his contributions, but when his contributions are influenced by his racism, it is hard to separate the two.

While what Dirty Hipsters says is true, it's also worthy of note that Orson Scott Card is still alive.

And whilst I both disagree with his views, and accept the difference in opinion, his opinion can still change.

In ten or twenty years time, he may apologise entirely and express deep sympathy for his views. At such a time, people such as myself who are gay, would likely show tolerance and understanding and thus would basically consider it no longer a part of his character.

Lovecraft, being dead and dying early lacks the lifespan to experience different cultures and colours of people, and thus it seems impossibly to really say that he was a die-hard racist who never would have reconsidered his writings at that stage in his life.

It seems unfair to accuse a person of being racist for views they held which were common at the time, and seemingly born from a lack of experience with other cultures.

 

[EternallyBored]

Eh, everyone was racist back then, but honestly, it's their choise if they want to use him or not, don't really see how it matters to anyone, honestly.

It's actually pretty hard to even find nuanced views on non-white people from back then, so I'll wonder which classic author they'll go to next.

Eh, I see this attitude crop up a lot whenever Lovecraft pops up in discussion, but I think it does a disservice to the complexity of history. We can harp on about how everyone was racist back then, but this is not actually nearly as true as we paint it, this man lived during the 1900's not the height of American, slavery racism is not nearly as simple back then as people are trying to justify it as.

In Lovecraft's case especially, his racism and xenophobia where nowhere inside the norm for the period, a number of people who lived during the same time as him remark on his exceptional paranoia and very very racist tirades against pretty much anyone non-anglo (he disliked other White Europeans as well as other races, he pretty much thought everyone was inferior to the English). Strangely enough, he was a proponent of equality of the sexes (in Western Europeans at least), although this is kind of spoiled by the fact that he thought inequality between men and women was a conspiracy propagated by "orientals" to corrupt the pure European ideals.

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.

Lovecraft was perhaps partially a product of his time, but I do not like the idea of trying to paint the rest of the people living in the early 1900's as just as racist as he was. Lovecraft was an outlier, even in his own time, his racism, xenophobia, and nativist attitudes were outside the norm for the era.

As for the award, it is a private award, the committee is free to change it however they wish, they are also free to ignore the petitions to change it, just as those who receive it are free to reject it for having the man's image on it. As long as no one is trying to censor his works, I have no issues with what an unaffiliated award does with itself.

 

[Irick]

I guess we should just stop using any likeness to anyone born 80 years ago or more.

Pretty much this.
Why exactly do we need to judge people of the past by current day sensibilities? H.P. Lovecraft made good books, he's a good writer. If you are going to update the award do it for another reason. Crying foul of the beliefs of someone who is far too dead to defend themselves or even weigh in on the issue is poor form, and I fail to see how his historical racism affects his iconic standing as a great fantastical author.

 

[Mr.Mattress]

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.

Fun Fact: Lovecraft's wife, Sonia Greene, was not only from the Ukraine (At the Time a part of the Russian Empire), but from a Jewish Family, so Lovecraft intentionally married a Slavic Jewish woman.

But yes, Lovecraft was indeed a Racist to everyone who wasn't a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant); all of his Heroes in his writings where WASPS and everyone who wasn't a WASP almost always had unsavory characteristics or where stereotypes, usually negative as well. However, you cannot deny that even with these Racist Stereotypes, his writings where a huge contribution to not only Horror writing, but Sci-Fi Writing as well. On top of that, his Racism inspired one of his better known works, "The Shadow over Innsmouth". Regardless, the Committee can remove his likeness from their Award if they want because it's their committee. If it where me? I would simply leave the statue alone.

 

[Orphan81]

I guess we should just stop using any likeness to anyone born 80 years ago or more.

Quoted for truth.

Edit: Really, as others have said too... we might as well strip the founding fathers from all images considering they all earned slaves as well.

 

[beastro]

Stupid that they did this, imo.

Stupid that they chose someone like Lovecraft in the first place.

The Lunatic:
I guess we should just stop using any likeness to anyone born 80 years ago or more.

Indeed.

If they felt he deserved to have a likeness in the first place then it comes with warts and all.

 

[Lilani]

I think it's silly for the various reasons stated above (everybody back then was kind of racist, we Americans wouldn't take the slave-owning founding fathers off the dollar bills, etc), but I also think if it's really causing people a bother they may as well just change it so the award isn't tainted with controversy. It's supposed to be a great honor for those who receive it, and if something's messing with the honor of that, er, honor then they should make sure it is honorable.

 

[EternallyBored]

Stupid that they did this, imo.

Stupid that they chose someone like Lovecraft in the first place.

The Lunatic:
I guess we should just stop using any likeness to anyone born 80 years ago or more.

Indeed.

If they felt he deserved to have a likeness in the first place then it comes with warts and all.

Who is they? the world fantasy award is not a singular coherent group throughout history, in fact a quick search reveals that the award has been around since 1975 and the award is basically organized and voted on as a large group as part of a convention, a convention that has changed hands and management over the years, so the "they" that originally decided on Lovecraft are no longer even around, if the current "they" that had no input on the what the award looked like when it was conceived decide that an award that is supposed to be about fantasy literature on an international level may not be best represented by their current model, then that is their decision.

One they haven't even reached yet as the linked articles indicate that there is discussion, not that the statue will definitely change, they are free to ignore or accept the pleas of others as they choose.