this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024
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Today I Learned
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I heard something like this on...Reddit? Maybe. A while ago. They said something akin to while Dahl was racist he didn't let it encroach upon his writting like Lovecraft. I don't really read Lovecraft (haven't since a long, long time ago) but I do have a compillation of Dahl's writings. And I liked them. Didn't feel put off by them, outside of the fact that he can write some gross stuff. I am not sure what else to say on the subject other than it stinks.
I loved his books as a child. As an adult I read them to my kids and I'm strick by a lot of inappropriate language, normal for the time. Racism, fat shaming, child abuse.
Its problematic, and if I was black, I dont know that I'd be comfortable reading descriptions of oompa loompas to my child in a world full of racists. It made me wonder if I should not have read it to munchokd, who would not understand the stereotypes used, nor the allegory to slavery.
Yeah he was fun for his time but is painfully out dated now
I mean kinda, I had fun reading his adult stuff as an adult. But to each their own. Also this was a handful of years back. So I've got the jist of what I read but can't give you a thorough play by play. But I will say as an individual who is a minority, of a minority, of a minority (the lazy way of saying I have some intersectionality going on here) that I don't remember being outright terribly sad face offended. Which when that happens, I tend to put down whatever I am reading/doing/going to and never pick it back up.
I know lovecraft was racist in his personal writings, but I can't recall any specific exams of it inside his fiction.
He wrote so many stories, I would guess it must have somewhere, but I don't remember any and I've read almost all of lovecraft.
I should fill in the gaps with Lovecraft actually and finish the rest of it.
That's great you got a collection of Roald Dahl, I've definitely read all of his books multiple times, they are great.
I don't see evidence of racism inside Dahl's works either, except for like the oompa loompa is coming from Africa, being African pygmies?
The glaring example."The Rats in The Walls" had a cat called "removed Man".
And of course admins censor the N word. Jesus Christ this world we live in is fucking scuffed.
Ah, thanks, I'll look at that
There's quite a few less obvious examples in how he explains black people like animals. He also does the same with Asians. Dude was a man of the times lol
Leaving aside his poetry and his collaborative works, here are some other examples of racism in Lovecraft stories.
"The Rats in the Walls" features a cat named "N----- Man"
"The Horror at Red Hook" refers to a villain as "an Arab with a hatefully negroid mouth"
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward: "the wife [had] a very repulsive cast of countenance, probably due to a mixture of negro blood."
Herbert West: Reanimator contains a particularly problematic bit of description:
The negro had been knocked out, and a moment’s examination shewed us that he would permanently remain so. He was a loathsome, gorilla-like thing, with abnormally long arms which I could not help calling fore legs, and a face that conjured up thoughts of unspeakable Congo secrets and tom-tom poundings under an eerie moon. The body must have looked even worse in life—but the world holds many ugly things.
Edit: this is entirely copy pasta
Mm, I believe it, I am was so into the eldritch descriptions I must have glossed over the racist shit, lovecraft country is what brought it to my attention originally.
And I haven't read his does rice that show aired.
I didn't realize it was based off a book, I want to read that, now
Lovecraft country was so good. Shame about majors.
I will argue though what I love about Lovecraft country is probably not what most people did.