Howard both consciously and inadvertently reflected the social attitudes of his time and place.
When we look for real racism, we should look for anger, resentment, and intent to denigrate, harm, or oppress. His fiction did not reflect this. He often remarked in his stories on the beauty of multi-racial women. It's clear to me that he probably found them attractive (perhaps to his personal discomfort), but this is supposition on my part. He sometimes sympathized with the mistreatment of blacks. In "The Last White Man," he referred to the blacks who were inheriting the world of the diminished Indo-Europeans, Aryans, or Whites as a "younger, stronger race," or something to that effect. While even this work was colored by the prevailing attitudes of his time toward issues of race, it was not dominated by them. Evolution was a major theme here, however. The version of Darwinian theory about evolution and particularly the development of the races of man which was prevalent during his day was reflected in his work. I suspect that much of this material, or supposition on his part which was inspired by it and based on the "intellectual" discussions of his time, is currently interpreted as "racist." However, one could say that he was just as influenced by obscure esoteric ideas which we now see as thinly-veiled racism, such as Blavatsky's SECRET DOCTRINE and the various "root races" contained therein (the Hyborian Age essay seems to hold echoes of this, at the very least). Blavatsky's Rmoahals were the ultimate negative racial stereotype. This latter point about this possible influence, I admit, is a supposition on my part again, but I believe it is a valid one. I believe he dealt in "racial stereotypes," more than true racism. It certainly was not a major theme for him, nor was it a purely Southern or Western theme. In fact, whatever taint of currently-defined politically-incorrect thought on issues of race he might have had, absolutely PALE in comparison to the racial and sexual xenophobia of Lovecraft, his Yankee pen-pal. Was REH a racist? No more than any or all or each of us, no matter how "enlightened," tolerant, all-embracing or "different" we might think ourselves to be. I've lived in North Africa. I've lived in California, in Virginia, in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and several other locales. I've seen genuine racism directed toward Caucasians, in the United States, that would make any one of good conscience, of any race, puke. One of my best friends, an non-racist art professor, was brutally murdered in 1986, stabbed 47 times in the chest, clobbered with a pipe, and then burned while STILL ALIVE in a dumpster, by two teenagers. His "offense," as told to the court and to the police? He was a white guy walking his dog at night, and he "walked too close" to their neighborhood. Not through it, mind you. His body, later recovered from a landfill, was unrecognizable and dental records were used. So much for the "white people don't know racism" apologetics. I've seen it many times, both first and second-hand, but I try to deal with it in a very non-Conan like fashion if at all possible. GENUINE racists come in all colors. REH was not one them. --Mike
