Scotty wrote: >Our logic in applying > appraisal of an author is an evolutionary one and it is clear to me that it > can change as more of an author is uncovered. Much of what I see labelled as > racism in Howard I find merely descriptive, and others that can be viewed as > racial in modern light, really ethnic disparity. As has been suggested, it > depends a lot on personal interpretation.
Like I alluded yesterday, what were the dictates of the pulp fiction world? Could "whites" (okay, we'll probably argue over that) be substituted in as the villains? Like I said, the "Yellow Peril" has received a lot of scholarly attention and the from the little I read on that, suggests this is what was expected in the story. Having read a bunch of ERB, the past few weeks, it comes to my mind, the Russians and Slavic peoples are villains when the Commies have just taken over Russia and the immigration laws are reflecting biases to Slavic peoples, the "Huns"/Germans are bad guys when the Nazis are coming to power in Germany. In Burroughs, the only "white" villain I can think of is La of Opar, and I am not sure she qualifies as a villainess... This is a question of pragmatism---ie selling the story to the market. Scotty then goes on: > > I'm not sure about some of this, but in 1970 in Berkley, stopping at a > Chevron gas station on my motorcycle, I've was ignored by the black > attendant. He finally got around to me, sees my license plate, and asks if > BC stands for Burbank, Calif. I said no, it was British Columbia, and I was > Canadian. Man, you'd think the guy had found a long lost brother! The guy > was all over me and friendly as all get out. So what was the difference > between an American white boy and a Canadian white boy and is this racism or > something else.? Is there some dual standard here, similar to HPL having > Jewish friends but being anti-Semitic elsewhere? I think I'm going to let > Mark chime in since it's his home turf, but I would postulate where does > ethnic leanings verge over into racism and vice versa. Tough one, Scotty. Most anthropologist go with Barth's analysis that ethnicity is both constructed by the individual and the surrounding people and society. Many also argue that you can have multiple ethnic identities at any given moment. I would argue that approach requires really good contextual information and I am not sure its a cross-cultural universal. The issue also gets slippery since a definition of race has changed through time. In the 1920s and 1930s, races were defined very much by blood-groups, parent nations, and language issues. Over time, it shifted from that definition to the 3-5 group definition we use in the USA. Note though, this 3-5 group division only applies to the USA (and probably Canada). I can dig a reference or two out on this transition if somebody wants. thus, for his time, Howard's Hyborian races make sense, but by today's standards his Hyborian races should be called Hyborian ethnic groups. :) Anyway, a book I would recommend on ethnicity is M. Bank's Ethnicity: Anthropological Constructs. He does some nice cross-cultural studies---the USA, Britain over several decades, and then throws the situation in Bosnia in once he gets to the 1980s and 1990s. On your example above, it is a case I would argue of the guy wanting to discriminate against white, US citizens, but once he finds out you are Canadian it's a whole different story. Your ethnicity shifts to that of white Canadian. And i guess for lack of a better term, when people actively treat other ethnic groups in a bad way, its also racism. I have yet to see any other term used; well, there is "ethnic cleansing" but that is a pretty extreme form. Later, MEH
