H.P. Lovecraft is universally acknowledged as one of the most important horror writers of the 20th century, and references to his Cthulhu Mythos abound in contemporary culture. But Lovecraft was also quite racist, a fact made clear in his voluminous correspondence. That’s something fantasy author Daniel Jose Older has been outspoken about in his criticism of Lovecraft’s work.
“The dude was a wild, rabid racist in a very racist time in a very racist country,” Older says in Episode 237 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “He really did weaponize literature in a way that was very damaging to people who were reading it.”
Silvia Moreno-Garcia recently won a World Fantasy Award for her anthology She Walks in Shadows, a book of Lovecraftian fiction written by women. She says that many writers of color were reluctant to contribute stories to the book because of his views.
“Some people of color would tell me no, no, Lovecraft was racist, so I can’t write that,” she says. “And I would be like, ‘Well, yeah, but why don’t you put your own spin on it?'”
Horror author Maurice Broaddus agrees that writers of color should be producing their own takes on Lovecraft. He says that what really got him into the Cthulhu Mythos was reading the work of Victor LaValle.
“Ballad of Black Tom was a great entry point for me personally in terms of finally being able to come to the Lovecraft Mythos in a way that actually connects to me,” he says.
Older, Moreno-Garcia, and Broaddus recently helped edit People of Colo(u)r Destroy Fantasy and People of Colo(u)r Destroy Horror, special issues of Fantasy magazine and Nightmare magazine written, edited, and illustrated by people of color. People of color have recently become much more vocal within the fantasy and horror communities, which has led to a certain amount of backlash, but Older says that criticisms of authors such as Lovecraft should be viewed as part of a healthy fan dialog.
“You have to love the work to a certain level to engage with it that deeply,” he says. “It’s the same thing you see with the feminist critique of hip-hop. It comes from love, and it comes from a deep need to express ourselves and find ourselves in the work.”
Listen to our complete interview with Daniel Jose Older, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and Maurice Broaddus in Episode 237 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above). And check out some highlights from the discussion below.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia on science fiction conventions:
“I went to one in Vancouver, in a section of the city called Richmond, which is predominantly Asian and Chinese, so when you’re outside all the signs are in Chinese, and everyone is Chinese, basically, and then I went into the hotel where the convention was happening, and everybody inside was white. … And I was just kind of like, ‘Why aren’t these people [of color] here?’ There were a ton of people outside, but they weren’t going into the convention. And it wasn’t like they weren’t consuming products, because I know some of these people watch shows or read comics or whatever, but it seemed like two different worlds. It was the strangest sensation.”
Maurice Broaddus on “Status Quo Warriors”:
“There are people who want the status quo, and that’s what they’re advocating for. And even though I’ve taken a step back over the last couple years from being provocative online, I ended up getting in a shouting match with an editor because he was trying to defend his all-white anthology, and I’m like, ‘That’s all right. Own it. You wanted the status quo, you read only within your little comfort zone, you aren’t trying to find new voices, you want the voices that you’ve grown up with and that fit your little taste, and you don’t want to do the work of finding new voices. That’s fine, just own it.’ So yeah, you have editors who just want to fight for the status quo.”
Silvia Moreno-Garcia on diverse narratives:
“One of the problems I had when I was starting to find my voice is that I wanted to write the same stories with the same farmboy [hero], and then it didn’t help if I just called him ‘Pepe.’ One of the things I’ve been told is that urban fantasy doesn’t sell anymore, and my vampire novel–people loved it, but people said, ‘Well, it’s not going to sell.’ And maybe they were right, but then the answer was like, ‘Why don’t you write something like Game of Thrones?’ In Game of Thrones they don’t have pinatas, they don’t have mezcal, and they don’t have all these other things. So it’s problematic for me to just suddenly say, ‘King Pepe walked into the room.’ That’s not exactly going to work.”
Maurice Broaddus on The Knights of Breton Court:
“This is a story set in the hood, so frankly I was shocked when [Angry Robot] picked it up. But I also felt that it was truly, authentically me, and that was the first time that I really felt like, ‘No, this is the story I wrote.’ But at the same time, I’m playing with some other people’s beloved toys, I guess, because I had all sorts of pushback about ‘you can’t do that to my King Arthur.’ All of a sudden everybody gets really possessive about ‘their’ King Arthur. One of my favorite criticisms was when a lady wrote me and said, ‘Hey, your story is too ghetto.’ And I was like, ‘Huh. That’s interesting. I wonder if the story was set on Mars, if you would describe it as “too Martian”?'”
In a way, he did reveal the biggest fear of the White Man: facing the fact that he is insignificant, that he is no more important than a cockroach in the blip of time. That may be why his “horror” feels so hollow, why we have so little trouble parodying him. But I disagree about it making him a great writer: it could just as easily have been the WASPs that were the degenerate conspirators, and there is nothing preventing a Creole protagonist. Racism is merely the seasoning that has turned rancid and bitter with time.
>Silvia Moreno-Garcia on diverse narratives:
“One of the problems I had when I was starting to find my voice is that I wanted to write the same stories with the same farmboy [hero], and then it didn’t help if I just called him ‘Pepe.’ One of the things I’ve been told is that urban fantasy doesn’t sell anymore, and my vampire novel—people loved it, but people said, ‘Well, it’s not going to sell.’ And maybe they were right, but then the answer was like, ‘Why don’t you write something like Game of Thrones?’ In Game of Thrones they don’t have piñatas, they don’t have mezcal, and they don’t have all these other things. So it’s problematic for me to just suddenly say, ‘King Pepe walked into the room.’ That’s not exactly going to work.”
What a shit-tacular author she must be. When told “Write something like “Game of Thrones” her response is “But that’s about WHITE PEOPLE!!!!! You’re TRIGGERING ME!!!!!!!!!”
Has this fucktard never heard of the Aztec, Mayan, or Inca civilizations? Or is she just so wrapped up in being a Victim of the White Patriarchy that she can’t find the time to do exactly what G.R.R.M did…take the stories of REAL FUCKING PEOPLE and turn them into fictional characters with a heaping helping of Fantasy?
Apparently the *real* difference between White Authors and PoC Authors is that White People rely on CREATIVITY while PoCs rely on victimhood.
I am talking about Lovecraft’s PERSONAL letters to various friends, in which he advocates genocide against “orientals in New York” and the Latins in New England, for example.
If you read between the lines, the article is built on a contradiction.
On one hand, Lovecraft is a racist.
On the other hand, Lovecraft the racist didn’t introduce enough heroes of colour into his novels – even as antagonists – to create an entry point for visible minorities.
One particularly interesting example is the Horror in Red Hook story. In essence, it is a story about an evil cult spun out of pre-Christian Middle Eastern religion – a rarity these days. Predictably, the cult is practiced by Middle Easterners. Also predictably (at least, for Lovecraft), whoever practices that cult is described as an ugly degenerate.
Which, predictably, leads to charges of racism against Lovecraft – see, he described an Arab as a degenerate! Must be cause he hates them.
Problem is, you can’t have it both ways. If you want inclusion in horror, you have to live with ugly devil-worshipping Arabs, just like an evil Catholic priest or a homicidal Evangelist are a staple of horror movies for decades now. If you want all the bad guys to be white (as it seems to be the norm lately), you can’t have your cherished diversity. And if you cry “racist!” every time a minority ends up being a bad guy in a book, you won’t have a novel that’s actually popular among core audience.
If by “genocide against various peoples” you mean “The Street”, then I have bad news for you: it is about the destruction of anarchists who plan mass chaos, similar to what happened in Russia in 1917 (the story is written in 1919), and it is about as “unreasonable” as writing about Islamic terror after 9/11.
can’t say knee grows no more!
It’s so tedious reading all of this politically correct crap in Wired. I’m old enough to remember when it used to be magazine about technology, rather than identity-based whining.
Alt-righter, lol moron. You have no idea what that made up term means other than to label someone who disagrees you you.
Typical “alt-lefter”
Nothing honorable in being a fascist that hides behind “social justice”.
My SJW is out to ban your kind from life ….. Now your going to love me and bow down to me in reverence at my SJ cause. OR you may have a Eureka Moment and realize that NOT ALL SJ causes are equal, like opinions, some have merit and are worth pursuing the rest NOPE, just plain old some one’s opinion/SJ cause, just like you and yours.
I can think of nothing more honorable than fighting for social justice, and nothing more dishonorable than sneering at those who do. Social Justice Warrior is a badge to be worn with pride.
“So it’s problematic for me to just suddenly say, ‘King Pepe walked into the room.’ That’s not exactly going to work.”
Actually, I would pay good money for a book that starts with that line.
All they focus on is bringing to light all the bad stuff only white people do. All the while, their wired.com/wired-staff page doesn’t adequately represent the racial makeup of this country. Wired is, in fact, too white for all the screeching they do about there being no racial equality. They diversity-shame everyone but themselves.
This outfit, run by white people–most recently with a white male editor-in-chief who’s been replaced by another white male, Nicholas Thompson–can be heard religiously flogging itself for the failings of white people, all the while having seemingly no issue keeping it a white men’s club. And the non-white and/or non-male staff appear to have no issue with that, which I suppose is some obscure statement about how white people still have too much power, because they can still manage their non-white staff into subservience so much that they will gladly work for a paycheck writing about hip tech stuff but otherwise keep their traps shut about how the white, Wired fox is guarding the white, Wired henhouse….
Lovecraft went above and beyond the racism for a white man of his day, actively advocating genocide against various peoples. He died a painful and long drawn out death, which is perhaps a punishment on its own. Saying he’s racist does not, in any way, take away from the fact that he was a good writer with great ideas. We’ve seen in modern society the way people separate an entertainer’s personal life/views from his work (e.g. Michael Jackson, Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, R. Kelly, etc.)
This post triggered a lot of commenters, even prompted one to post famous alt-righter Milos Yiannopoulos’ name in his comment as a sort of shield or security blanket, I guess. Sad!
OK Wired, You can address every social Ill our society has ever produced or you can stop showing fake paid ads on half the page. The problem with taking these stands is how different it is to the paid google home thingy “article” right next to it. This article isn’t even the high road, it’s all pretty gross.
Milo Yiannopoulos is the new Cthulhu for the SJW folks.
“Writers of color” SMH.
If you stop and think about it, the prevailing culture would encourage (program) him to be. Just like the prevailing culture of NOW encourages (programs) people to not be.
I seriously doubt that most people even really know what racist /racism is, let alone they are at a fundamental level racist.
Can somebody tell me of a black majority country that was never racist.?
Otherwise lets be honest. Blacks have been, and still are, the most racist race on the planet.
Since when did Wired become a mouthpiece for Social Justice Warriors. Fire these people…fire them now!
He was a racist in a time that wasn’t considered a bad thing but quite the opposite, so, he didn’t do anything wrong.
Another deliberate misdirection that only white males are racist. Thank god that we have © RAP noisemakers to keep us all egalitarian.
Even Cthulhu himself would be driven mad upon gazing at that visage.
He was someone to be pitied rather than vilified. I mean look at that face.