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Friday Fun Thread for February 24, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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It's very much in question, still.

There was an anonymous questionnaire given to GIs during or shortly after WW2 that found that they'd basically all qualify as far right extremists today. There's also this book that claims a 1943 poll found that Americans at the time would have rather lost the war than given full equality to blacks.

People back then were very racist. The infamous Rosedale book about 'White Flight' mentioned the utter disgust and contempt with which elderly whites treated a white woman running away from an abusive black boyfriend - they'd not let her in, they'd not let her use the phone, they'd not call the police on her behalf. And this was 1970s.

I can easily see how someone who is just a run of the mill racist and fond of describing the grotesque in his stories can seize upon the more unusual features of the black phenotype - say, the wide nose, the prominent lips, etc and go on about them.

I don't think you have to be a particularly heinous racist to be that way. Someone who is truly bigoted and racist would be far more obsessed and far less likely to ever use neutral language.

Meanwhile, if my memory serves, Lovecraft describes blacks as usually primitive, more in tune with their animal nature than whites, but not irredeemable or wholly evil. Note that he sometimes mentions various obscure tribes or races of men that were wholly given to serving alien powers, etc..