Something I've been thinking of...a useful response to Racist writers who have long since died...is looking at how the racism functions in their work.

Not all forms of racism is exactly the same even if they end up at the same place and if you truly enjoy a writer, it might be worthwhile to see how that skewed perspective fed into the work that is being put forth.

There is clearly a difference between Lovecraft's racism and Harriet Beecher Stowe's, and Flannery O'Connor's and each ones led to very different works and different messages

Those are just examples but we can also discuss the opportunistic racism of Edgar Rice Burroughs or the strange Jungian imaginative racism of Joseph Conrad and how each of these shouldn't be shunned in analysis or readings but could actually be centered and examined

Analyzing Racism as a facet itself a theme and a history will allow us to arrive at textured conclusions of the writings and let us see a context by which we see certain viewpoints alive and well today.

I'm saying this as it is somewhat naive to assume allegations of racism will cause these books to cease to exist or professors to stop assigning them (most of these books have been discusssed as racist for decades) but there is a way we can make this engagement fruitful

I'm also saying this for people who find their favorite authors placed under scrutiny, it is more difficult to pretend that racism within their works do not exist vs discussing how despite that it yields a rich understanding that allows you to understand the forces at work today.

A great work that stands the test of time is supposed to do that anyways, and as it is more difficult to cancel the dead...we might as well make their more upsetting views work to better our understandings.

Also...this isn't a cop-out to not read black (or POC) writers.

If you're committed to changing this perspective both within yourself and your community this needs to happen as well.

It's a both/and situation.

/fin.