To better get to know the man behind the monsters I watched this documentary:

The title itself was based on a quote Lovecraft himself said, based on his overall horror work.

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear and the oldest strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."

The documentary was made in 2008 and had interviews from various filmmakers and authors who were inspired by or even went so far as to adapt his work. From Re-Animator's Stuart Gordon, to Sandman's Neil Gaiman to Legendary Filmmaker John Carpenter.

This documentary went through everything. Not just the work and his influence, but his overall life. Which of course includes the very racism many people have tried to cancel him over way after his death.

At first I wanted to shut it off, because I felt like I heard it all already. However, there were a few things that took me by surprise. When I first heard of his racism and how far he went with it, I thought the guy was basically being the world's first troll. He does have a dry sense of humour. It wasn't until I listened on that they told me the root of that problem. For starters, like everyone else in that time, Lovecraft had trouble adapting to a changing world at first. He was what was known as a puritan which he inherited from his parents. Much like everyone else at that time though, he was also swayed by the commonality of said racism. Not just going after black people, Jewish and asians of all kind, he was also prejudiced against certain whites as well. Including but not limited to the Irish. However as he grew older both his writing and his mindset began to change. He started becoming more tolerant. At least as tolerant as one can be living the last remaining years in the 1930s.

Funny how no one aside from that documentary and Barnes and Noble mentioned that. The latter of which doesn't think it's relevant. Which I call bullshit on.

I don't know where we went wrong in fighting racism, but somewhere along the lines we as a species, decided to drop the notion that racists can be reformed. Between the 1960s to the mid to late 2000s, even some of the most intolerant people were given a chance to change their ways and help for the better, but 2010s and on, the second you mention a slur once, you're branded for life. That unless you kill yourself or some radical activist decides to do the job for you, people will continue to try to ruin your life.

I honestly wonder who the real prejudice is after that.

H.P. has been dead for almost a century. Nothing his writings say would suddenly make one racist. The worst we got the past decades were people too into the Cult of Cthulhu. If Barnes and Noble thinks his last years of reformation do not matter, then by implication neither should his racism either. You can't have one part of the story going without reading the rest of it and you call yourselves a book publishing company. Fuck you. Had he lived past 46 the man would have not only had the capacity to change his ways, but prevent future generations of authors, from making his mistakes.

I say we should bring back the means to reform racists and if others are willing to change their ways, then they should be given the same chance you all never gave Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

Of course that's just me.