Jack London, and racism
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1Truett
I know -- I KNOW (really) -- that it's jejune of me, but...when I learn a truly odious bit of information about a writer, especially a living one, I'm turned off by the work. (In my thinking, if a writer -- who is supposed to understand that all humans, black or white, male or female, struggle with similar issues -- succumbs to racism, or misogyny, etc., I generally am not interested in their work). Yeah, most writers have foibles or have behaved badly, but when it crosses over into things like racism...
So.
Just read a Washington Post article that referenced a letter (note) from Jack London to former heavyweight Jeffries, regarding the Heavyweight Boxing championship of Jack Johnson.
“Jeff, it’s up to you,” novelist Jack London wrote before the bout, according to NPR. “The White Man must be rescued.”
To his credit, Jeffries later admitted that even on his best day, he would not have been able to beat Johnson.
Anyway: just wondering if readers here are more familiar with Jack London than me, and if they think the "Post" reporter got something wrong when mentioning the quote.
If not, did most of you folks already know about London's racism? (Never read a biography myself). If so, will it affect YOUR desire to read or reread his work?
Just curious.
So.
Just read a Washington Post article that referenced a letter (note) from Jack London to former heavyweight Jeffries, regarding the Heavyweight Boxing championship of Jack Johnson.
“Jeff, it’s up to you,” novelist Jack London wrote before the bout, according to NPR. “The White Man must be rescued.”
To his credit, Jeffries later admitted that even on his best day, he would not have been able to beat Johnson.
Anyway: just wondering if readers here are more familiar with Jack London than me, and if they think the "Post" reporter got something wrong when mentioning the quote.
If not, did most of you folks already know about London's racism? (Never read a biography myself). If so, will it affect YOUR desire to read or reread his work?
Just curious.
2Podras.
From my recollection of London's works, racism wasn't something that was very prominent, assuming that it is there. That may only be my faulty recollection. What did stand out was London's socialist views and advocacy for the poor. That comes from works of London's that are rarely seen in print these days unless one reads LOA's London: Novels and Social Writings.
Another writer whose racism was very real and startling was Woodrow Wilson. I learned about it from reading LOA's volume of James Weldon Johnson's works and have since seen it verified elsewhere. It has changed my view of Wilson irrevocably. Nonetheless, I would like to see a volume of Wilson's works published by LOA. He is just as important to American history as the many other public figures that LOA has dedicated volumes to, odious views, too, among the more admirable for which he is justly admired.
Racism has had an insidious influence on many prominent people. Thomas Jefferson was notoriously conflicted about slavery. In one letter, he addressed the relatively backwardness of Indian "civilization", expressing the view that with time, they, too, would produce writers and thinkers comparable to those from white culture. In another, he despaired the lack of such from slaves, feeling that it seemed unlikely that they had the capability of ever rising to such heights. He is talking about people who would have gotten into serious trouble if they spent time away from their assigned tasks. For a brilliant man, Jefferson could sometimes be astonishingly thick.
Another writer whose racism was very real and startling was Woodrow Wilson. I learned about it from reading LOA's volume of James Weldon Johnson's works and have since seen it verified elsewhere. It has changed my view of Wilson irrevocably. Nonetheless, I would like to see a volume of Wilson's works published by LOA. He is just as important to American history as the many other public figures that LOA has dedicated volumes to, odious views, too, among the more admirable for which he is justly admired.
Racism has had an insidious influence on many prominent people. Thomas Jefferson was notoriously conflicted about slavery. In one letter, he addressed the relatively backwardness of Indian "civilization", expressing the view that with time, they, too, would produce writers and thinkers comparable to those from white culture. In another, he despaired the lack of such from slaves, feeling that it seemed unlikely that they had the capability of ever rising to such heights. He is talking about people who would have gotten into serious trouble if they spent time away from their assigned tasks. For a brilliant man, Jefferson could sometimes be astonishingly thick.
3LolaWalser
>1 Truett:
The capitalisation of the phrase "white man" in an informal note makes me think it may have been meant humorously--otherwise, was London that pompous?--but of course humour doesn't exclude the possibility that he was serious, and even less that he was racist.
You may find this interesting--it's a review of Jack London's biography in The New Yorker:
Four Legs Good
It's probable that the topic is treated more extensively in the biography--Jack London, an American life.
The capitalisation of the phrase "white man" in an informal note makes me think it may have been meant humorously--otherwise, was London that pompous?--but of course humour doesn't exclude the possibility that he was serious, and even less that he was racist.
You may find this interesting--it's a review of Jack London's biography in The New Yorker:
Four Legs Good
(...) The injuries that life inflicted on London had left him with contrary urges: he wanted political justice, in the name of all underdogs, but he also admired the invulnerability of overpowering strength. This sometimes led him to idealizations of brute force and fantasies about race that make a modern reader wince. He was drawn to the writings of Herbert Spencer, whose theory of social Darwinism maintained that capitalism was cruel in the same way that nature was. By telling stories about animals and near-bestial men struggling for survival in a brutal environment, London made a new range of cruelties and sorrows available to fiction.
It's probable that the topic is treated more extensively in the biography--Jack London, an American life.
4jroger1
>1 Truett:
I don’t know if London was racist or not and don’t much care if it doesn’t show in his writings. Refusing to read his stories because of his personal life would be like refusing to see a Meryl Streep movie because she is a Democrat. Let’s appreciate art for what it is and not because of who did it.
I don’t know if London was racist or not and don’t much care if it doesn’t show in his writings. Refusing to read his stories because of his personal life would be like refusing to see a Meryl Streep movie because she is a Democrat. Let’s appreciate art for what it is and not because of who did it.
5Truett
> jroger
When we are speaking of racism -- "his personal life", as you refer to it (even though racism has widespread, public influence -- that cannot be compared to another person's political party preference (unless their political party is run by the KKK). At least not by a reasonable mind.
As for appreciating art, etc. -- you must've missed my (I thought) drawn-out preamble to the question of
London and possible racism.
As I said, all humans have foibles, and many artists have behaved abysmally (Dostoevsky, for one) in personal relationships and with women. But when it comes to things like racism and misogyny (not sexism, by misogyny -- V.S.Naipaul is a fine example) -- I, for one, can't dismiss it. The art becomes tainted.
And there are, after all, far too many other great artists -- in literature and painting and music and so forth -- to waste time on the works of a man or woman whose mind was -- or, in the case of contemporaries, is -- warped by such thinking.
> Podras
As for Jefferson, with the Indians he was, at best, speculating, since he admittedly didn't have first hand knowledge. And as far as the slaves, I think the same could be said -- his sexual relationship with Sally aside; and he did, at least, seem to wish they could "reach for more" artistically, etc.
Jefferson would not be the first brilliant man to often lack what is known, in blue collar society, as good ol' common horse sense.
>LolaWalser -- was in a hurry, yesterday. Meant to say: the capitalization of White Man doesn't seem in any way shape or form humorous. Especially if you take into account the "eugenics-oriented" beliefs that London too often spouted. Some of my more immediate ancestors came from Germany. LOTS of words were capitalized without tongue-in-cheek inclination or otherwise "humorous" slants. Take, for instance, Juden (I have no umlaut key). Don't kid yourself: there's nothing in the slightest bit humorous or witty about what London wrote to Jeffries (and though jrogers likely saw that as part of his "personal life", etc., it became glaringly public when he wrote the note to a celebrity figure -- Jeffries). Not many black folk during the time London talked and spoke like that made or wrote jokes about the Black Man (times have changed, as well as education and manners, so more than a few "urbanized" younger black folk revel in stirring up controversy and attention by "weaponizing" words, these days. But back in the day? Nope).
Thanks, everyone, for your responses.
Gives me pause for more thought -- regarding the works of London -- which is always a good thing.
When we are speaking of racism -- "his personal life", as you refer to it (even though racism has widespread, public influence -- that cannot be compared to another person's political party preference (unless their political party is run by the KKK). At least not by a reasonable mind.
As for appreciating art, etc. -- you must've missed my (I thought) drawn-out preamble to the question of
London and possible racism.
As I said, all humans have foibles, and many artists have behaved abysmally (Dostoevsky, for one) in personal relationships and with women. But when it comes to things like racism and misogyny (not sexism, by misogyny -- V.S.Naipaul is a fine example) -- I, for one, can't dismiss it. The art becomes tainted.
And there are, after all, far too many other great artists -- in literature and painting and music and so forth -- to waste time on the works of a man or woman whose mind was -- or, in the case of contemporaries, is -- warped by such thinking.
> Podras
As for Jefferson, with the Indians he was, at best, speculating, since he admittedly didn't have first hand knowledge. And as far as the slaves, I think the same could be said -- his sexual relationship with Sally aside; and he did, at least, seem to wish they could "reach for more" artistically, etc.
Jefferson would not be the first brilliant man to often lack what is known, in blue collar society, as good ol' common horse sense.
>LolaWalser -- was in a hurry, yesterday. Meant to say: the capitalization of White Man doesn't seem in any way shape or form humorous. Especially if you take into account the "eugenics-oriented" beliefs that London too often spouted. Some of my more immediate ancestors came from Germany. LOTS of words were capitalized without tongue-in-cheek inclination or otherwise "humorous" slants. Take, for instance, Juden (I have no umlaut key). Don't kid yourself: there's nothing in the slightest bit humorous or witty about what London wrote to Jeffries (and though jrogers likely saw that as part of his "personal life", etc., it became glaringly public when he wrote the note to a celebrity figure -- Jeffries). Not many black folk during the time London talked and spoke like that made or wrote jokes about the Black Man (times have changed, as well as education and manners, so more than a few "urbanized" younger black folk revel in stirring up controversy and attention by "weaponizing" words, these days. But back in the day? Nope).
Thanks, everyone, for your responses.
Gives me pause for more thought -- regarding the works of London -- which is always a good thing.
6Dr_Flanders
>5 Truett: I had similar thoughts while reading some of the stories in the H.P. Lovecraft volume. I haven't read enough Jack London to know if any of his racial views might have shown in his novels or stories, but Lovecraft's views definitely are just under the surface of his stories, or not even under the surface. The Horror at Red Hook in particular seemed to demonize (quite literally) the diverse population of New York City. His xenophobia was basically the premise of that story, it seems. That is the last story in that volume that I have read, though for what it is worth, I plan to finish reading it at some point. I guess to the larger point here, I think it is inevitable that many of the writers of the past probably held some views that we don't agree with now, and I'm not sure what we do about that.
Huck Finn can be a difficult read, but I don't really know if censoring it or avoiding it are any better than reading it and appreciating what it is, while trying to better understand the parts of it that describe a worldview that most of us have hopefully moved past or never held. I should probably acknowledge that I'm a white man though, and I understand that others have perfectly reasonable disagreements about how to address those types of issues.
Huck Finn can be a difficult read, but I don't really know if censoring it or avoiding it are any better than reading it and appreciating what it is, while trying to better understand the parts of it that describe a worldview that most of us have hopefully moved past or never held. I should probably acknowledge that I'm a white man though, and I understand that others have perfectly reasonable disagreements about how to address those types of issues.
7Truett
Hey, Doc -- once again, thanks for the reply. Yup, I long ago reconciled the fact that authors have foibles with the truths of their fiction (or nonfiction, though, generally, the latter is where "warts" and such will more obviously appear). But, as I said, it's tough -- for me -- to ignore things like racism and misogyny.
That _doesn't_ make me right, or more holier than thou, as a reader. It just is what it is.
As to Lovecraft: no argument from me. I don't turn to his works very often anymore. (I _can_ say that I always expect writers of _later_ generations to be more enlightened, just as I expect humans of the 21st Century to be so. Unfortunately, I am nearly always let down in this regard).
As for Twain: I've never felt -- has it actually been proven? -- that HUCK FINN (or, rather, the narrative voice, therein) is an expression of the author's racism so much as it is a matter-of-fact depiction of the ignorance of Huck and the racism of the day.
Remember: what I object to most about London is his matter-of-fact racism which he expressed _outside_ of his writing. That lack of insight in a man who wrote CALL OF THE WILD denudes -- for me -- any of the intellectual and emotional insight that might have come forth in a reading of that famous work. Best way to explain it? The betrayal of lover or spouse: once that has happened, trust is irrevocably diminished if not obliterated. Once can never look at the person in the same way, again. So my original thought behind this thread isn't that the classics written by...whomever...are no longer justifiably classic works of literature. Only that their "worth" -- for this reader at least -- is either diminished or dismissed. For me, if a man or a woman writer has allowed some outside incident (or person) to influence his or her thinking regarding the most basic facts about any members of the human race (that we are, at core, all the same) simply because of skin color or creed, etc., then perhaps he or she was never wise enough to try and impart some intellectual wisdom in a piece of writing (short story or novel), and certainly never loving enough to impart some emotional wisdom.
And, now, because _I_ was the author of this "downer" discussion thread (which I thought had been brought to an end, I'm gonna try and change the subject (with an entry in another thread). :)
That _doesn't_ make me right, or more holier than thou, as a reader. It just is what it is.
As to Lovecraft: no argument from me. I don't turn to his works very often anymore. (I _can_ say that I always expect writers of _later_ generations to be more enlightened, just as I expect humans of the 21st Century to be so. Unfortunately, I am nearly always let down in this regard).
As for Twain: I've never felt -- has it actually been proven? -- that HUCK FINN (or, rather, the narrative voice, therein) is an expression of the author's racism so much as it is a matter-of-fact depiction of the ignorance of Huck and the racism of the day.
Remember: what I object to most about London is his matter-of-fact racism which he expressed _outside_ of his writing. That lack of insight in a man who wrote CALL OF THE WILD denudes -- for me -- any of the intellectual and emotional insight that might have come forth in a reading of that famous work. Best way to explain it? The betrayal of lover or spouse: once that has happened, trust is irrevocably diminished if not obliterated. Once can never look at the person in the same way, again. So my original thought behind this thread isn't that the classics written by...whomever...are no longer justifiably classic works of literature. Only that their "worth" -- for this reader at least -- is either diminished or dismissed. For me, if a man or a woman writer has allowed some outside incident (or person) to influence his or her thinking regarding the most basic facts about any members of the human race (that we are, at core, all the same) simply because of skin color or creed, etc., then perhaps he or she was never wise enough to try and impart some intellectual wisdom in a piece of writing (short story or novel), and certainly never loving enough to impart some emotional wisdom.
And, now, because _I_ was the author of this "downer" discussion thread (which I thought had been brought to an end, I'm gonna try and change the subject (with an entry in another thread). :)
8LolaWalser
>7 Truett:
So my original thought behind this thread isn't that the classics written by...whomever...are no longer justifiably classic works of literature.
For whatever little it may be worth, I just want to say that I understand this and YANA. It can be very hard to read through the so-called Western canon for a woman or a non-white.
Perhaps we overloaded our classics with significance they simply can't have--notions of "universality", "eternal value" and suchlike. There can still be value and beauty in something more modestly situated in its own context, with flaws and deficiencies such as there may appear.
Nothing stays still, ideas and values are constantly evolving, and I for one still hope for the future. :)
So my original thought behind this thread isn't that the classics written by...whomever...are no longer justifiably classic works of literature.
For whatever little it may be worth, I just want to say that I understand this and YANA. It can be very hard to read through the so-called Western canon for a woman or a non-white.
Perhaps we overloaded our classics with significance they simply can't have--notions of "universality", "eternal value" and suchlike. There can still be value and beauty in something more modestly situated in its own context, with flaws and deficiencies such as there may appear.
Nothing stays still, ideas and values are constantly evolving, and I for one still hope for the future. :)
