Was Heart of Darkness Racist?

>>9234520
I think he is indifferent towards the Africans in the novel. He is critical of the 'civilized' Europeans, but does not really make the blacks look good either.

90% of the Western Canon were written by people who would be considered racist today. Walt Whitman was antislavery, but he still thought free blacks shouldn't vote

>>9234520
I thought the point was that the Europeans were as capable as being as uncivilized as the Africans which they considered to be savages.

Yes. Who gives a shit?

I've always fallen under the camp that while Heart of Darkness does display Africans in a negative light, it functions primarily as a critique of Kurtz and the crew, and as such Europeans. After all, it is the Europeans with the "Heart of Darkness".

Achebe has some interesting criticisms on the novel, one that a professor of mine who is also an author and friends with him agrees with. I disagree with the notion that the book is racist, but concede aspects of it may certainly and understandably be seen as so. That being said, again I think the book is largely a criticism of the characters in the books and colonialism as a whole, but this is also done in some ways at the expense of the "savage" Africans.

Also, a character in a novel being racist does not mean the book or author necessarily is. Worth noting for a lot of books nowadays as we in the critical and academic world seem to read into books from another world essentially in terms of how different the past is and hold them and their authors to modern standards, something that I think while worth discussing shouldn't come with the complete dismissal of a work.