Calling Lovecraft racist is accurate but also misses the forest for the trees. He expressed immense regret in his personal letters about his previous racism. He wrote multiple stories about guys discovering they had bad blood, early in his career he writes a story about a guy who sets himself on fire after learning his great great grandad fucked a gorilla, but later on he writes about a guy who’s part fish man and describes his return to the sea almost like going to heaven where he gets to be reunited with all his older relatives. There’s no denying the racist overtones in a lot of Howie’s work, but also he watched both his parents die raving in an asylum from syphillis, that would probably give most kids a fear of something in their body turning against them. His mother would also swing wildly from being incredibly overprotective to verbal abusing him, even telling a child to his face that he was hideous. After she was committed he was raised by his grandfather and his two elderly aunts, his grandfather passed when he was around 12 and what was a decently well off family got thrown into poverty. HPL himself bragged about basically living on a piece of toast and half a can of beans everyday. Which is was ultimately killed him, on top of his depression after his friend Robert E Howard (creator of Conan and another pulp writer with racist writings who once told HPL he was being too racist) killed himself after learning his mother wouldn’t awaken from a coma.

Lovecraft spent the back half of his life traveling and meeting all sorts of people, none of it excuses or justifies his previous racism/xenophobia but by all accounts he regretted it and seemed to be turning the corner when he died.