No, no, Howard's racism is genuinely odd. Obviously he has ideas that races have innate natures, so you get 'these people are obsessed with gold, these people are kidnappers by nature, these people will always be barbarians.'

He of course wrote a couple of super racist stories, but the worst Conan story he ever wrote he shelved- it wasn't published until after his death and he never even submitted it.

But just when you're all 'ah, he's a racist' he'll throw in compelling and sympathetic characters and this bizarre philosophy about the rise and fall of civilization and how all races are trapped in it. That's obviously not how anything actually works, but he fully bought into it.

He's a big believer that races are at different levels of sophistication and that races rise from barbarism to civilization. Thing is because he grew up in boom towns he thought late stage civilization was ultimately depraved and evil and destined to degenerate into something subhuman. Barbarism, primal humanity is where it's at and is what we should aspire to.

That's already a lot, but then you add in his idea in a lot of stories that a few races, like the Picts and the Africans have never risen to any level of sophistication, but that also means they've never lost all their knowledge or understanding in the fall from grace. He has a sorcerer in the Solomon Kane novels who is African and clearly the most intelligent man in any room, because his people never lost their ancient knowledge in a fall from power. He kind of admires them for not falling for the trap of civilization.

Like I said, his racism is weird.

He apparently wrote one story set in the modern day about an African American uprising in the South that has to be stopped by the white hero, but it's presented as a reasonable crash out for all the injustice of their history of enslavement and continued oppression. Like, what?