Is Conrad a bloody racist? I would have to agree with Achebe and say yes on this one. It is very clear from the get go in his text where his sentiments lie with the African natives. From early on in the excerpt and onwards, one cannot help noticing the blatancy of his comments about the people. He calls them names and uses languages that affirm that he obviously had not only absolutely utter disrespect for them, but sheer hatred towards them as well.
“They passed me within six inches, without a glance, with that complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages… While I stood horror-struck, one of these creatures rose to his hands and knees, and went off on all fours towards the river to drink… hate those savages -- hate them to the death…”
To make this dislike of Africans even more apparent, and Achebe also touches upon this in his response, Conrad makes a sharp and distinct turn around when describing Europeans, the other “white” males:
“When near the buildings I met a white man, in such an unexpected elegance of getup that in the first moment I took him for a sort of vision… I shook hands with this miracle…”
No doubt about it, the facts show that this bugger (British term meaning f****r) was a bloody racist.
Interestingly and on a side note, the way other critics have overlooked the author’s prejudices reminded me how those of the patriarchal society had overlooked the wife-beatings and other misogynist behaviors in Thing’s Fall apart (which, ironically, happens to have been written by the very critic of this text, Chinua Achebe himself)
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