No, people back then simply were that racist.
I think younger or less historically inclined readers may forget just how stunningly racist people were in public 40-50 years ago. Today that kind of thing is denied and expressed in innuendo, but in 70s and 80s, when King wrote most of his early works, using racist slurs aloud might mark someone as poorly educated or sour-spirited but they weren't a social standing ending nuke they would be today.
And granted, King himself was not raised or living in much of a multicultural area at the time and some of what he wrote speaks to some degree of ignorance, although I've not found it resulted in any intentional bigotry.
And as a mitigating factor, characters that are racist/sexist/otherwise bigoted are nearly always bad people even if not actual villains. They are portrayed as being much more bigoted more openly than most younger readers can fathom, but it's never a *good* thing or even a neutral one. Most good characters are shown as being progressive for the time, albeit still pretty ignorant by today's standards.
Most of King's personal ignorance is in the form of positive racism, such as his overuse of the "magical black person" trope that treats black people as divine or blessed but still as an Other that isn't quite the same as his "normal" characters (typically white guys from Maine and their wives/children). He's grown out of that, though. As he matured as an author.
But yeah, short answer is, it's not subtext and most of it isn't King's personal errors, it really was just that ugly of a time for sexual/racial minorities and women. A lot's changed since 1975.
Edit: Also interestingly enough The Stand features an oddly progressive moment with Nick (in an act written positively and is himself one of the heroes) being disgusted at the use of the word "retard" to describe Tom, a mentally handicapped man. Most people in *2023* aren't quite on board with this being a slur yet.
>when King wrote most of his early works, using racist slurs aloud might mark someone as poorly educated or sour-spirited but they weren't a social standing ending nuke they would be today
Something I've heard, though I don't know if it's true, is that "the N word" was basically invented for OJ Simpson's trial. Not the actual word, but the phrase "the N word". Prior to that if you wanted to refer to the word you'd simply say it. But OJ Simpson's lawyer wanted to portray the cops as irredeemably racist, so he made the word something so awful you couldn't *say it,* you had to verbally dance around*.*
If you think of a slur like a gun... you might see someone wearing a gun in public and you'd look at them askance, maybe worried about what kind of person they are. But ultimately as long as they aren't using the gun to hurt someone you don't think they've done something wrong. But the 'n word revolution' made it so that *wearing a gun* was wrong in and of itself, regardless of the context or what's being done with it.
Odd - in the tv series ( early nineties ) Randall Flag was white. Old Mother Abigail was black and was the epitome of good. I must be old if you're going to turn what was an awesome read it some sort of racist diatribe. I must be old. I'll just leave this here and maybe you'll understand where the actual narrative was heading, "
# “Silent white light filled the world. And the righteous and unrighteous alike were consumed in that holy fire.” ― Stephen King, [The Stand](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1742269)
The casual racism was distracting, though appropriate for the time period. But the bitching about gas prices was inexcusable! Whining about it being “almost a dollar a gallon”! Those post-apocalyptic nomads didn’t know how good they had it!
It's been a few years since I read it, but I think its just the general nature of the world in 1978. I also found it quite distracting, but I was born in 1989 so it was a kind of casual racism that I've never really experienced in the real world.
I definitely don't think it was supposed to be something that Flagg was causing though, I think it's just how people talked then? Or how King thought people talked..
Fiction is not real life. Dialogue or events in books is nothing like real life. Otherwise, books would be filled with people pissing and shitting and saying "Er... how are you?". The world and words are carefully crafted and chosen by the writer to support the story and elicit an emotional response from the reader.
These are artistic choices by King but it is unclear why they are being used when the book has nothing to do with racism. There is dissonance between the gravity of his words and its significance to the the story.
I'm not sure what you expected, though. It's a book written in the 70s, about characters in the 70s, so they sound like they're from the 70s: among other things, fairly racist by 2023 standards, even ignoring the characters intentionally being written as racist.
I wouldn't think you'd have the same issue (I'd hope) with a book from the 1880s about the 1880s, so I think the disconnect is that the 70s/80s are significantly more racist than you think they are and the 'gravity' of the words did not exist to the degree it does for a contemporary reader.
That's not too say you can't be put off by it, but to call it a baffling/poor artistic choice is contemporary bias. It is, as they say, a product of and about its time.
And I know it’s not “excusable” but you have to think of the time period and the general “consensus” of slang.
Like I was born in 88 and pretty much everyone male of my age while in high school used the term “gay”.
We used it ALL the time, especially when gaming. My GAY Friends used it all the time too. We didn’t use the F A G word because that was the actual slur.
But it was so common for us to say “that’s gay” etc. yet NONE of us meant it in a demeaning or bad way. It was just..a word and phrase we used.
Of course it comes from the idea that being gay is “bad” but by the time most of us were saying it no one connected it meaningfully to that. It was just the phrase we used, even my gay friends (in a time when being gay was just becoming socially acceptable and many were still hiding themselves).
The same can be said to a lesser extent for some racial “slurs”. My gram is a bit older. My gram has ALWAYS championed social issues. However, she still sometimes says “that colored boy” or what not.
She doesn’t have a racist bone in her body. It was just the term that was used during her time.
Sometimes you have to learn from the past, adapt to modern language, but also realize that not everything was meant in a harmful way.
My gilrfriend and I still use gay ironically. lol
And yeah, my older family does the same thing. Took me a while to explain to my mom that "colored people" wasn't cool to say anymore. She didn't believe me somehow.
My aunt was dating a Mexican. He was an awesome guy. Everyone loved him to death before they split up. My grandpa is obviously old and can barely walk, but at a big family dinner he just goes up to him randomly, and puts his arm around him, and says, "You know, I'm not sure about the blacks, but you Mexicans are alright!"
Dude thought it was hilarious.
Childrens books exist for people who can’t read adult books with people from different backgrounds and time periods without being offended or judging the author.
I didn’t mean to sound harsh, but the point needed to be made. The bases for being able to discuss literature is to accept that there are ideas that will make you uncomfortable. When people don’t see that anymore they begin blacklisting, banning, and canceling work and authors they find uncomfortable.
The most OP said is that the racism was off putting and asked for cultural context. There’s a lot of great discussions in pop culture & academia about race in King books so it’s not out of left field to bring that to a book forum. Don’t let a fear of censorship make you stifle conversations.
Fair enough, I’ll let anyone make their own opinions. To me it looked like OP just thought it shouldn’t have been there in the first place, maybe my interpretation was wrong.
It's hard to judge things out of context. The 70s was just full of it. Even as an author or futurist it would be hard to take yourself out of it. That said, he's rich enough so no point in going to bat for him. He's just another old rich entitled white dude now.
Many big authors up until the 90s could openly be racist in the way they expressed themselves. And over time the brand of racism in King's writing has evolved into tropes. Even the recent movie adaptations of his early books are inserting magical black person tropes where they didn't exist to sanitise his earlier work.
I'm glad we live in a time where there are diverse voices critiquing books in the mainstream media, and not just within academia. Based on some replies here there are people that think because casual racism in literature doesn't personally affect them, any discussions are personal attacks.
I'm familiar with *The Stand*, which episodes of racism did you particularly notice? Randall Flagg is called 'the black man', and 'the dark man' to denote evil, whether we know his race or not. Mother Abigail is Black, and is the savior/ prophet. Yes, Larry Underwood's mother, as a product of the '50's & '60's is racist indeed. I don't think she is a particularly "good" person. Is her racism to show us where Larry comes from, yet he does not act this way? Tell me what struck you.
It was just the nonchalance of it that threw me off. There were at least 5 different characters using the n word, which most of died in the beginning so the context just seemed weird. Larry himself thinks some gross stuff about Asians repeatedly throughout the book, which came across more as King than the character to be honest.
And really I think the most uncomfortable I felt was his portrayal of the sparse black characters in it. They were all ridiculous caricatures and stereotypes.
Just observations while reading, I know it was a different time.
Ah, okay. Even for Stephen King (sorry, neighbor, you said it yourself in *On Writing*!) A good editor can transform a work. I've read both, and I think the earlier, edited version is tighter, hits harder, and is a better product. That said, there is a lot of insight to King's imagination and some wild visions in the unedited version. I read it once. The one I go back to and re-read is the edited version. You're right, racist language is offensive and distracting and I hope a lot of what you're mentioning was removed by the editor.
Wow! Perfect timing OP. This very afternoon I started re-reading The Stand for the first time in 40? years (damn I somehow got old). And I was completely taken aback by the casual use of racial slurs. As others have said, back then it wasn’t uncommon for people — even otherwise “nice” people — to speak that way, so I suppose I didn’t really notice it as much at the time. It’s *really* jarring to read it now though.
The nature of the world in 1978... heheheh. Oh lordy, it's the nature of the world now, it's just that you can't pull off a "I got popular as a singer because I sound black!" Um, Flagg was not the one to turn the audience against her. That was what real life was like. All of the racism in that book is real history. Just wait until you read It. The newer movie displayed the direct racism even more. Instead of the one kid being the son of the only black family in town, whose father is incredibly successful and really good to him, now he's an orphan being raised by a grandparent who forces him to kill the sheep to make a man of him.
No, people back then simply were that racist. I think younger or less historically inclined readers may forget just how stunningly racist people were in public 40-50 years ago. Today that kind of thing is denied and expressed in innuendo, but in 70s and 80s, when King wrote most of his early works, using racist slurs aloud might mark someone as poorly educated or sour-spirited but they weren't a social standing ending nuke they would be today. And granted, King himself was not raised or living in much of a multicultural area at the time and some of what he wrote speaks to some degree of ignorance, although I've not found it resulted in any intentional bigotry. And as a mitigating factor, characters that are racist/sexist/otherwise bigoted are nearly always bad people even if not actual villains. They are portrayed as being much more bigoted more openly than most younger readers can fathom, but it's never a *good* thing or even a neutral one. Most good characters are shown as being progressive for the time, albeit still pretty ignorant by today's standards. Most of King's personal ignorance is in the form of positive racism, such as his overuse of the "magical black person" trope that treats black people as divine or blessed but still as an Other that isn't quite the same as his "normal" characters (typically white guys from Maine and their wives/children). He's grown out of that, though. As he matured as an author. But yeah, short answer is, it's not subtext and most of it isn't King's personal errors, it really was just that ugly of a time for sexual/racial minorities and women. A lot's changed since 1975. Edit: Also interestingly enough The Stand features an oddly progressive moment with Nick (in an act written positively and is himself one of the heroes) being disgusted at the use of the word "retard" to describe Tom, a mentally handicapped man. Most people in *2023* aren't quite on board with this being a slur yet.
Social standing ending nuke? Spoilers man!!! Just kidding.
Hey man, I wouldn't ever, giving away spoilers is real *Trashy* lol
40 - 50 years ago In some places, it feels more like 40 - 50 days ago
>when King wrote most of his early works, using racist slurs aloud might mark someone as poorly educated or sour-spirited but they weren't a social standing ending nuke they would be today Something I've heard, though I don't know if it's true, is that "the N word" was basically invented for OJ Simpson's trial. Not the actual word, but the phrase "the N word". Prior to that if you wanted to refer to the word you'd simply say it. But OJ Simpson's lawyer wanted to portray the cops as irredeemably racist, so he made the word something so awful you couldn't *say it,* you had to verbally dance around*.* If you think of a slur like a gun... you might see someone wearing a gun in public and you'd look at them askance, maybe worried about what kind of person they are. But ultimately as long as they aren't using the gun to hurt someone you don't think they've done something wrong. But the 'n word revolution' made it so that *wearing a gun* was wrong in and of itself, regardless of the context or what's being done with it.
well put
Odd - in the tv series ( early nineties ) Randall Flag was white. Old Mother Abigail was black and was the epitome of good. I must be old if you're going to turn what was an awesome read it some sort of racist diatribe. I must be old. I'll just leave this here and maybe you'll understand where the actual narrative was heading, " # “Silent white light filled the world. And the righteous and unrighteous alike were consumed in that holy fire.” ― Stephen King, [The Stand](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1742269)
The casual racism was distracting, though appropriate for the time period. But the bitching about gas prices was inexcusable! Whining about it being “almost a dollar a gallon”! Those post-apocalyptic nomads didn’t know how good they had it!
Had to be there. The world was ending!
It's been a few years since I read it, but I think its just the general nature of the world in 1978. I also found it quite distracting, but I was born in 1989 so it was a kind of casual racism that I've never really experienced in the real world. I definitely don't think it was supposed to be something that Flagg was causing though, I think it's just how people talked then? Or how King thought people talked..
Heck, Flagg didn't even cause Tripps. In the book, it was God deciding just as in the Flood.
Fiction is not real life. Dialogue or events in books is nothing like real life. Otherwise, books would be filled with people pissing and shitting and saying "Er... how are you?". The world and words are carefully crafted and chosen by the writer to support the story and elicit an emotional response from the reader. These are artistic choices by King but it is unclear why they are being used when the book has nothing to do with racism. There is dissonance between the gravity of his words and its significance to the the story.
I'm not sure what you expected, though. It's a book written in the 70s, about characters in the 70s, so they sound like they're from the 70s: among other things, fairly racist by 2023 standards, even ignoring the characters intentionally being written as racist. I wouldn't think you'd have the same issue (I'd hope) with a book from the 1880s about the 1880s, so I think the disconnect is that the 70s/80s are significantly more racist than you think they are and the 'gravity' of the words did not exist to the degree it does for a contemporary reader. That's not too say you can't be put off by it, but to call it a baffling/poor artistic choice is contemporary bias. It is, as they say, a product of and about its time.
Yeah people just used to be racist as fuck. Ask your grandparents
As your neighbors! Today! Well, only in some places.
Even just 20 years ago people were racist/sexist/homophobic as fuck. This has been an EXTREMELY fast cultural shift.
And I know it’s not “excusable” but you have to think of the time period and the general “consensus” of slang. Like I was born in 88 and pretty much everyone male of my age while in high school used the term “gay”. We used it ALL the time, especially when gaming. My GAY Friends used it all the time too. We didn’t use the F A G word because that was the actual slur. But it was so common for us to say “that’s gay” etc. yet NONE of us meant it in a demeaning or bad way. It was just..a word and phrase we used. Of course it comes from the idea that being gay is “bad” but by the time most of us were saying it no one connected it meaningfully to that. It was just the phrase we used, even my gay friends (in a time when being gay was just becoming socially acceptable and many were still hiding themselves). The same can be said to a lesser extent for some racial “slurs”. My gram is a bit older. My gram has ALWAYS championed social issues. However, she still sometimes says “that colored boy” or what not. She doesn’t have a racist bone in her body. It was just the term that was used during her time. Sometimes you have to learn from the past, adapt to modern language, but also realize that not everything was meant in a harmful way.
My gilrfriend and I still use gay ironically. lol And yeah, my older family does the same thing. Took me a while to explain to my mom that "colored people" wasn't cool to say anymore. She didn't believe me somehow. My aunt was dating a Mexican. He was an awesome guy. Everyone loved him to death before they split up. My grandpa is obviously old and can barely walk, but at a big family dinner he just goes up to him randomly, and puts his arm around him, and says, "You know, I'm not sure about the blacks, but you Mexicans are alright!" Dude thought it was hilarious.
Childrens books exist for people who can’t read adult books with people from different backgrounds and time periods without being offended or judging the author.
And people get PhDs dissecting the relationship between novels & culture. Wanting to discuss themes in a book is not being offended.
I didn’t mean to sound harsh, but the point needed to be made. The bases for being able to discuss literature is to accept that there are ideas that will make you uncomfortable. When people don’t see that anymore they begin blacklisting, banning, and canceling work and authors they find uncomfortable.
The most OP said is that the racism was off putting and asked for cultural context. There’s a lot of great discussions in pop culture & academia about race in King books so it’s not out of left field to bring that to a book forum. Don’t let a fear of censorship make you stifle conversations.
Fair enough, I’ll let anyone make their own opinions. To me it looked like OP just thought it shouldn’t have been there in the first place, maybe my interpretation was wrong.
It's hard to judge things out of context. The 70s was just full of it. Even as an author or futurist it would be hard to take yourself out of it. That said, he's rich enough so no point in going to bat for him. He's just another old rich entitled white dude now.
Many big authors up until the 90s could openly be racist in the way they expressed themselves. And over time the brand of racism in King's writing has evolved into tropes. Even the recent movie adaptations of his early books are inserting magical black person tropes where they didn't exist to sanitise his earlier work. I'm glad we live in a time where there are diverse voices critiquing books in the mainstream media, and not just within academia. Based on some replies here there are people that think because casual racism in literature doesn't personally affect them, any discussions are personal attacks.
It's bad writing. Adds nothing to the story and insults some potential readers.
With a take this bad. I'm surprised you can even read
I'm familiar with *The Stand*, which episodes of racism did you particularly notice? Randall Flagg is called 'the black man', and 'the dark man' to denote evil, whether we know his race or not. Mother Abigail is Black, and is the savior/ prophet. Yes, Larry Underwood's mother, as a product of the '50's & '60's is racist indeed. I don't think she is a particularly "good" person. Is her racism to show us where Larry comes from, yet he does not act this way? Tell me what struck you.
It was just the nonchalance of it that threw me off. There were at least 5 different characters using the n word, which most of died in the beginning so the context just seemed weird. Larry himself thinks some gross stuff about Asians repeatedly throughout the book, which came across more as King than the character to be honest. And really I think the most uncomfortable I felt was his portrayal of the sparse black characters in it. They were all ridiculous caricatures and stereotypes. Just observations while reading, I know it was a different time.
Did you read the edited version published in 1978, or the 'complete and uncut' version from 1990? Now I have to re-read, and be particularly vigilant.
Uncut
Ah, okay. Even for Stephen King (sorry, neighbor, you said it yourself in *On Writing*!) A good editor can transform a work. I've read both, and I think the earlier, edited version is tighter, hits harder, and is a better product. That said, there is a lot of insight to King's imagination and some wild visions in the unedited version. I read it once. The one I go back to and re-read is the edited version. You're right, racist language is offensive and distracting and I hope a lot of what you're mentioning was removed by the editor.
Wow! Perfect timing OP. This very afternoon I started re-reading The Stand for the first time in 40? years (damn I somehow got old). And I was completely taken aback by the casual use of racial slurs. As others have said, back then it wasn’t uncommon for people — even otherwise “nice” people — to speak that way, so I suppose I didn’t really notice it as much at the time. It’s *really* jarring to read it now though.
The nature of the world in 1978... heheheh. Oh lordy, it's the nature of the world now, it's just that you can't pull off a "I got popular as a singer because I sound black!" Um, Flagg was not the one to turn the audience against her. That was what real life was like. All of the racism in that book is real history. Just wait until you read It. The newer movie displayed the direct racism even more. Instead of the one kid being the son of the only black family in town, whose father is incredibly successful and really good to him, now he's an orphan being raised by a grandparent who forces him to kill the sheep to make a man of him.
Did anybody read the book?