Conrad: Racist, or Race-thinker

After reading the two articles put forth from Achebe and Firchow and enduring the heated debate between the two groups arguing either side, I have become even more convinced that Conrad was not a racist.

First, the reader would need to realise two very important facts about the era in which this story was written. First, the kind of racism that was exhibited by all Europeans at the time was not the racism that the term denotes today. In that time, racism was more of an acknowledgement of differences, rather than a discrimination or subjugation. The Europeans, especially the English were coming into contact with a plethora of new peoples, of all races. This caused people to think independently about the different races, but not in a necessarily bad light. Second, the reader would need to realise that this was written in a pre-Holocaust world. The negative connotations that racism implies were not brought about until the atrocities that were committed in Nazi Europe. Furthermore, in the United States of America, racism is even more negative as we as a nation have experienced many years of race-related strife.
Next, I would like to note that Conrad writes the story to show that the "savages" rumored to be in Africa are not the only "savage" people in the Dark Continent. Everyone that Marlowe encounters in the Congo is in someway a bit "wild." This is best seen in Kurtz. In the beginning of Marlowe's journey, Marlowe hears stories of a great man that is very educated and refined in the European view of things. But when he finally meets Kurtz, he is very wild, and his thoughts seem to be in a frenzy just like the rest of Africa. This is a great show of the dichotomy of how both Whites and the Natives are "savage" or "wild."
So, in my opinion, Conrad was not a racist, but one who can see differences in races, and not think them 'lower' than whites.