(09-02-2021, 11:14 PM)Norgarth Wrote: I gotta admit, while reading the Lensmen books, every once in a while I'd come across something that would make me pause and shake my head at the cultural baggage of the time.  Like for one thing, EVERYONE smokes.  Cigarettes, cigars, pipes, you name it.  Or the head of the Star Patrol's entire medical department commenting that he can tell how moral the hero is because of how straight his bones are on an X-ray. (   )

a less amusing realization was that I don't recall a single non-white Earthman showing up.  Nobody with black, brown, red, or yellow skin. There was a villain who was human in form other than his blue skin, and some aliens who were distinctly non-human, but every Earthling was Caucasian. 

(09-03-2021, 06:25 AM)LynnInDenver Wrote:

(09-02-2021, 11:14 PM)Norgarth Wrote: I gotta admit, while reading the Lensmen books, every once in a while I'd come across something that would make me pause and shake my head at the cultural baggage of the time.  Like for one thing, EVERYONE smokes.  Cigarettes, cigars, pipes, you name it.  Or the head of the Star Patrol's entire medical department commenting that he can tell how moral the hero is because of how straight his bones are on an X-ray. (   )

a less amusing realization was that I don't recall a single non-white Earthman showing up.  Nobody with black, brown, red, or yellow skin. There was a villain who was human in form other than his blue skin, and some aliens who were distinctly non-human, but every Earthling was Caucasian. 

On my count, it was the idea that women only stopped wearing skirts habitually when the antigrav tubes replaced elevators, and that only strong jawed men did the punching out.