Reading this book, I am reminded of a conversation I ended up in with a gentleman concerning a post-apocalyptic book called Earth Abides. The conversation revolved around theproblematic racist elements I found in the book. Earth Abides was written in 1949 and has certain racist assumptions and stereotypes concerning black people. I found the book to be problematic and the main character obnoxious, though I fell in love with one of the secondary characters. I was informed that I had completely failed to understand the point of the book and that the racist elements were totally forgivable since the book was written in the forties.