Sorry, ignore this if it's said a thousand times already.
But it surely looks weird to me if someone, who recounts and remodels the stories of her/his tradition (lending bits and pieces from other cultures, in a wide sense of the term 'culture') and forges them to an epic, is called racist if s/he just happens to be primarly interested on her/his own cultural roots and blends the common prejudices og her/his era into the epic... With that account both Socrates and Jesus, and Kung-fu-Tse (Confucius?) and Lao-Tse were racists too. Basically that would mean that all the authors of great stories or philosophies of any era or place, not counting post-modern intellectuals, are racists...
And even here we have a case for doubt: what is the thing anyone who in the "advanced society" of ours pointing the racism of others has ignored? We all ignore something in a way or another, if nothing else, our own premises which we can't neither show or argue for for any greater length, not to speak of proving them to those who don't share them already! Being aware that one's premises are a choice (or culturally given) surely is good understanding, but still just the awareness of that doesn't clear anyone to be the "his (sic!) masters voice", even with good intentions.
It seems to be a question then also of a cultural situation and the
zeitgeist, or
ethike of things. If we look at earlier generations with the cultural standards of ours, we miss things on a grand scale?
The problem surely is, that if we wish to dissect those "culturally anchored" beliefs of the author's time out from a work to see the "eternal truth" in it, then on which timeless ideology do we base or ground that choice of ours?
