The author Joseph Conrad in the "Heart of Darkness" portrays Africa of having inhabitants that consist of a dark world, of which this is opposite to that of "civilized" Europe. It is a place where savagery and the bestial side of human nature reign free. The natives are often described as less than human and are referred to as part of the landscape.
             This leads to the point that the author, whether aware or unaware, degradingly portrayed the African civilization. One argument is that Conrad does not actually believe this himself, but perhaps subjects his own story to criticism, which he ultimately one way or another has subjected his story to such criticism, whether purposely or not.
             However the fact that the natives are given bare minimum, human-like qualities by being called wild, savage, and animals, in contrast to this the Europeans aren't favored in the story either. They are greedy, ignorant, cowardly, and/or mentally unstable, which this is representative of one of the most important people to the company because he turned out such a way. In fact, he is often less generous to his own people (the Europeans) than to the natives.
             Regarding racial respect, we must take into account that in the early 1900's people weren't nearly as respectful as they are in today's age. The word "nigger" wasn't likely to have such an offensive connotation, as compared to what it implies in our day's standards. They took no thought about how harmful the usage of the word was, so therefore they merely/ignorantly recognized that society considered them as being more degraded in their humanity than Europeans (however wrong this attitude was). As a trusted saying goes "You can't judge the people of the past with the morays (or morals) of the present", however I might amend that by saying you just can't judge them as harshly. The rest of the world's popular views (or...