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Newly translated into English, Albert Einstein's private travel diaries from the 1920s reveal that he was racist in his early life, especially towards Chinese people.
The journals, published as "The Travel Diaries of Albert Einstein" by Princeton University Press, reveal that Einstein, perhaps the most famous scientist of all time and known for his theory of general relativity and the equation e=mc2, was extraordinarily biased towards certain populations. This is a stark contrast to his stance later in life when he said that racism was a "disease of white people."

The diaries were written between October 1922 and March 1923. In one entry Einstein wrote that the “Chinese don’t sit on benches while eating but squat like Europeans do when they relieve themselves out in the leafy woods. All this occurs quietly and demurely. Even the children are spiritless and look obtuse.”

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Speaking about the “abundance of offspring” and the “fecundity” of the Chinese, he continued: “It would be a pity if these Chinese supplant all other races. For the likes of us the mere thought is unspeakably dreary.”

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Einstein also derided the people of Ceylon, which is now known as Sri Lanka. In Ceylon, he wrote, the locals “live in great filth and considerable stench at ground level,” before adding they “do little, and need little. The simple economic cycle of life.”

Einstein also gave his thoughts on Japanese people, who he viewed in a more positive light, calling them "unostentatious, decent, altogether very appealing.” However, he also wrote the “intellectual needs of this nation seem to be weaker than their artistic ones – natural disposition?”

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“I think a lot of comments strike us as pretty unpleasant – what he says about the Chinese in particular," Rosenkranz told The Guardian. “They’re kind of in contrast to the public image of the great humanitarian icon. I think it’s quite a shock to read those and contrast them with his more public statements. They’re more off guard, he didn’t intend them for publication.”

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In 1946, speaking at Lincoln University, the first degree-granting historically black university in the U.S., Einstein said that racism was a "disease of white people" and added “I do not intend to be quiet about it," according to a 2007 article in the Harvard Gazette.

You know, it’s difficult for me to see as much racism in all that as I do observations he witnessed, and I have to wonder when observations become racist in and of themselves. The offspring comment is excluded of course.

I do however find it funny how some people get a pass on comments like this, and others do not receive anything but staunch condemnation, which not just tarnishes their legacy but demonizes it entirely so that nothing else is remembered of their life.

I’d say that Abraham Lincoln said far, far, far worse, and still no calls for the removal of his many monuments, or condemnation from our own self appointed guardians of racial morality

This post was edited on 6/13/18 at 11:39 am