I mean the whole Tolkien is racist thing is kind of a red herring. Tolkien was writing from a strictly medievalist perspective with a strong basis in European myth. The orcs=POC thing is fundamentally misunderstanding the novels. Tolkien depicted the sentient creatures in his world as part of a divine chain of being similar to how medieval Europeans viewed the world. The orcs are evil because they were created by Morgoth, they’re essentially demons. There is no “orc race” to be racist against. The fact that they are depicted as “dark” is more due to the Christian symbolism that is so prevalent in Tolkien’s writing. The idea of race as we understand it doesn’t exist in LOTR, just as it didn’t exist during medieval times. The dark skinned men fighting on sauron’s side in the war of the ring are explicitly said to not be inherently evil, just under the influence of sauron’s literal mind control. In fact there is no “race” of men depicted as inherently evil. Remember that every “race” of men is meant to be proto European and the Easterlings and Haradrim, if we’re looking at the actual text, strictly are not analogues for Africans or asians.
The kings of Gondor themselves were descended from the numenoreans who were depicted as being superior to other men due to their closeness to the elves, (which are never depicted as “white people”), yet were corrupted by Sauron, turning to evil and having their civilization destroyed. Nevermind the fact that Tolkien himself directly addressed these criticisms of his writing and strongly dismissed any implication that LOTR contained racialist allegory, the writing speaks for itself. So yes Tolkien is racist if you deliberately misunderstand the perspective and intention of his work.
The idea of race as we understand it doesn’t exist in LOTR, just as it didn’t exist during medieval times
Tolkein himself was firmly in a racist society and there's nothing i know of to indicate he acknowledged concepts of race weren't immutable constructs. his contemporaries in history academia would be going off about teutonic races and asiatics---how we think of history in regards to race was constructed post-Tolkien, or at least after he'd written the books.
Beyond this, you can make a convincing argument all that preoccupation with blood & lineage and the reduction of pure pedigree (numenoreans / elves) through miscegenation is clear racial framing.
I think a certain amount of racism was present in the lord of the rings, but far less than the average book at the time. For this reason, I give Tolkien a pass. However, most Tolkien-esque works are less complex and thought out, so anything that could be racism does become racism. For example, the elves, which are in Tolkien's work a very complex people with links to nature and the gods and thier own failures and successes, are just idealized br*tish people in Tokien-esque works. The same is true for every one of his races. Goblins are greedy and have large facial features, but become explicitly anti-semetic in Terf lady's works. Orcs have somewhat sou-east asian traits, mostly because that is the opposite of European beauty standard when Tolkien wrote, but look African in a certain RPG. The movies don't always help, and the fact that we see derivatives from derivatives makes this even worse.
I mean the whole Tolkien is racist thing is kind of a red herring. Tolkien was writing from a strictly medievalist perspective with a strong basis in European myth. The orcs=POC thing is fundamentally misunderstanding the novels. Tolkien depicted the sentient creatures in his world as part of a divine chain of being similar to how medieval Europeans viewed the world. The orcs are evil because they were created by Morgoth, they’re essentially demons. There is no “orc race” to be racist against. The fact that they are depicted as “dark” is more due to the Christian symbolism that is so prevalent in Tolkien’s writing. The idea of race as we understand it doesn’t exist in LOTR, just as it didn’t exist during medieval times. The dark skinned men fighting on sauron’s side in the war of the ring are explicitly said to not be inherently evil, just under the influence of sauron’s literal mind control. In fact there is no “race” of men depicted as inherently evil. Remember that every “race” of men is meant to be proto European and the Easterlings and Haradrim, if we’re looking at the actual text, strictly are not analogues for Africans or asians. The kings of Gondor themselves were descended from the numenoreans who were depicted as being superior to other men due to their closeness to the elves, (which are never depicted as “white people”), yet were corrupted by Sauron, turning to evil and having their civilization destroyed. Nevermind the fact that Tolkien himself directly addressed these criticisms of his writing and strongly dismissed any implication that LOTR contained racialist allegory, the writing speaks for itself. So yes Tolkien is racist if you deliberately misunderstand the perspective and intention of his work.
Tolkein himself was firmly in a racist society and there's nothing i know of to indicate he acknowledged concepts of race weren't immutable constructs. his contemporaries in history academia would be going off about teutonic races and asiatics---how we think of history in regards to race was constructed post-Tolkien, or at least after he'd written the books.
Beyond this, you can make a convincing argument all that preoccupation with blood & lineage and the reduction of pure pedigree (numenoreans / elves) through miscegenation is clear racial framing.
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I think a certain amount of racism was present in the lord of the rings, but far less than the average book at the time. For this reason, I give Tolkien a pass. However, most Tolkien-esque works are less complex and thought out, so anything that could be racism does become racism. For example, the elves, which are in Tolkien's work a very complex people with links to nature and the gods and thier own failures and successes, are just idealized br*tish people in Tokien-esque works. The same is true for every one of his races. Goblins are greedy and have large facial features, but become explicitly anti-semetic in Terf lady's works. Orcs have somewhat sou-east asian traits, mostly because that is the opposite of European beauty standard when Tolkien wrote, but look African in a certain RPG. The movies don't always help, and the fact that we see derivatives from derivatives makes this even worse.