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.