Lord of the Rings - Racist or not?

What do you reckon. The highest evolved form are Elves, with milk-white skin, all the heroic men are white. All the bad (human) guys are either Easterlings (red skinned) or Haradrim (dark skinned). Sauron is the 'Dark Lord'

Other side of the argument is that it was written by a white English Literature Professor in the first half of the twentieth century who had absolutely no first-hand experience of other races, we don't know whether the Dwarves (good) are white (my guess is middle-eastern), and this passage from The Two Towers pg 332 is pretty sympathetic-

"He came to rest in the fern a few feet away, face forward, green arrow feathers sticking from his neck below a golden collar. His scarlet robes were tattered....His brown hand held the hilt of a broken sword....It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men and he did not like it much. He was glad he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was, or where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart. or what lies or threats had led him on the long road from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed their in peace"

Copyright George Allen and Unwin Publishers 1954.

What do you reckon?

I think you're reading too much into it. It's just a really good story.

As I remember it, he was stationed in South Africa for a time when he was in the military.

Persoanlly, I think the reason the evil humans are from other races is that he wanted to make them as far-off and exotic as possible, and the reason that the elves have such white skin is that's the way faeiries had been depicted for centuries.

I can't remember if he was somehow linked to the colonial leadership, or if he was in the imperial military...

The argument about Tolkein's work being racist is asinine.

Night = dark = black = evil = bad
Day = light = white = safe = good

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Hey whoever that was I'm sorry if I did. Write me a PM and let's work this out if you wish. I didn't mean to anger anyone.

All I was trying to do was get some feedback after an argument that left me bruised and angry. I was defending Tolkien. I don't think he's racist. I completely forgot that he grew up in South Africa, so my argument against the other person was flawed. I wish i'd remembered that in the argument. Clearly he had good first-hand knowledge of non-white races (unfortunately from South Africa - not a good example). I posted in a non-partisan way to guage the numbers on either side, I probably should have not done the devil's advocate thing, now people seem to think I'm suggesting racism on Tolkien's part.

But some might call the 'dark lord' bit subliminal racism - dark is bad, light is good, and so-on

However if you simpley look at a human as a animal and study what conditions inspire emotions you can see the day/night source to the dark = bad language.

Humans even today feel less safe in the dark then in the light. Dark as in Dark lord. Get it?

our language is racist.

"if you look hard enough for something you will find it"

Fiction is written by - SURPRISE! - humans. We have only what our imaginations can produce to feed fiction. Unless we begin making all fictional (read fantasy/sci fi) charachters colors that are not indigenous to any known life form, and somehow figure out a way to avoid all semblance of lighter or darker colors, some thin-skinned whiner is going to take offense.

An added thought: If writers and moviemakers are going to differentiate between alien or fantasy groups without inventing a new version of Klingon with subtitles for each, we can only work with the dialects we know. More ammunition for those spending their days looking for offense where none is ofered. A solution for both might be silent pictures that are permanently black (as in "fade to black).

Cant't folks find issues of substance to debate, protest, or rail against?

So I thought I'd post it in here to see if my hypothesis holds up. I'm certainly not the one implying it's racist, btw. Hope that's clear. I was just surprised because she's not the first person to suggest the racism angle.

A woman in Nigeria or India writes a mythical story comprised of all Nigerian or Indian "good guys" and the threat of white men as "bad guys" and it's called culture.

A man in England writes a mythical story comprised of european "good guys" and the threat of invasion from swarthy men as "bad guys" and some people call it racism and oppression. Good fucking lord.

Myths and legends from any continent show boogie-men and devils of every race, color and creed. Tolkein was writing a myth about imaginary people that lived long before the internet helped connect the world. A white guy writing a story about white people is no better or worse than a chinese guy writing a book about chinese people.

Please inform yourself before making statements off the top of your head.

http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biography.html

Still. Thanks for the burn. I was trying to defend the guy against charges of racism.

It keeps their moral up. We've all come to grips with it. Its a good movie though, I like fantasy!

I mean When tolkien wrote the hobbit it was in a time era where race studies was as common as cancer studying is today.

Even if Tolkien wasnt a racist he did have the race biology culture in his head even if he didnt know about it.

Now im asian-american and I have no problems at all with his books, infact i think the movies are pretty cool.

But there is no doubt in my mind that it wasnt just a coincidence that the elfs are the most pure.. white beings while the ogres and all are "inferior" races.

Now again Im not saying he meant to be racist, but what I AM saying is that there is no way he would have made the elfs black for example.

Tolkien is a result of his era.. we cant blame him for that

But there is no doubt in my mind that it wasnt just a coincidence that the elfs are the most pure.. white beings while the ogres and all are "inferior" races.

Please. The white/black dichotomy was extant in European cultures long, long before Tolkein.

Now again Im not saying he meant to be racist, but what I AM saying is that there is no way he would have made the elfs black for example.

Have you read his books instead of seeing the movies? There is the Dark Elf Eol.

They are the evil elfs

No, I don't think LOTR was racist, either. As Tolkien studied the languages of Northern Europe, the stories he drew from featured white guys pretty heavily.

There are other cultures with rich legends. How many have been "popularized" as Tolkien did the stories of the North? So many modern fantasies are 3rd rate Tolkien ripoffs..."A wizard, a dwarf & a mysterious wanderer go into a tavern...."

There is some original fantasy out there; I'm away from my bookcases so I can't give immediate examples. But I hope for more.

{"Mists of Avalon" was an attempt to tell about the white "non-guys". I found it a bit didactic but it's been quite popular. Unfortunately, it was not well-served on the (small) screen.}

I think it's unfortunate that we do tend to tie white or light with 'good' and dark with 'bad' but I do not think this was intended to be racist...
Kind of like 'left' being bad due to the Latin "sinestre" for the left-hand side...

from Tolkien's writing is a good sympathetic example. The 'dark men' were not evil, just swept up by forces more powerful than themselves. Surely they would much rather have stayed home with their families and lived and died in peace.

Although the hobbits themselves are light-skinned, if not white, (Several hobbits strains are described as having brown skin) consider for a moment their 'otherness'; small stature, hairy, thick-soled feet, peculiar insular society. That set them apart from the world of men and elves. But Tolkien makes them the unlikely heroes of his story because of the qualities they possessed which were not visible to the eye: stout courage, loyalty, devotion, and a tough resistance to the corrupting powers of the Ring.

Tolkien emphasizes the mutual cooperation and eventual love that grows between the members of the different races in LotR. That is his true legacy to the notion of racism and inter-ethnic harmony.