Quote:
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Originally Posted by Erendis
Wasn't it Sam who said the Southerlings are black with white tongues or something like that?
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Without being able to pinpoint the exact quote (and I've just checked about every entry for 'Swertings', 'Haradrim' and 'Southrons' in the LotR index), I think it actually says black with white teeth and red tongues - which could be seen as a racist caricature, if you're so inclined (although we all have red tongues and more or less white teeth - less in the case of die-hard smokers like yours truly
).
Anyway, if anybody could be accused of racism on the basis of this quote, it would be Tolkien himself, not any of the posters on this thread; and as for him, I think he can be defended against this accusation (i.e. of racism in the sense of advocating supremacy of one race over another, which is not saying that racial stereotypes didn't occasionally occur in his thinking & writing) with good arguments, but this is not the thread to open that can of worms.
To get back on topic (well, sort offish), the very fact that Aragorn gave himself an Elvish name like Thorongil would be an indicator not only of Númenorean, but of Gondorian or Arnorian descent, - in my knowledge, no other Mannish people used the Elven tongues in naming; certainly not the Black Númenoreans, who, being descended from the King's Men, had abandoned the Elven languages for Adûnaic back before the Drowning.