Racism and Tolkien.

[blantyr]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I think the whole thing is rubbish, but there are always people who find what they're looking for, whether it's actually present, or not.

It is common in the real world that one's enemies in war are demonized. Propaganda is created to make Others less than human so it's OK to kill them. A classic example is the portrayal of the Japanese during World War II as buck toothed and wearing thick round glasses.

In one sense, not showing that the people of Middle Earth did the same thing feels unrealistic.

Today, this is less politically correct than it once was. Still, there are less than flattering names and stereotypes associated with middle eastern terrorists.

Yes, Middle Earth supposedly reflects our own world in the distant past. Yes, people's skin colors and cultures shift as one goes away from the Shire in a way that vaguely echoes the real world. No, racism was not a major theme being pushed by the professor. He had a lot of other themes he was playing with in much more significant ways, and he tried to deny that these more blatant themes were being used in an allegorical way. Yet, if one is writing epic fiction centered around issues of good and evil, it's very hard to make one's tale uninterpretable as allegory.

Anyway, I haven't been inspired to go out and find a citizen of Far Harad to harass.

[Lotrelf]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I would define "racism" as the belief that one race is inherently inferior to another. I see no evidence of that on Tolkien's part, and it would seem the allegation stems from the manner in which certain characters and beings in his books are described. The "wild" Easterlings and dark-skinned Haradrim come to mind.

Contrary to a "racist" bent, it looks to me as if racially discriminatory views of the characters are punished. We see Saeros of Doriath, holding Men in contempt, being bested by T¨²rin. Thingol's denigration of the "uncouth race" of the Dwarves gets him killed.
Men are not immune, either. The N¨²men¨®rean Exiles of Gondor started a civil war over the reluctance of some to admit those of "alien" race from the Northmen to marry into their Line of Kings, and the realm was nearly destroyed because of it.
The shoddy treatment of the Rohirrim toward the "dark haired" Dunlendings came back to haunt them when the latter attacked them in their weakness, and later allied themselves with Saruman.

I think the whole thing is rubbish, but there are always people who find what they're looking for, whether it's actually present, or not.

Indeed it all is Totally rubbish! A race being inferior to other is nowhere seen in the books. Tolkien being a War Veteran could never write such stuff. Also, his writing suggests he believes in Love, Compassion, and the positive things our society needs. Racism isn't there, and your post explains it wonderfully.

[blantyr]

Originally Posted by Lotrelf

Indeed it all is Totally rubbish! A race being inferior to other is nowhere seen in the books.

I wouldn't go that far. The elves and some men descended from Numenor knew something of 'The Art' while other races could only learn degraded forms of magic. Certain cultures had more attractive life styles and values than others.

I'd also note a great deal of segregation in Middle Earth. The men of Rohan and Gondor spoke ill of the Lady of the Golden Wood. Galadriel and Fangorn lived very near to one another's borders for Ages, yet never visited one another. King Aragorn forbade Big Folk from entering the Shire.

I believe one theme of LoTR is that the cultures were diverse enough that various free people might best live totally separated from one another, and yet each of these free people could recognize The Enemy when the time came. They didn't unite under a single government, but they contributed, each in their own way.

This trend for diverse cultures to live apart from one another, to recognize and honor borders while not encountering those living on the other side of the borders, is not the same as what we see in the real world. Still, it is worth noting.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by blantyr

I wouldn't go that far. The elves and some men descended from Numenor knew something of 'The Art' while other races could only learn degraded forms of magic. Certain cultures had more attractive life styles and values than others.

I'd also note a great deal of segregation in Middle Earth. The men of Rohan and Gondor spoke ill of the Lady of the Golden Wood. Galadriel and Fangorn lived very near to one another's borders for Ages, yet never visited one another. King Aragorn forbade Big Folk from entering the Shire.

I believe one theme of LoTR is that the cultures were diverse enough that various free people might best live totally separated from one another, and yet each of these free people could recognize The Enemy when the time came. They didn't unite under a single government, but they contributed, each in their own way.

This trend for diverse cultures to live apart from one another, to recognize and honor borders while not encountering those living on the other side of the borders, is not the same as what we see in the real world. Still, it is worth noting.

Tolkien believed strongly in true multiculturalism- as in, having a multiplicity of cultures in the world. He was strongly against 'multiculturalism' in its modern connotation, which to him meant mixing all the cultures together until everything was just the same flavorless blended monoculture the world over. "The bigger things get the smaller and duller or flatter the globe gets. It is getting to be all one blasted little provincial suburb. At any rate it ought to cut down travel. There will be nowhere to go."

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Lotrelf

Indeed it all is Totally rubbish! A race being inferior to other is nowhere seen in the books. Tolkien being a War Veteran could never write such stuff. Also, his writing suggests he believes in Love, Compassion, and the positive things our society needs. Racism isn't there, and your post explains it wonderfully.

Thank you for your kind words.

Originally Posted by blantyr

I wouldn't go that far. The elves and some men descended from Numenor knew something of 'The Art' while other races could only learn degraded forms of magic. Certain cultures had more attractive life styles and values than others.

That is true, but that disparity in cultural and technological "enlightenment" is not depicted as being the fault of those who lacked it.

Originally Posted by blantyr

I'd also note a great deal of segregation in Middle Earth. The men of Rohan and Gondor spoke ill of the Lady of the Golden Wood. Galadriel and Fangorn lived very near to one another's borders for Ages, yet never visited one another. King Aragorn forbade Big Folk from entering the Shire.

Segregation, yes, but it doesn't appear to be due to any deliberate decision to avoid other races because they were seen as inferior. The Elves in the Third Age were generally feared by Men such as the Rohirrim, who had simply grown estranged from them over time. And the ban on Men entering the Shire was an outgrowth, it seems, of the invasion of the land by Saruman's men. It may be notable the Aragorn's edict was that Men were to stay out of the Shire. Dwarves and Elves apparently were under no such law.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Segregation, yes, but it doesn't appear to be due to any deliberate decision to avoid other races because they were seen as inferior.

That's true. I think the real "issue" some people have is that if a person has dark skin or squint eyes, he's automatically the enemy. It's unclear, though, if the "problem" lies in ME's culture or in Tolkien's decision to make it so which may (or may not ) reflect his own views. The problem with that, of course, is that I don't see much of a problem as ME geography and partially its history mirrors that of the real world, and the divide between good and bad on a global scale is more geographical. On an individual scale, the scale that really matters, nothing's black and white (no pun intended... or maybe it was). All the examples of "bad" Elves and "bad" Numenorians and lack of enimity because of race show the true reasons for everything, the individual scale. Why do people really do things. But the global scale divides "good" and "bad" geographically, so no wonder than on a global scale someone with squint eyes is going to be automatically thought an enemy. He may be good, but he's still an enemy.

[Andsigil]

Originally Posted by Lotrelf

How did this "Tolkien is racist" start?

Because some people have nothing better to do than engage in sophistry?

[Ivriniel]

Originally Posted by Inderjit Sanghera

This essay is in response to some quotes about how Tolkien was racist. I hope to prove otherwise. In my first one, I will be discussing the races of M-E, whilst in the second I will be looking at the attitudes towards other races in Tolkien’s time, as well as in M-E.


Lord of the rings is one of the greatest novels ever. Yet it is also fraught with controversy. One of the biggest ‘gripes’ that people have with it, are the perceived racist overtones that exist in Tolkien’s works . Supposedly, all dark skinned peoples are evil worshipers of Sauron. Yep, so I suppose that Sam, Tom Bombadil and the Breemen are secretly worshipping Sauron sacrificing goats testicles and rebelling against authority, spraying ‘Eru sucks’ on the classroom walls? So do we automatically assume that every dark skinned person in Middle-Earth is evil, since Tolkien was racist? I don’t think so.

Firstly, let’s start with those little fellas the Hobbits. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them. If you’re a grumpy old wizard that is. Many people think that all Hobbits have pale skin, yet this is not true.

In their origin, when Strider was a Hobbit named Trotter and Treebeard was a malevolent megalomaniac Bond villain, Hobbits were said to have be like Aborigines. Of course this was changed, but the diversity of skin colour exists in Hobbits as much as it does in Humans.

The Harfoots, were said to have ‘nut-brown’ skin, and it is probable the Gamgee’s were of the Harfoot clan, as there is a brief reference to Sam’s ‘brown-hand’ in Book Six, though I cannot remember where it was exactly.

And now we come to Mr Unknown identity himself-Tom Bombadil. Tom, the enigmatic jackass also had brown skin, which is shown by the following passage, in the chapter, ‘In the House of tom Bombadil’, in which he asks Frodo to give him the ring.

“ It seemed to grow larger as it lay for a moment in his on his big brown skinned hand”

So these examples show that there were some good dark skinned people in Middle-Earth. “ But hang on!” you say, surely all dark skinned men are evil? Look at the Easterlings, the Haradrim and the Variags of Khand (Such nice names.)

Well, let’s delve into the history of men. In their origin, men were corrupted by Melkor not long after they first arose, and so all men fell into the shadow, and were forsaken for a while by Eru, and their life expectancies were cut dramatically short.

Well, Melkor left them to their own devices as he went off to the war in Beleriand. Many men then revolted, against the ‘men of darkness’. Now, just because they are called the ‘men of darkness’ doesn’t mean they are actually ‘dark-skinned’. Dark is often associated with evil, and so I think that by saying ‘men of darkness’, Tolkien is just saying that they were evil men, and it I probable that they were of mixed races.

O.K, to continue. It is probable that the first main migrating camp for men, was on the Sea of Rhun. The Beorians (House of Beor) were the first to reach the Sea, followed by the Marachians. (House of Hador), whilst it seems that the Haladin (House of Haleth) had passed on to lands further east, with the Druedain, another good dark-skinned people, though I will be picking up on that later on.

Now, the Beorians, were described as having dark hair, and were most like to the Noldor. But a lot of them were also said to have a swarthy complexion, due to interbreeding with other Easterling tribes, such as the Borrim. (House of Bor.)
So we see that there is a race of good dark-skinned men.

We can stretch this further, by looking at the Dunedain of Middle-Earth. Now, it is probable that most of the survivors of the Downfall of Numenor were of Beorian descent, as their descriptions match the descriptions of the house of Beor. (Dark hair, grey eyes etc.) Now, several times, the Rangers are described as having a rather dark complexion, and the cartoon version of Aragorn certainly seems to have a light brownish skin colour.

Now assuming that Minas Tirith is in the region of Florence, Italy. Then couldn’t
They represent the roman empire? Albeit, this conception may be far fetched, due to Tolkien’s dislike of allergy, yet it is still a possibility.

Let’s look at the Borrim. Now, a lot of you who have read The Silmarillion, and thus you will know of the two swarthy tribes, the evil followers of Ulfang and the good ones of Bor. Now, before they excavated into Beleriand, the Borrim resided in Eriador, with other mannish tribes, and probably the followers of Bereg, of the House of Beor.

So, we can see that the majority of the indigenous mannish population of Eriador, were dark-skinned, though most of the Borrim of Beleriand were slain in Unnumbered Tears or it’s aftermath. (A few of Turin’s ‘wolf-group’ may have been followers of Bor or Ulfang. This is a possibility, as one of the men was named Ulrad. Which is similar to Ulfang.)

So the men of Eriador, who were in the majority good natured, set another example of a good dark-skinned people. Though it was a hugely mixed population of many tribes of men, that unfortunately suffered greatly due to the war with Sauron and later with The Witch-King, and so they were pretty much wiped out, as many probably marched with Elendil in the last alliance.

Now, let’s look at the Druedain, the ancestor’s of the Pukel men. The Druedain, and their descendants were another good dark-skinned peoples, who were the first men to ever cross the Anduin (So the Gondorian loremasters say) and they went into the white mountains, though many went with the Haladin into Beleriand, and so got involved in the war with Morgoth. Some survived, and went to Numenor, though when Tar-Aldarion began his journeys to Middle-Earth, claiming evil would come out of his voyages, and by the time that Sauron came to Numenor, they had all gone to Middle-Earth. It was these peoples who later helped Theoden in the War of the ring.


The Dunlendings were another group of good dark-skinned peoples. In the beginning, they had come to the lands the were later known as Gondor, and resided their, but they were pushed out by the Dunedain of Isildur and Anarion. Later on, they went to Rohan, but the Rohirrim pushed them out.

So who can blame the Dunlendings for their misgivings against the Rohirrim? Even then, most of the Dunlendings remained a ‘good peoples’. Some fell into evil, whilst some excavated north and some interacted with the Rohirrim and some even had interracial marriages. Wulf, the leader of the dissension in the time of helm was of mixed Rohhirm-Dunlending race. Another possible ‘mixed-race’ person was Erkenbard, the mighty warrior in LOTR. He was unusually friendly with the Dunlendings when they were defeated and he also knew their language, and so couldn’t he have some kind of Dunlandish ascendancy?

It seems that the Dunlendings were simply misguided by Saruman, who merely inflamed their grievances against the Rohirrim, and later on the lived peacefully in Dunland.

Meanwhile, their northern Arnorian relations settled in Bree, were also living ‘good’ lives (with a few exceptions, such as Bill Ferny, whose evil behaviour was unusual since he was the talk of the village). But Bree was probably not fully mad up of Dunlendings and Hobbits, and it was originally founded by some Haladin, and the Butterbur’s were probably descendants of the Haladin, hence Buttebur’s red cheeks.

The Haradrim, certainly have a Arabic or Indian feel, and as for the Easterlings and the Variags of Khand, Tolkien never gave us any information on their skin colour, which left many to assume they were had a Chinese/East European look. Well, for one, the Wainriders, the most evil of all the Easterling groups were white, and though doubtless some may have been Chinese-esque, we don’t know for sure.

Yet, we still see that even the good ‘white’ tribes of men can be bad. The Numenoreans had the greatest fall of man since their first fall, and Boromir tried take the one ring, whilst Isildur failed his people by not throwing the ring in Mount Doom when he had the chance.

Yet Tolkien held that all men were ‘fallen’, due to the ignorance of their forefathers. (Except perhaps for a few exceptions, such as Hurin, Huor, Beren, Tuor, Amandil, Elendil and Aragorn) So one can see that man is a very complicated race in M-E, and as we see in Tolkien’s last book, which he abandoned (The new Shadow?) men were destined to fall again, and again and again, no matter what race they were.

Well, that is it for Part 1, and Part 2 will be completed in two weeks time. I apologise for the absurd length of this essay.

It's a great topic.

I don't think 'racist' is quite the right word, though he did have some fractures in his mind that are very apparent to me.

Tolkien tends to 'essentialise' (i.e. make literal) a demarcation of good and evil across racial divides--excepting men--who he casts as on a spectrum. Therefore, it's no so much a racism cast over skin tones, but across racial divides.

Elves versus Orcs, case in point. There was no configuration in the dialogue of any attempt to reconcile the divide. Orcs, fundamentally 'evil', or just having more of the 'reptilian mind' and more of the baser impulses?

His entire notion of 'evil' was quite revealing of his own mind. I have pointed out, for example, that Turgon tossed Eol off a cliff. The Noldor were a deeply imperialistic peoples.

These are just some examples of the 'double speak' that was part of the Tolkienian universe of unresolvables.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

They essay is infected by Martinez-ism. By "brown" and "swarthy" Tolkien was only referring to the more suntanned end of European coloration. ("Swarthy," for example, was often used to describe the pirate Bartholomew "Black Bart" Roberts - who was a Welshman).

It also contains some straight up mis-statements of fact, such as "hobbits as aborigines:" 1) Tolkien never said it, indeed it contradicts his explicit history, and 2) Tolkien of course would have been using the word literally, as he did (in draft) of Bombadil, not in reference to Australia's pre-European population.

[Faramir Jones]

Tolkien, a few years after LotR appeared, made a public denunciation of apartheid in South Africa on 5th June 1959, during his Valedictory Address to the University of Oxford.

He spoke of his South African birth, and that he did 'not claim to be the most learned of those', who have come from South Africa.

But I have the hatred of apartheid in my bones; and most of all I detest the segregation or separation of Language and Literature. I do not care which of them you think White. (J. R. R. Tolkien, The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997), p. 238)