# The Guardian says "The Lord of the Rings is racist."



## Talimon (Dec 2, 2002)

Here is the article:

http://film.guardian.co.uk/lordoftherings/news/0,11016,852217,00.html

I was about to go on a long rant on why this article is packed with holes, but perhaps it would be more interesting to see what others have to say. Opinions?


----------



## Anamatar IV (Dec 2, 2002)

is lotrr racist? 

I posted a thread about this a while ago, got merged to another, got put in the smials. It might be a BIT racist but black has just about always used to portray evil or something.


----------



## Gothmog (Dec 2, 2002)

Having read the article, it brought to mind something I read long ago.


> A "critic" is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased - he hates all creative people equally.
> _Robert Heinlien: Time Enough for Love_


 Says it all really.


----------



## Turgon (Dec 2, 2002)

Mmm... I must conclude that the man is fool - sent him a letter telling him so too. Really - nonsense like that makes me angry. Comparing LoTR to BNP leaflet is sickening - shock value nothing more. I wouldn't even lay the spurious title of critic upon him. It's evident that the man knows nothing. The Iliad depicts the struggle of Noble advisaries? Must be a different Iliad that I know (and love), The Iliad is brutal, and it's hero a sulking ill-tempered brute. The sad thing is that people will read his nonsense and think that he speaks with some authority.


----------



## Beorn (Dec 2, 2002)

To: *[email protected]*
Subj: *LotR Racist? Try reconsidering your views...*

I'm writing to you to express my displeasure with your article entitled "Wraiths and Race"

The largest problem that you seem to have with J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is that the evil characters are portrayed with "a rag-bag of non-white characteristics that could have been copied straight from a BNP leaflet. Dark, slant-eyed, swarthy, broad-faced - it's amazing he doesn't go the whole hog and give them a natural sense of rhythm." Consider this: darkness is used to represent evil, malice, and basically anything not good. Go to a haunted house: It's dark colored, and in some places, pitch black. Darth Vader is black. You may reply 'but Batman is black...' Well, Batman is black because he's a bat, and bats are naturally black or dark brown. Light colors are usually associated with goodness: Angels, warmth, flowers, virgin.

One thing that I must point out is that Peter Jackson's "Interpretation" is miles from the mark. Two characters are eliminated. Rather than a power connected through the earth by an Elven *Master* controlling a river, an Elven sit-and-do-nothing *maiden*-witch casts a spell in Jackson's "interpretation." A thing to note is that dreadlocks is not mentioned one single time in the whole of Lord of the Rings. Not once.

Also, you must consider the geography of where the evil peoples generally come from. The orcs are all from the south, and therefore have darker skin. So do the men from Harad, also evil. By coincidence, blacks are originally from equatorial Africa.

While I don't have enough time to touch upon everything that dissatisfied me with your article, I will make one last point: You said: "This is no clash of noble adversaries like the Iliad, no story of our common humanity like the Epic of Gilgamesh. It's a fake, a forgery, a dodgy copy. Strip away the archaic turns of phrase and you find a set of basic assumptions that are frankly unacceptable in 21st-century Britain." I'm curious what it is 'a fake, a forgery, a dodgy copy' _of_? Never before has there been such a large recorded literary undertaking by one single author to create a world entirely separate from this Earth. The basics of good versus evil are included, as they will always exist wherever one is. Good versus Evil. Good is portrayed with light, and evil is portrayed with darkness. Would you like to try to create thousands--I believe around 10,000--pages of tales?

Please reply to this e-mail to prove you actually take responsibility for what you wrote, and are concerned about the reaction of your readers.

Sincerely Yours,
Mike B[....]


----------



## Maeglin (Dec 2, 2002)

Beorn that was a great argument for him. And he better write back to you, but if he doesn't tell us all and make an announcement because I think most of the forum would like to argue with this man's statements, if he doesn't write back I think the whole forum should work together to send him a new response to it, we can all help find examples of where the Lord of the Rings is *not* racist.


----------



## Leto (Dec 2, 2002)

"To cap it all, the races that Tolkien has put on the side of evil are then given a rag-bag of non-white characteristics that could have been copied straight from a BNP leaflet. Dark, slant-eyed, swarthy, broad-faced - it's amazing he doesn't go the whole hog and give them a natural sense of rhythm." ...*LOL* this guy is awesome! I can see the Uruk Hai getting down with the Haradrim..."Isengard saaeeed" bustin a move before they slice off some heads...good lord! And Dunlendings are more like Scots, or Gaelic cultures...not dark either. Sheesh...*lol* talk about taking things personally.


----------



## Mablung (Dec 2, 2002)

They don't like being argued against so theres a good chance he will just ignore it it is my experience however that someone will always find something in anything to complain about.


----------



## Athelas (Dec 2, 2002)

*Feh*

Poppycock and twaddle.


----------



## Phee (Dec 3, 2002)

Quote from the article:


> We also get a sneak preview of the army that's going to be representing the forces of darkness in part three. Guess what: "Dark faces... black eyes and long black hair, and gold rings in their ears... very cruel wicked men they look". They come from the east and the south. They wield scimitars and ride elephants.



The guy doesn't even know the difference between an elephant and an oliphaunt. He could at least learn the basics before he makes any kind of an attempt at criticism.


----------



## Athelas (Dec 3, 2002)

*"I got rhythem,*

I got music, I got Morgoth, who could ask for anything more!"


----------



## Rúmil (Dec 3, 2002)

*GRR!*

I know I haven't posted for some time, but I'm seriously overworked; but I just had to respond to this type of aberration being uttered.

First, I should like to say that Tolkien's mythos is based on European folklore (in part, at least), where good people are white-skinned and blue-eyed, and is designed to be a 'British mythology'. The people who made the tales (from whom Tolkien dissociates himself), would associated beauty and goodness with European-like features. Not Tolkien. But that is totally minor and has no incidence on the plot. Indeed, I have Black and Asian friends who love Tolkien, have never dreamt of finding anything racist about it, and would laugh in the face of this person in they had the misfortune of meeting him. 
this being said, three quotes:

QUOTE
29 From a letter to Stanley Unwin 25 July 1938
[Allen & Unwin had negotiated the publication of a German translation of The Hobbit with Rütten & Loening of Potsdam. This firm wrote to Tolkien asking if he was of 'arisch' (aryan) origin.]
I must say the enclosed letter from Rütten and Loening is a bit stiff. Do I suffer this impertinence because of the possession of a German name, or do their lunatic laws require a certificate of 'arisch' origin from all persons of all countries?
Personally I should be inclined to refuse to give any Bestätigung [statement, information] (although it happens that I can), and let a German translation go hang. In any case I should object strongly to any such declaration appearing in print. I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable; and I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine.
You are primarily concerned, and I cannot jeopardize the chance of a German publication without your approval. So I submit two drafts of possible answers.

30 To Rütten & Loening Verlag
[One of the 'two drafts' mentioned by Tolkien in the previous letter. This is the only one preserved in the Allen & Unwin files, and it seems therefore very probable that the English publishers sent the other one to Germany. It is clear that in that letter Tolkien refused to make any declaration of 'arisch' origin.]
25 July 1938	20 Northmoor Road, Oxford
Dear Sirs,
Thank you for your letter. .... I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Flindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject – which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.
Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its suitability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.['Bloodline, in Nazi-German]
I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and
remain yours faithfully
J. R. R. Tolkien.
END QUOTE

This is a very NON-racist attitude for the time. 1938 is the year Neville Chamberlain came back from Munich saying Hitler was a 'gentleman'


QUOTE
They [the Orcs] are (or were) squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (TO EUROPEANS) least lovely Mongol-types.
END QUOTE

QUOTE
Then suddenly straight over the rim of their sheltering bank, a man fell, crashing through the slender trees, nearly on top of them. He came to rest in the fern a few feet away, face downward, green arrow-feathers sticking from his neck below a golden collar. His scarlet robes were tattered, his corslet of overlapping brazen plates was rent and hewn, his black plaits of hair braided with gold were drenched with blood. His brown hand still clutched 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 that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace-all in a flash of thought which was quickly driven from his mind. For just as Mablung stepped towards the fallen body, there was a new noise
END QUOTE
Is Tolkien being racist here, or is he actually writing AGAINST racism, and showing it as a sad and evil thing that people should die or be in any way harmed because they were born in such a place or in such another?



The real race issue about Tolkien is whether and why it is moral that the whole race of the Orcs could be irredeemably evil - this is discussed at length is HOME vol.10, chapter Myths Transformed (Of Orcs)

But perhaps this person is just an idiot who wants to attract attention to himself by desacrating something respectable. Probably is.


----------



## Bombadillo (Dec 3, 2002)

Sorry for you all, but i have to partly agree with the guardian.

So the orks argument stinks....
but when I first read lotr I noticed too that all the evil caricatures are black, and come from haman, wich i think referres to afrika, this is racism, but it gives a time image of the thoughts of the whole western civilisation around 1930. 
What i don't understand, is that this guy makes such a fuzz about it, ever read tintin in afrika??
Or any story at the beginning of the 20th century? It was only logical in that time, and it gives us a little look in society. and that's only a good thing, so we can adjust from those ideas, racism is still too much accepted.


----------



## Rasec (Dec 3, 2002)

Just a point: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in South Africa (I know he was not black, but still from Africa). This makes me think that: or he loved his origin and was not racist, or he hated his origin and was racist. I choose first option though.


----------



## Mablung (Dec 4, 2002)

I think this will be another one of those debates that never ends since as my English class has taught me you can take any meaning from anything written.


----------



## Arvedui (Dec 5, 2002)

I think this is one of those occations where a critic have searched and found exactly what he was looking for. There are people who do that with the Bible and the Koran also...
Stupid, if you ask me.


----------



## Snaga (Dec 5, 2002)

Its just as hard to find anything in the text which speaks _against_ racism. The Sam quote is closest, but one quote in 100s of pages is weak. LotR does not really address the subject, or show sensitivity to it. Thats because its a product of its time.

But I started thinking about it like this: normally races and nations are seen as sticking together. As being undivided, and wholly loyal... therefore acting as a group and as a result, seeing their behaviour as a stereotypical becomes easier.

There are exceptions. Notably Wormtongue's betrayal of the Rohirrim. But his evil takes a physical manifestation: he becomes shrunken and deformed. Almost Gollum-like. Tolkien likes his evil characters to look evil (like Shakespeares portrayal of Richard III as a 'mishapen lump of foul deformity').

You add together: physical appearance as signifying evil, black as the colour of evil, and groups acting as one with the individual submerged... and its going to look bad is this day and age however the author intended it.

But anyway enough of calling us orcs names....


----------



## Rúmil (Dec 5, 2002)

I think Snaga1 has put it best so far. With the Sam quote I didn't mean Lotr was a book against racism, I meant if there was anything at all in it on the subject it was against it. Racism, pro or anti, is just not a pattern theme of Lotr, and such questions were quite alien to Tolkien's mind at the time, IMHO.


----------



## FREEDOM! (Dec 5, 2002)

k, whoever said the wraiths were black, y there robes were black and their horses were black, but they were invisible? black-no invisible-yes
so how do they come to the conclusion they are black??

and they were men before they were invisible but they were white!


----------



## Rúmil (Dec 5, 2002)

I shouldn't have said 'against racism'. What I mean was there was this character who took pity and compassion on a warrior of the Haradrim, thereby proving he didn't have an instinctive hate for him because he was 'black', which is rather in opposition to a racist frame of mind.


----------



## Froggum (Dec 5, 2002)

There's a big difference between racism and symbolism. Throughout literature, darkness is used to represent bad things and light is used to represent good. Its been that way for a loooooooooong time. We see it everywhere. Except in Conrad's Heart of Darkness , which gave me a really big headache. But anyway, this guy obviously has nothing better to do than look for things that aren't there. It brings to mind memories of my former English teachers onthe constant search for nonexistent symbolism. Or just look at all thes people who think Harry Potter is satanic. Check out this site to see what I mean: LINK


----------



## Bombadillo (Dec 5, 2002)

alright I agree, there is nothing about scin colour in the book, but the fierce people coming from the land that will be Afrika (see another thhread about our world in connection to middel earth), are the men under the dominion of evil.
(but this could also just be the kolonisation of afrika)
for quote: see page 631 of TTT chapter the black gate is closed


----------



## Rúmil (Dec 5, 2002)

I think we all agree on that


----------



## Lantarion (Dec 5, 2002)

I outrightly contend with anybody who seriously blames Tolkien of being racist in the LotR, but not because I don't respect that person's opinion but because I want to defend my own. I believe that Tolkien had nothing whatsoever against the dark-hued races of the world, because I think that he might have thought, as I do, tht skin colour is something that should not even be thought about twice. The "shock" of discovering humans who had different amounts of melanin in their skin should have worn off these past thousands of years!!
And iif somebody tried to back up this racism theory with the fact that the dark-skinned Southrons came from the south, which they say denotes Afrika, does not hold water. They did come from the south: but certainly not from the part of Arda that looks an awful lot like modern-day Afrika. Rhûn and Harad were nowhere near what would be called 'Arfika' (I believe Karen Wynn-Fonstad refers to this continent as the Hither Lands), but far north of it. If anything it was closer to where the Middle-East and eastern Asia are today. And as the book states, the Southrons were very dark, deep black, in skin colour, which would not compute if the person arguing the racism suite would think a little about what he's trying to prove.


> _Originally posted by Froggum_
> *Throughout literature, darkness is used to represent bad things and light is used to represent good. Its been that way for a loooooooooong time. We see it everywhere. Except in Conrad's Heart of Darkness , which gave me a really big headache.*


So you're saying that Conrad's HoD doesn't use darkness to denote evil? Pull one single quote about darkness that doesn't, and I swear I'll eat my copy! 

I found a rather interesting theory (although I personally don't really buy it) about the supposed superiority of the white man vs. the black man in a book, an autobiography (named "Monster: The Autobiography of an LA gang member") of an ex-LA gang member called Monster Kody Scott aka Sanyika Shakur of the Eight Tray Gangsta Crips. I would gladly supply a quote, but the book in question has been borrowed around a lot and I don't have it on me right now. 
Anyway, a black nationalist was explaining his point of view towards the way black and white people are separated. He says that the word "hue", meaning colour or shade of a colour, is the primary element in the word "human". This is a bit interesting, as Man has been saaid to originate from Equatorial Afrika. He also calls white people a type of 'mutant', saying that they have moved away from the motherland of their origin, and have lost their skin colour, which a protein or something called melanin produces. And it is probable that humans were originally coloured, as they originated from central Afrika. I'm sorry I don't have the quote, and I apologize if I am misquoting, but this is roughly and in short some of the things the nationalist said. The book itself is an excellent read, I suggest you check it out. 

And I agree with Smeagol that this whole debate is rather proposterous, because skin colour doesn't matter in the LotR, and it doesn't matter today.


----------



## Froggum (Dec 5, 2002)

> So you're saying that Conrad's HoD doesn't use darkness to denote evil? Pull one single quote about darkness that doesn't, and I swear I'll eat my copy!


I don't happen to have the book on me, I read it about a year ago. But at the beginning you see the traditional white/black symbolism. but as you go through the book, white things start to be bad and vice-versa. Take the white guy in the white suit, the manager or whatever. Or the African sitting there with a white thread around his neck. There are lots of examples, I just don't happen to remember them all.

I'm not saying there aren't bad black things in the book, I'm just saying that there are good ones as well. Sorry if you happened to misinterpret my comment.


----------



## Athelas (Dec 7, 2002)

*I think it takes someone with a very ugly heart*

to find racism in something as beautiful as Lord of the Rings.


----------



## T'Vog (Dec 7, 2002)

*Well, Freud Would Say...*

That this guy sees racism in _himself_ and despises it. So he automatically copes with his feeling of self-hatred by transferral of the negative qualities to something else. He proves this with the little quip about "sense of rhythm."

He needs a hug. And maybe a "KICK ME" sign accidentally showing up on the back of his shirt in the process ...


----------



## HLGStrider (Dec 7, 2002)

I always saw another sort of symbolism in the descent of the people: an allegory of decay, if you will.

The orcs were originally elves and decayed into what they were. 

Gollum was originally a hobbit and decayed into what he was.

The Nazgul were originally men and decayed into what they were.

Good going bad... evil corrupting beautiful... I wouldn't make a doctrine of it, but it is interesting.

I always assumed that the men of Harad were more easily ensnared because they had never lived on Numenor and so didn't have as much of a foundation. I don't know if this would hold water, however. I would definately discard the idea that it was because of their color.


----------



## Mablung (Dec 7, 2002)

Greed was also the cause of two of the transformations which could be another statement.


----------



## Scooter (Dec 9, 2002)

*Swarthings*

I don't see any racism in JRRT's Orcs but PJ's depiction of orcs does indeed draw from African physiology and unnecessarily so! 

I was uncomfortable with the dreadlocks, wide noses and dark skin -- the choice to portray orcs as such is not supported by the books, it was PJ's own "artistic" interpretation -- and in a movie that contains no images of ANY minorities in leading roles, this particular inclusion DOES reinforce very bad stereotypes (ie Black people are stupid brutes). It is insensitive at best and racist at worst.

On JRRT's account of the people of Far Harad . . I have always been uncomfortable with the characterizing of these people as evil. For much the same reason as above, this is the only inclusion of minorities in all the books -- it DOES lead one to accept that in ME, all dark skinned people are evil (or at least easily controlled) since there is no evidence presented to the contrary.

Are the books a product of their time? . . . indeed they are. Is JRRT a bigot? . . . I don't believe so. But to deny that the imagery exists is to bury one's head in the sand. Fans of the books should 'fess up and acknowledge these contradictions and deal with them as they are instead of placing the books on an untouchable pedestal. The books are just as great -- and even better in their own, all too human, faults!


----------



## Talimon (Dec 9, 2002)

Has everyone here forgotten what is perhaps the absolute *anti-thesis* of racism in LotR? Legolas and Gimili's *developing* friendship? The way they show tolerance? I can't see the book nearby, but if someone would be so kind as to whip out a few quotes from Lothlorien by Galadriel I'm sure we can see where this "LotR is racist" theory dies.

I don't see LotR as a product of its times, but rather a product of *a* time. That time is in ancient myth, and it just so happens that in most of the ancient myth Tolkien was influenced by the same theme is repeated: the evil, "prevailing forces of the East." These sentiments go all the way back to ancient Greece. I don't believe Tolkien was making a racial statement but rather staying true to that ancient world. Indeed, if we look closely, we find descriptions of many charachters not being exactly "white".

Tom Bombadil for instance. When Frodo hands him the ring:



> It seemed to grow larger as it lay for a moment on his *brown-skinned* hand.



You don't get much more literal then that. I'm not saying Bombadil was black, but that quote offers a good arguement that he certainly wasn't "pale white". There are also descriptions of the men of Gondor being darker skinned, and when reenforcements come up from the South to Minas Tirith there is a description of some of them being swarthier then the rest. This proves that the peoples physical nature was a geographic note, since there are "swarthy" warriors on both sides. 

But, as I stated earlier, Tolkien proved with his chapters on Legolas and Gimili's friendship that he was firmly against racial devision.


----------



## HLGStrider (Dec 9, 2002)

I don't know if it was ever stated that the men of Harad were evil by nature... in Sam's quote we find him pondering it. I always assumed that they were enslaved by Sauron and that they hated the Gondorians but not necessarily loved evil... their hate being a sort of tribal rivalry which could exist no matter what the color.


----------

