The Wild Men:
The Easterlings: (Their hats look a bit Asian in design)
A sample Orc (what a character!): (Anyone who would compare this to a race of men based on it's color is indeed racist, IMHO)
Posted on 12/02/2002 2:42:43 PM PST by The Iguana
Dear Sir:
Re: Your "Wraiths and race" column of 2 December:
Your conclusion that "The Lord of the Rings is racist" is of course hardly original though no less tedentious for all that, as you have no doubt already been informed in varying terms by a fair assortment of fans of Professor Tolkien and his works as you sifted through your "Inbox" today.
I am not sure what I might add to what others might have offered, save to suggest the dangers of literal-mindedness in approaching literature, especially of this nature - which is to say looking hard for hair in your soup until you find it, even if it turns out to be a bit of celery. More likely it's just the imperial guilt.
Tolkien dealt in archetypes in his fictional work, and those archetypes happened to be drawn mostly from those cultural mythos with which he was most familiar: what he termed the "Northern World," from the early history of northwestern Europe. It is no surprise therefore that his protagonists should be mainly what we might understand to be white or even "Nordic," any more than Chinua Achebe's characters end up being black, or that Kirosawa confined himself with East Asian archetypes. Even so the picture ends up a good deal more complicated when a discerning eye is employed. If "Nazi" or other white supremacist hierarchies were employed we might expect to find that the more nearly Nordic-appearing the characters or peoples, the more they might appear in positive light or at least at the top of the food chain. Yet we find that the dark-haired (if fair-skinned) Numenoreans/Gondorians sit at the head of Tolkien's cultural table (as it relates to Men), more so than the Anglo-Saxon-inflected blonde warriors of Rohan.
How Dwarves, Elves, Wizard, or Hobbits or other imaginary creations fit into the typical racist cosmology is yet to be explained, especially given that good, bad, and even mixed examples of all are available throughout Tolkien's relevant works - orcs and other created manifestations of evil being the exceptions to the rule, for reasons that I would think self-evident to anyone familiar with the study of Faerie. In the end you'll have to account for how Saruman the White (what a name!) ends up firmly on the villianous side of the ledger while the swarthy skinned and unattractive appearing Ghan Buri Ghan of the Druadan (as related early on in Return of the King) ends up with a better c.v than we might expect from ubermenschen. Or why the Semitic-seeming Easterlings and Southrons (dreadlocks are nowhere mentioned) are pardoned and freed after defeat rather than bloodily dispatched a la The Turner Diaries or similar racist dystopias.
There is certainly a popular school of thought that to be white is to be racist; and if racism is part and parcel of the northern European cultural milieu from which Tolkien emerged and made his life's study then perhaps we are left to conclude that he is guilty as charged. But before leveling the verdict I might offer the following correspondence (dated July 25, 1938) by Tolkien in regards to Allen & Unwin's negotiation of publication of a German translation of The Hobbit with Rutten & Loening of Potsdam, who inquired whether Tolkien was of "arisch" (aryan) origin:
"I must say the enclosed letter from Rutten 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 Bestatigung (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 any Jewish blood as necessarily honorable; 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."
Of the two drafts mentioned by Tolkien, only one was preserved in the Allen & Unwin files (it is unclear which version was finally sent), from which the relevant excerpt was as follows:
"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 Hindustani, 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 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, forebear 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."
All of this and more (including some highly critical comments of South African society) can be found in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter (published by Houghton Mifflin).
All this might merely mean that Tolkien's racism was merely unconscious (as it so often can be), but it might also suggest that the offered analysis deserves at least a fair hearing if not the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise I can only suggest that the reckless imputation of racism is generally as obnoxious as the attitude itself.
Respectfully,
(Name)
Kansas City, MO
I don't have a copy handy, but if I remember correctly the Haradrim were definitely dark, with the men of Far Harad described as black-skinned. I envisioned them, while reading, as incorporating all the varieties of Mediterranean to Hamitic to Negroid peoples presently encountered throughout the Middle East and Africa.
I don't recall any specific mention of the "race" of the Easterners. My mental picture of them is of a sort of cross between the Ostrogoths and the Vikings. They were bearded and fought with axes. (Maybe they had dwarven blood?!)
Ahem.
Has this moron read the Iliad?
The entire story is based on Achilles' pitching a fit because Agamemnon takes his captive Briseis away from him before he gets to rape her. Note that Agamemnon doesn't want to protect Briseis from Achilles. He just wants to be the one who rapes her. This is all portrayed as perfectly normal, even admirable, behavior.
I really don't see why such behavior qualifies as more "noble" than the characters in LOTR.
Orcs are not a "race." They're a separate species. There is nothing racist in an assumption that an alien, non-human species might be inherently evil, by our standards.
Or maybe not. Saruman apparently cross-bred them with men. Although it apparently required magical intervention to work, since he seems to be the first to have done it.
Inherent evil would be especially possible in a race or species specifically bred to be so. Is he trying to say that in, say 1,000 years, it would not be possible to intentionally breed a race or species that is inherently inimical to all others?
The Dunlendings were not black. Their only difference from the Rohirrim was their black hair -- like the men of Gondor.
I don't recall any specific mention of the "race" of the Easterners. My mental picture of them is of a sort of cross between the Ostrogoths and the Vikings. They were bearded and fought with axes. (Maybe they had dwarven blood?!)
You are probably not far off the mark.
I always pictured the Southrons as more or less Arabic: dark skinned, dark haired,but not necessarily black. But Tolkien isn't so precise in his description. Who knows?
Not that this should stop Mr. Yatt from hauling down his tablets from Sinai.
That reminds me of a gawdawful cartoon I once owned called Fire and Ice, which was produced by Ralph Bakshi (who also tried to do a rotoscoped LOTR back in the 1970s). A reviewer described the F&I monsters as "obvious Negro stereotypes" (this was the early 1980s).
The monsters were giant, hunched over, fanged, clawed, and covered from head to toe in glowing long green fur.
Good point.
The author actually has a point with regard to the Haqradrim (especially) and Easterlings, although not a very good one. But Orcs aren't human.
The Wild Men:
The Easterlings: (Their hats look a bit Asian in design)
A sample Orc (what a character!): (Anyone who would compare this to a race of men based on it's color is indeed racist, IMHO)
 Ring Ping!! |
I thought everyone got this out of their system last year. Oh well. Here we go again...
Subject: Lord of the Rings
"Perhaps I'd better come right out and say it. The Lord of the Rings is racist."
I think I'll come right out and say what I'm thinking, myself.
You're a moron.
Normally I'm more respectful whenever replying to articles, but I didn't feel such a need after reading the stteaming pile of turd which I just read penned by yourself. You're a complete, blithering idiot who needs to find something more productive to do with his time if you're spending so much time psycho-analyzing books and movies that you see racist undertones where none exist. Get a life, you inbred quack.
(Name)
Miami, FL USA
When I look at an orc, I see a nasty, slimy spiny creature not even remotely human. You see black people? I think you have a racism problem you should look inward about. Don't blame Tolkien for it.
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