Was J.R.R. Tolkien a Racist?
Every once in a while, there is a claim made that J.R.R. Tolkien was a racist. As far as I know, this is not based on his writings about race, but his portrayals of race in his fictional world of Middle-earth.
The basic idea is that orcs (sometimes called goblins) are portrayed as completely evil creatures, things of no redeeming value. Orcs are bad, not just because of what they do, but because they are orcs. This sounds too much like certain racist attitudes toward specific ethnic groups.
I need to confess here that I have not done enough biographical reading on Tolkien to know his private views. But I have read many of his books, especially those taking place in Middle-earth.
On a superficial level, it looks like the portrayal of orcs is racist. But to truly understand, we need to look closer at Tolkien’s mythology.
Orcs are actually not their own race. Tolkien portrays orcs as corrupted elves. Technically, orcs and elves are the same race, thus suggesting that the best of the worst can come from the same people.
In fact, this is an ongoing theme in Tolkien. Trolls seem to be another evil race, but they are really corrupted Ents. Even balrogs and wizards are technically the same kind of being, even though their bodies look different.
It could be argued that the way Tolkien creates the peoples of his world, he is more than non-racist, he is actually anti-racist. It is not about where a people have come from but what they have become.
This anti-racist them is found most clearly in the fellowship of the ring (the actual group, not just the book). It is made up of a wizard, an elf, a dwarf, two men and four hobbits. It is an interracial group.
The relationship between Gimli and Legolas and their overcoming of their individual prejudices is very important. And the man them of the entire Lord of the Rings (as with the Hobbit) is that it is the hobbits, who are usually discounted based on their race, that are key to the victory over evil.
In this time in our culture of calling out racism, we need to be careful to see it where it really is and not create it where it is not. Tolkien’s world contains a message that we need to hear.
What is important is not our race but what we choose to do with the time that is given us.
