Racism

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"For years, Tolkien scholars have waged a fight on two fronts: against an academic establishment that for the most part refused to take the author's work seriously, and against white supremacists who have tried to claim the professor as one of their own."
― David Ibata, Chicago Tribune[1]
Easterlings by John Howe.

Fans and critics of Tolkien's works have observed several ambiguously Racist and race-based elements; these go further into stereotyping or symbolism of good versus evil in the Arda legendarium.

In the Foreword to the revised edition of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien cautioned strongly against viewing it as an allegory, saying that he disliked allegory himself. Furthermore, according to his own claims, Tolkien denounced Hitler, Nazi beliefs, "race-doctrine" and apartheid and praised the Jews, calling them a "gifted people" (see below).

The Lord of the Rings film trilogy has done much to perpetuate popular interest in, as well as criticism of, Tolkien's writing.

Synopsis of the controversy

Tolkien's Lord of the Rings draws upon a deep background of folklore and myth. It is common ground that fairy tales and many other types of traditional story can be viewed as the codification of stereotypes; some of which relate to the issue of positive and negative attributes. Tolkien's Middle-earth contains a wide variety of races; the Elves and Men can in some cases intermarry, but otherwise these may be biologically separate. Tolkien's creation arguably rests upon the same kind of oversimplification that racial prejudice does. In descriptive terms, he can be said to depend on superficial details: (such as physical features, language, clothing); the exaggeration of common aesthetic values of beauty and ugliness to extremes; the wholesale assignment of values of good and evil to a whole class of creatures. On this basis his writing has been criticized, for displacing human contact and nuance.

Tolkien's defenders contend that the various "races" are exaggerated personifications of broadly accepted value judgements, along a wide spectrum of traits from benevolent and just to wicked and perverse. A perspective that can be supported from Tolkien's own discussions of his work is that he distributed human traits: none of the types represents a complete person.

The main drive of the narrative, in any case, extends from the two-dimensional stereotypes into the concept of power as wicked and corrupting. Tolkien's defenders tend to argue that the symbolism of the ring as the paramount quest of the story far outshadows the stereotypes. Critics argue that the deeper meanings of the story are interpreted, and that its literal and vivid use of a race like the Orcs as virtually axiomatically determined carries too much resonance. To draw meaning from an interpreted moral requires less visceral reaction and greater consideration.

In Italy, Lord of the Rings is considered fascist by some groups and Italian fascist organisations are allegedly using the book for recruiting[1]. Natalia Aspesi from the Cannes Film Festival called the movie 'naziskn'. According to Italian website Caltanet, Alleanza Nazionale a right-oriented Italian political party had taken a picture from Fellowship of the Ring movie to promote a speech by his leader, Gianfranco Fini[2]


Evil Men

One of the clear racist elements in the Tolkien universe is the noticeable fact that all of the evil forces are the dark-skinned African and Asian influenced peoples of Easterlings and Southrons.

The Easterlings are usually depicted as a Mongolian and Middle-eastern culture and are always aligned with Morgoth or Sauron with the single exception of Bór. They are often described as being of fairly dark skin complexion, swarthy and exceedingly cruel.

The Southrons (or Haradrim) however, are clearly depicted mainly as African soldiers with some Indian influences such as fighting on Mumakil-back. They are clearly stated to be black-skinned and cruel, evil, and uncompromising. They often have many piercings, tattoos and scarifications, just like many African tribes.

Other peoples who have not direct equivalent to real history are the Dunlendings which in the narrative are described swarthy and enemies to the Rohirrim.

Another racist element is the fact that the Númenoreans who suvived the destruction of Númenor yet were still loyal to Sauron were called Black Númenóreans and mixed with the southern peoples of Middle-earth, uprising the Corsairs of Umbar.

Orcs

The main racist element present in orcs is that they are always depicted as black-skinned, though this may be due to their filthiness and said to resemble monkeys (black people resembling monkeys being a main racist claim). Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings depicts the orcs as of a dark skin complexion, but again this may be paint or filth.

Another possible offensive theme present in orcs, is the fact that when the orcs talk, they often use the same phrases and accents that the English working-class is known to use.

Good Side

File:Brothers Hildebrandt - Ghân-buri-Ghân.jpg
Rohirrim and Ghân-buri-Ghân by Brothers Hildebrandt. This scene from The Return of the King shows a member of a wild tribe to ally with and help the fair and white Rohirrim.

All of the good men and elves are all always very fair and white. The men of Rohan are clearly modeled after the Norse, and the men of Gondor and the Elves are just general Europeans. The single good non-white person was again; Bór. The entire Tolkien universe is the white West versus the non-white rest of the continent, which is an allegory to the white Europeans versus the non-white Africa and Asia.

Indications

Tolkien's writings, especially The Lord of the Rings, contains elements some people find racially insensitive and inflammatory.

  • Tolkien uses the colour black to stand for Evil. Morgoth's standard was "sable unblazoned" (that is, plain black). "Mordor" means "black land" in Sindarin. In contrast, his heroes are generally "fair" or "pale" (white).
  • In The Lord of the Rings, enemies come mainly from the East (Easterlings) or South (Haradrim). Some take this to correspond to Asia and Africa, and thus to non-whites. The protagonists are mostly from the north-western regions of Middle-earth, Northwestern Europe, and its people must therefore be white. Likewise in The Silmarillion, those Men that betray the Elves and other Men are described as Easterlings.
  • The enemy horsemen of the Easterlings are vaguely reminiscent of Huns, Arabs, Indians, Persians, Turks, and other historical horse-peoples. Likewise the Oliphaunt-riders of the Haradrim are vaguely reminiscent of Africans. Some claim this reminiscence is not accidental, and equate all Easterlings with orientals, and Haradrim with Africans.
  • In one of his letters, Tolkien described Orcs as "...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."(Letter 210) Inside the story some Orcs, like the Uruk-hai, have black skin. Furthermore lesser Orcs use crooked or bent swords (Tolkien also uses the term scimitars, which are historically associated with orientals).
  • Tolkien has divine beings blessing or gifting peoples or persons and their descendants, having thus the concept of the chosen people who differ from others — in Tolkien's case, the Dunedain (literally "Men of the West") of Numenor.
  • Characters and peoples such as the Dunedain express some degree of elitism if not racism, forming political nomenclature such as High Men and Men of Darkness, as well as Middle Men between them (who were not enemies, but not 'as noble' as themselves). Elitism is also present among the Hobbits, with the Shire as a class society, with Sam Gamgee as the deferential servant to "Master Frodo".
  • Connected to racism is some advocation of "blood nobility". Many of the main characters have a noble heritage. All races and peoples rely on royal lineage or noble heritage for government. Only in two cases are democratic customs mentioned (the election of Master of Lake-town and the office of the Mayor of the Shire). Aragorn, a royal heir, has rights and superhuman abilities that comes from his heritage. Although he is but a Man, he is able to vanquish Sauron's mind, that of a Maia, in the palantir only because he is its rightful user. He is also able to command the Dead Men of Dunharrow and heal the victims of the Ringwraiths' Black Breath.
    In some cases, people having the slightest blood relation to enemies, like Freca and Wulf, who are related to the Dunlendings, are presented as evil themselves, as if evilness is hereditary. Some of these are also called "swarthy" (dark).
  • Usually, those whose appearance was 'unpleasant' (Maeglin, Bill Ferny) and disliked by the main protagonists, turn out to be traitors. Bill Ferny is said to be swarthy, and this can be traced to his Dunlending ancestry. Maeglin was an Elf and thus light-skinned, although his father Eol was always referred to as "the Dark Elf".
  • Tolkien himself compared Dwarves to Jews:
""The dwarves of course are quite obviously - wouldn't you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic obviously, constructed to be Semitic.""
― J.R.R. Tolkien[3]
One may interpret this comment in many ways. It should be noted that he only made an explicit connection between the dwarf-language Khuzdul to Semitic languages. Some see a connection between the Dwarves' strife with the Elves — who are the greatest of the "children of God" — to the Jews' conflict with the Nazis, who viewed the Aryans as the "master race". Note that in turn, Elves are then often considered to be an idealized version of the white race in popular culture. Some consider Tolkien's Elves his version of the Aryan race. Also, one of the weaknesses of the Dwarves was their greed for gold and other riches, amplified by the Seven Rings. Some see a connection between this and the stereotype of the Jewish usurer. Finally, both the Jews and the Dwarves, spent much of their history as refugees in exile.

Counterindications

Tolkien's defenders assert that many criticisms of racism and elitism levelled at The Lord of the Rings and other writings are oversimplifications and generalizations, and do not take account of everything the author may have written concerning these matters.

  • Tolkien was English, and wanted to make a mythology for England. Therefore he wrote The Lord of the Rings according to his people's point of view. He could not make his protagonists, say, Incan or Japanese, or even put the setting anywhere else than (an alternative) North-western Europe, in spirit if not in actuality.
  • Tolkien only made precise geographic correspondences of Third Age Middle-earth locations to those in the real world. For example, Hobbiton was at the latitude of Oxford. The Shire was based upon, but was not actually rural England, since "the lands have changed" since then. Tolkien made no precise correspondences regarding the peoples concerned. Though the Hobbits were based upon rural English folk, they were not literally ancient Englishmen. He never said that Harad was Africa, nor the Eastlands Asia, nor their inhabitants ancestors of Africans or Asians. The Silmarillion presents tales of a time when the Earth's lands were different from that in the Third Age.
  • The contrast between Black and White used as one between Evil and Good is age-old, alluding to the universal fear of Darkness compared to Light.
  • White is not associated only with Good. Saruman the White (or of Many Colours) has the White Hand as his symbol. Similarly, Black is not only associated with Evil. Gondor uses a black standard bearing the White Tree, and the Guards of the Citadel of Minas Tirith, which Pippin was a member of, wore black chain mail. In The Peoples of Middle-earth, a Numenorean fleet is headed by a boat with black sails. One of the mariners explains to a native of Middle-earth, scared that the black sails indicate doom, that the blackness is in fact a thing of beauty, the night sky of Elbereth (who kindled the stars). Indeed, Tolkien states that one of Morgoth's (literally, the 'Black Enemy') victories was in associating darkness and night with fear and evil.
  • Not only the East and South are associated with evil, and neither were they always so. In the First Age, evil came from the North when Morgoth based himself in Angband. Also, all Men and Elves first awoke in the East. Boromir is introduced as a "man of the South" without qualification (actually South-west). Even so, it is possible that this is compared to the Vikings which the British fought before they went on their first crusade.
  • Not all enemies are non-white. Saruman himself is a white man (actually an angelic spirit in a white body) using White as his symbol, and some of the Ringwraiths are white men turned into ghostly pale wraiths (one, Khamul, was an Easterling king, and three were Numenoreans). Similarly, not all allies and heroes are white. In The Lord of the Rings Gondor's territories included provinces and fiefdoms which were populated by non-Numenoreans. Some of these people were somewhat darker-skinned than the white Numenoreans, but were counted among the folk of Gondor just the same. They were called to Minas Tirith in the face of its impending siege, and were welcomed as heroes. Prominent among them were the swarthy men of Lossarnach, whose leader, Forlong the Fat, was slain in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. In The Silmarillion, not all Easterlings betrayed the Elves and their fellow Men, and those who remained faithful bravely fought to the end in the face of defeat.
  • The darker-skinned Dunlendings themselves are descendants of the Edain (through the House of Haleth), therefore distant though unrecognized relatives of the Dunedain of Numenor, and their ancestors grew hostile to the Dunedain due to the latter despoiling their forests. The mostly benign and hearty men of Bree are descended from Dunlendings.
  • In the War of the Ring, the enemies are not truly evil, since they are described as deceived, enslaved or exploited. Sam sees a dead warrior of Harad and wonders if he was truly evil — or rather deceived or coerced to go to war (see below). The Dunlendings are persuaded by Saruman to attack Rohan, playing on their grievances due to Gondor giving what they considered their land to the Eotheod, the ancestors of the Rohirrim. Earlier, Sauron persuaded their ancestors to fight against the Numenoreans, the cause of their relocation from forests into the hills.
  • Tolkien does not actually mention the physical features of the Easterlings in The Lord of the Rings; however the Easterlings of The Silmarillion are described as either sallow or swarthy. There is no certainty that the Easterlings of the First Age are the same people as those of the Third Age though: in fact, many of the "white" Men of Eriador are indicated to be descendants of the First Age Easterlings. Tolkien also mentions a people called the "Variags" of Khand among the allies of Mordor. Since historically this word is used to refer to a certain Viking people who served as guards of the Eastern Roman Empire, some assume that they are white.[source?]
  • Tolkien first describes the Haradrim in The Lord of the Rings as tall, dark, and looking fierce and nasty (according to Gollum), with long black hair, painted faces and gold earrings and ornaments. Later a warrior of Harad who falls at Sam's feet has black plaits of hair braided with gold. Notably, the author does not describe them as black, nor their hair as kinky, nor give them any other typical African features.
  • While Tolkien's above statement comparing Orcs to the "least lovely" Mongoloids (or Mongolians) is undoubtedly insensitive given today's standards, he does put a disclaimer "(to Europeans)" before "least lovely", thus recognizing (and for some, acquitting himself of) Western cultural bias. He also points out that they were "degraded and repulsive versions" of "Mongol-types", not actual "Mongol-types". Tolkienist Michael Martinez gives his interpretation in his book Parma Endorion:
Much has been made of this citation. Some people have gone so far as to call Tolkien a racist, alleging he was implying the Orcs were to be equated with Asian peoples. He is careful to say, however, that the Orcs were "degraded and repulsive versions" of those Mongol peoples who would be least attractive to European sensibilities. Some people have suggested Tolkien may have been referring to the Huns, who left an indelible mark in the western European psyche. Whether the Orcs are intended to be "degraded and repulsive versions" of Huns is a mystery we cannot resolve, but it is clear that Tolkien felt a Mongoloid base was necessary for Orcish appearance. Not because he equated Asians with evil, or thought them ugly. But because he needed a human model which, when distorted beyond realistic appearance, might appear monstrous and corrupted. In fact, many Asian cultures represent demons and evil gods in a similar fashion. [4][5]
  • All the "superior" people, be they Elves, Edain or Dunedain, have no direct analogues in peoples of the real world. If the Dunedain could be put somewhere, they would belong in Atlantis, since Numenor was Middle-Earth's counterpart to Plato's Atlantis. The Rohirrim, who have been parallelled to blond and fair Europeans, are "inferior" to them, being Middle Men, in their view.
  • The Woses, the Wild Men of the Druadan Forest, are primitive and alien compared to other peoples (their chief Ghan-buri-Ghan only wears a grass skirt) yet they are valuable allies (in The Return of the King). They are roughly Tolkien's version of pygmies: diminutive like Hobbits (and Dwarves), and knowledgeable in forest life. He does not mention their skin colour, though. They were considered monsters by the Rohirrim who hunted them as animals, which the narrative implicitly condemns. However in the First Age they were counted as Edain, or noble Men, and were allies of the Elves.
  • Tolkien portrays racism within the "heroic" races as unabashedly negative. Elves and Dwarves distrust each other. Some Elves hunted the Petty-dwarves as animals, as did the Rohirrim to the Woses. The friendship between Legolas and Gimli is portrayed as unusual but commendable, and several scenes illustrate them learning to understand and respect each other's cultural differences.
  • The superiority of some races (eg. Dunedain), as in nobility, longevity, and foresight, is because of supernatural factors (a blessing by God, and divine or Elvish ancestry) and therefore cannot apply to reality and modern theories of Aryan superiority.
  • The concept of the chosen people is also present in other contexts such as that of the Hebrews and in Judaism. Even though the Numenoreans were blessed by God, most of them were punished for their pride with the destruction of their land.
  • The Numenoreans of Gondor fell to infighting because of a supposed need for racial purity, especially concerning the ancestry of their king (the Kin-strife), and grew weaker as a result. In this affair, the villain was the pure-blooded Numenorean Castamir while the hero was the half-Numenorean Eldacar.
  • The Men of Darkness were not the only enemies of the Numenoreans. Some of their worst enemies were their relatives, the Black Numenoreans ("Black" not because of their skin, but because of their heraldry) who stayed in Umbar (and later became the Corsairs).
  • Though Tolkien contrasts the "Dark Elves" with the "High Elves" in The Silmarillion, it was not because the former were black (which they weren't), but because they had not seen the light (literally – of the Two Trees), and so were still "in the darkness". They were not evil either. Also, while the narrative hints on the 'superiority' of the High Elves over the Dark Elves, this is because of living next to the Valar who enriched their corporal and mental power and wisdom, not because of genetic factors.
  • Kings, princes, heirs and noblemen as protagonists is not necessarily an advocation of blood nobility, since it is a theme and concept common in myths and fairy-tales. Also, Sam Gamgee represents the common man, and sees insights that more "noble" characters apparently do not, such as the true situation of the human enemies. Note that in a letter (#131), Tolkien states that Sam is the chief hero of the whole book.
  • There are no truly "perfect" peoples in Tolkien's writings. Given that Tolkien loved trees and nature in general, having his Numenoreans wantonly cut down trees for ships is decidedly negative. The Noldor rebelled against the Valar and killed their fellow Elves.
  • Even the Orcs themselves practiced "racism", as the Uruk-hai held themselves as superior to the common Orcs, whom they called snaga (slave).
  • Tolkien's comment that the Dwarves are reminiscent of Jews may not be negative, when seen in the right context — as stated above, he only explicitly says that Khuzdul is "Semitic" in the above interview. He paints a mostly positive picture of the race in his writings (Gimli of course is brave and honourable, and it is stated in one of the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings that "few Dwarves ever served the enemy willingly", contrary to the tales of Men) and elsewhere he made explicitly positive statements about the Jews (see above). The arguably negative traits of Dwarves such as their greed for riches may be attributed to traditional portrayals of them, and people looking for any other negative connections may be reading too much into the above statement. In one of his letters, he makes the same comparison, but this time it is explicitly about both peoples being dispossessed of their lands, forced to wander the world, and adopt the languages of other lands: both were "at once natives and aliens in their habitations, speaking the languages of the country, but with an accent due to their own private tongue…" (Letter 176) Thus, "Dwarves-as-Jews" has more to do with status, history, and linguistics rather than prejudice.
  • The point-of-view characters of the book -- the hobbits -- are themselves of a race that is frequently described as being overlooked, under-estimated, and lightly regarded by the other races of Middle-earth, yet they often demonstrate far greater courage and nobility than the races who denigrate them.

Relevant quotations

"It is not unlikely that they [Orcs] invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them""
The Hobbit, "Over-Hill and Under-Hill"
"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 at 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."
The Two Towers, "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit"
"I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence."
― Foreword to the Second Edition of The Lord of the Rings
"I must say that the enclosed letter from Rutten & 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 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."
Letter 29 — Tolkien's German publishers had asked whether he was of Aryan origin)
"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 noone (sic) 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."
Letter 30 (Tolkien's unsent response to his German publishers; a more neutral version was ultimately sent)
"There was a solemn article in the local paper seriously advocating systematic exterminating of the entire German nation as the only proper course after military victory: because, if you please, they are rattlesnakes, and don't know the difference between good and evil! (What of the writer?) The Germans have just as much right to declare the Poles and Jews exterminable vermin, subhuman, as we have to select the Germans: in other words, no right, whatever they have done."
― J.R.R. Tolkien — September 23, 1944
"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."
― From a valedictory address to the University of Oxford in 1959
"As for what you say or hint of ‘local’ conditions: I knew of them. I don't think they have much changed (even for the worse). I used to hear them discussed by my mother; and have ever since taken a special interest in that part of the world. The treatment of colour nearly always horrifies anyone going out from Britain, & not only in South Africa. Unfort[unately], not many retain that generous sentiment for long." — From a letter to Christopher Tolkien, who was stationed in South Africa during World War II"
Letter 29
"Anyway, I have in this War a burning private grudge--which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler (for the odd thing about demonic inspiration and impetus is that it in no way enhances the purely intellectual stature: it chiefly affects the mere will). Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light."
Letter 45

References