Racism in Tolkien

Elfhelm25 · Apr 17, 2003

I remember an interesting email i received a few months black.
A black man entered a restaurant and sat down. No sooner had he sat down then a white waiter came up to him and stated that no "coloreds " were allowed in the diner. The black mans reply was
Sir, when Im angry Im black
When Im sick Im black
When Ive been out too long in the sun Im black
When Ive been out too long at sea Im black
When Im embarassed Im black
When I am full of jaundice Im black
When you choke Im black
When I die Ill still be black

You sir
When your sick youre green
When youve been out too long in the sun youre red
When youve been out too long at see youre green
When youre embarassed youre pink
When youre full of jaundice youre yellow
When you choke youre blue
When you die you turn gray

And youre calling me colored ???????????

I missed a bit but I think you get the picture

Idril · Apr 18, 2003

That was funny - I like that

Basically anyone not 100% white (Caucasian) is referred to as 'black' . I beg to differ here: "people of colour" is not a term used by the 'black' minorities but by the majority caucasian population. 'Blacks' have no need for the colour reference, they already know they aren't 'white' - a lesson drummed in from birth, least they forget.

Gil-Galad · Apr 18, 2003

hm..............I do think there is no place for racism here.I read some thoughts about elves and why they are all white.It is simple:cause Tolkien's world is based on scandinavian and north-european myths and legends.I doubt there is racism in them only because there are not black elves,nymphs etc. ...
I think that the best prove of Tolkien's attitude is best examplified by the words:
"Children of Iluvatar",all people are His children and they all have same rights.

jallan · Apr 20, 2003

Seems to me that mostly people who noticeably aren’t of pure Caucasian are often called “non-white”.

The problem with Tolkien’s work is that much seems very congruent with an attitude of white superiority, though Tolkien himself is on record strongly decrying racism:

I have the hatred of apartheid in my bones; ...

But many white supremists, white separatists, Italian ultra-conservatives and many Aryan metal bands find some of what they like in Tolkien’s legendarium: societies where the most intelligent and capable and best folk are on the average lighter skinnned than their more uncivilized and barbaric and evil oponents.

Gil-Galad · Apr 27, 2003

Originally posted by jallan
But many white supremists, white separatists, Italian ultra-conservatives and many Aryan metal bands find some of what they like in Tolkien’s legendarium: societies where the most intelligent and capable and best folk are on the average lighter skinnned than their more uncivilized and barbaric and evil oponents.

Everyboy can interpretate Tokien as he wants.It's just a matter of attitude and even propaganda.The Germans need prooves of their superiority and Tolkien world was a good way of propaganding theri ideas.
If I have to talk about music and Tolkien,I'll be probably rude,so I want say anything but:If Tolkien was alilve he would probably get a heart attack when he finds what metal bands are doing with his world amd they interpretate it.

jallan · Apr 27, 2003

Tolkien does mention his attitude to something of the same kind in Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, letter 45:

I have spent most of my life, since I was your age, studying Germanic matters (in the general sense that includes England and Scandinavia). There is a great deal more force (and truth) than ignorant people imagine in the ‘Germanic’ ideal. I was much attracted by it as an undergraduate (when Hitler was, I suppose, dabbling in paint, and had not heard of it), in reaction against the ‘Classics’. You have to understand the good in things, to detect the real evil. But no one ever calls on me to ‘broadcast’, or do a postscript! Yet I suppose I know better than most what is the truth about this ‘Nordic’ nonsense. Anyway, I have in this War a burning private grudge &#8211 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.

There are numerous websites containing English translations of medieval Germanic material, sites which obviously lean toward white separatism, abrogating to themelves works that have nothing of that kind in them.

There are also fudamentalist white-only “Christian” websites.

Tolkien was writing in a semi-medievalist fantasy tradition, begun by the arch-socialist William Morris, and both of them were not adverse to putting into their fantasy bits of medieval ideas about noble birth and such, Tolkien more than Morris.

Then there is Tolkien’s Mongolian Orcs and his black Men of Far Harad who are said to look like half-Orcs, and the darker skins of most of the human foes of Gondor, when skin color is mentioned.

This is unfortunately congruent with white supremist belief, perhaps partly deriving from fictional stereotypes that Tolkien did not detect or notice and certainly intellectually and emotionally detested in the real world.

In letter 294, Tolkien indicates his distaste for racial theories by proponents who made much use of the word Nordic:

Middle-earth .... corresponds spiritually to Nordic Europe.
Not Nordic, please! A word I personally dislike; it is associated, though of French origin, with racialist theories. Geographically Northern is usually better. But examination will show that even this is inapplicable (geographically or spiritually) to ‘Middle-earth’. This is an old word, not invented by me, as reference to a dictionary such as the Shorter Oxford will show. It meant the habitable lands of our world, set amid the surrounding Ocean. The action of the story takes place in the North-west of ‘Middle-earth’, equivalent in latitude to the coastlands of Europe and the north shores of the Mediterranean. But this is not a purely ‘Nordic’ area in any sense.
<snip>
The progress of the tale ends in what is far more like the re-establishment of an effective Holy Roman Empire with its seat in Rome than anything that would be devised by a ‘Nordic’.

Chymaera · Apr 29, 2003

The only instance that I can remember of Tolkien being remotely prejudice is in his insistance that he concideres himself English rather than British.

Now myself I really can't see too much difference there but I am on the outside looking in and I don't think that he thought of himself as superior to the Scots, Welsh, and the Irish. I think that his view was that there was a difference to him and it was more a pride in his Englishness(?) than anything else.

Tur-nen · Apr 29, 2003

its like all racism its based on ignorance in this case the people that try and call tolkien a racist but i need to say this im not black but i am dark skinned and when tolkien talks about dark skinned people hes refering to the desert nomadic tribes of the east and no people dont turn black after a thousand years evolution or even in the roughly 12,000 im not sure but in no way can a race of black people emerge, in the time line provided, from a race of probably cuacasian white men. its like the paste white pictures of a middle eastern jewish carpender people call christ. some things dont peace together in are simple minds. but if tolkien was indeed the genius that wrote lotr and the silm and the tons of history on middle earth he was smart enough to be unignorant about race.

Walter · Apr 29, 2003

Originally posted by Chymaera The only instance that I can remember of Tolkien being remotely prejudice is in his insistance that he concideres himself English rather than British.

...especially since he had Saxon ancestors...

Inderjit S · Apr 29, 2003

Hm..I just came across this statement from http://www.imladris.nu (A pretty good site)

One of the chief differences between the Eldar and the Avari from here on out is their coloring: the Eldar have a range of hair and eye colors, but the Avari are said the be dark haired and a bit darker skinned. Those who took to the woods tend to dress in greens and browns and are called the Sylvan, or woodland Elves. Legolas's father, Thranduil, later came from the west of Middle Earth to rule over them in Mirkwood.

I get the darker hair, since the Avari is made up of Tatyarin and Nelyarin Moriquendi, but the 'bit darker skin'? I cannot find it in any of the main Avarin 'references' ('Quendi and Eldar' and 'Annals of Aman', HoME 10 and 11) so where on earth did he/she get that from? Anyone got any ideas?

Link · Apr 29, 2003

everyone is offended by something.

and it's usually something they try to make offensive.

jallan · Apr 29, 2003

Chymaera posted:

The only instance that I can remember of Tolkien being remotely prejudice is in his insistance that he concideres himself English rather than British.

Read the Tolkien’s comments carefully. They indicate nothing about superiority of English and also reveal his disgust with British imperialism. What Tolkien’s is talking about is a his strong feeling of deep roots in the English midlands.
Turn-nen posted:

... and when tolkien talks about dark skinned people hes refering to the desert nomadic tribes of the east and no people dont turn black after a thousand years evolution or even in the roughly 12,000 im not sure but in no way can a race of black people emerge, in the time line provided, ....

The problem words are from “The Battle of Pelennor Fields”:

He now was destroyed; but Gothmog the lieutenant of Morgul had flung them into the fray; Easterlings with axes, and Variags of Khand. Southrons in scarlet, and out of Far Harad black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues.

The idea is probably to show how these true blacks would seem to Hobbit eyes. But in letter 61, written in the same period when Tolkien penned those, Tolkien remarks on arpartheid to his son Christopher who was in South Africa at that time:

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. not many retain that generous sentiment for long.

Inderjit S posted:

... but the 'bit darker skin'? I cannot find it in any of the main Avarin 'references' ('Quendi and Eldar' and 'Annals of Aman', HoME 10 and 11) so where on earth did he/she get that from?

Imagined it, I think!

Link posted:

everyone is offended by something.

and it's usually something they try to make offensive.

No, what offens people is not always what they themselves try to make offensive.

People honestly have different sensititivities. Someone may seem to be, may be in fact (as far as such things are facts) over-senstive to racism, because that person’s sensibilities have been rubbed raw by encounters with undenable true racism.

Chymaera · Apr 29, 2003

jallan we are in agreement!

Inderjit S · May 1, 2003

Could this passage from 'Tal Elmar' be a shot at European conoliazation of Africa?

Tal-Elmar; HoME 12

Base and unlovely thou namest us. Truly, maybe. Yet true is it also that thy folk are cruel, and lawless, and the friends of demons. Thieves are they. For our lands are ours from of old, which they would wrest from us with their bitter blades. White skins and bright eyes are no warrant for such deeds.'

Walter · May 1, 2003

Originally posted by Inderjit S
Could this passage from 'Tal Elmar' be a shot at European conoliazation of Africa?

If this is so then Tolkien must have changed his mind at some point:

Note 1:

In the rejected version of the opening section of the text the story begins: 'In the days of the Great Kings when a man could still walk dryshod from Rome to York

Here Tolkien seems to be referring to an ancient legend of an isthmus between Dover and Calais ... (c.f. Edmund Spenser The Faerie Queene who had taken this idea probaby from Thomas Twyne)

Chymaera · May 3, 2003

Originally posted by Inderjit S
Could this passage from 'Tal Elmar' be a shot at European conoliazation of Africa?

This quote would not sound out of place in the current Israeli/Palistine upheavals.

Persephone · Dec 24, 2003

My two-cents worth of opinion.

those who think there was a racism thing going on - I think they got from watching the films. Cause if they read the book, Legolas wasn't supposed to be pale-skinned, nor Haldir. They were wood-elves, described by Tolkien to be dark-skinned, with dark-hair, and dark-eyes. Not blue, white and Blonde features.

That could have added to the connotation that Tolkien was a racist.

Inderjit S · Dec 25, 2003

All Elves were pale-skinned Narya.

Persephone · Dec 26, 2003

I suggest you review your knowledge of Tolkien's work, because some elves, particularly wood-elves are supposed to be dark-skinned.

Check out this info on THE ONE RING.NET about Haldir:

Physical description: Tall, and probably on the darker side, as is common with wood elves. Though not dark, just more dark than other strains of Elves.

Biography: Haldir, an elf of Lorien, guided Frodo and company to the city of Lothlorien. He was the one who gave Samwise his rope after the stay in Lorien.

Tar-Elenion · Dec 26, 2003

Narya said:
I suggest you review your knowledge of Tolkien's work, because some elves, particularly wood-elves are supposed to be dark-skinned.

Perhaps you can provide a quote substantiating that.

Racism in Tolkien

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