LoTR, Racism & Historical Analologies

[Vaporous]

So ... you figure that if Peter Jackson put a black elf into his movie, then ... the history of literature would be somehow whitewashed, and the books would be somehow retroactively "edited"?

I think the debate is being muddled between your argument that the movie adaptation could have removed obvious racist elements without loss (which is reasonable), and open_sketchbook's argument, which is that the originals should be edited and that anyone who prefers to read them as they are written is supporting a culture of racism.

opens position makes me wonder if he's trolling, or if he's honestly an advocate of the Ministry of Truth.

[Balrog]

Yeah, I see how this creates the image of a massively diverse group of the Good guys, especially when three only provide token representatives and two don't appear at the climax of the Aragorn/Gandalf storyline (but there are no humans in the Frodo/Sam storyline either!). PS: Yes, skin color is important to this discussion, because this is about implications and impressions.

Because racism is only about skin color, obviously. Never mind the sob story of groups like the Irish and Slavs, they were subjected to something else entirely

You can try to whitewash (oh the irony) the facts, but they still remain. Different racial groups coming together to overcome a problem is generally a good thing, and decidedly not racist. Impressions based upon an inaccurate reading of a work of literature are themselves inaccurate. While ideally it would never be possible for that to happen, it's not entirely the author's fault.

P.S. Funny that you should mention Aragorn, one of the heroes of the story, is himself the product of a mixed heritage. But I guess it doesn't count because he's still white.

Ah, yes, the appendices, the most essential part of the story, indeed so essential that Tolkien was fine with translators removing all of them but A. Furthermore, this is about impressions and implications, you moron. The racism is not about Gandalf crowing over how they're going to kill some "Haradrim hair-braiders" or other blatant displays, but in the background of the work.

So you deride the background of the work...while similarly talking about the importance of the background.

The truth of the matter is there never was any overt racism, and the only implied racism comes from an incomplete understanding of the story. Which, if you're a racist idiot looking for anything to justify your views, is something a person will latch onto no matter what.

I'm only proposing the changes Tolkien himself was considering, sir. That is, either remove free will from the orcs, or make it possible and obvious in-story that they are capable of redemption. The actual racist description of the orcs is out-of-universe and never explicitly labeled within the books themselves. If you're going to say "didn't we cover this already", perhaps you should read back over the thread before doing so. It might save your post.

The only out-of-universe description of orcs that would be racist I'm aware of is this:

they 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

Which seems pretty racist at the outset, until you realize it's more of a comment on the racist attitudes among Europeans of his time. Could've been said in a better way, but it's hardly a damning "Oh, Tolkien thinks Asian people are Orcs!"

They're grass-skirted, pidgin-spouting, drum-playing, blowdart-using stereotypes. Do they have to have a neon sign labeled "Bushman/Pacific Islander stereotype" attached to Druedain Wood?

Because only Bushmen played drums and used blowguns? The description of them is unflattering, but the image of squat ugly people is something inherited from the source. And they end up being rather nice fellows.

[Stark]

Aragorn is the hero because being part elven/white, he's the greatest king ever, rejects the ring, etc. He's hardly an example of how the elves are white supermen who hate those dirty negroes.

[Bakustra]

Yeah, I see how this creates the image of a massively diverse group of the Good guys, especially when three only provide token representatives and two don't appear at the climax of the Aragorn/Gandalf storyline (but there are no humans in the Frodo/Sam storyline either!). PS: Yes, skin color is important to this discussion, because this is about implications and impressions.

Because racism is only about skin color, obviously. Never mind the sob story of groups like the Irish and Slavs, they were subjected to something else entirely

You can try to whitewash (oh the irony) the facts, but they still remain. Different racial groups coming together to overcome a problem is generally a good thing, and decidedly not racist. Impressions based upon an inaccurate reading of a work of literature are themselves inaccurate. While ideally it would never be possible for that to happen, it's not entirely the author's fault.

P.S. Funny that you should mention Aragorn, one of the heroes of the story, is himself the product of a mixed heritage. But I guess it doesn't count because he's still white.

To this discussion, you idiot. Perhaps you ought to look into getting glasses, because your eyes just don't seem to be up to reading my actual arguments. In fact, you don't seem to get that this is about the implications of a group of lightskinned people being associated with good, and all the darkskinned people being associated with evil. That's the problem, and one which whining about how "But there's really six different kinds of elves, you just can't handle the amount of racial diversity!" is not going to solve. But hey, Aragorn's mixed heritage is pretty unimportant, since there were literally thousands of years between Elros and him, and hundreds of generations, unless you want to suggest that he's severely inbred...

Now, I find it interesting that you seem to believe that it's impossible for a work targeting racism to be racist itself. Well, let's take a look at Othello, which has been accused of racism, and let's look at William Faulkner, who believed that racism was one of the factors leading the American South to self-destruction. His works are often targeted at racism, but there are still racist implications to some of them, because he was a product of his times. The same occurred with Mark Twain, and indeed many others throughout recent literary history.

Ah, yes, the appendices, the most essential part of the story, indeed so essential that Tolkien was fine with translators removing all of them but A. Furthermore, this is about impressions and implications, you moron. The racism is not about Gandalf crowing over how they're going to kill some "Haradrim hair-braiders" or other blatant displays, but in the background of the work.

So you deride the background of the work...while similarly talking about the importance of the background.

The truth of the matter is there never was any overt racism, and the only implied racism comes from an incomplete understanding of the story. Which, if you're a racist idiot looking for anything to justify your views, is something a person will latch onto no matter what.

No, I'm pointing out that the Appendixes should not have to make excuses for the story or carry the whole weight of the story upon themselves, and Tolkien did not think that they did so. The casual reader is not necessarily going to tackle the appendixes, nor would they be included in any movie adaptation. Therefore, they cannot be used to effectively justify the work. Got it?

I'm only proposing the changes Tolkien himself was considering, sir. That is, either remove free will from the orcs, or make it possible and obvious in-story that they are capable of redemption. The actual racist description of the orcs is out-of-universe and never explicitly labeled within the books themselves. If you're going to say "didn't we cover this already", perhaps you should read back over the thread before doing so. It might save your post.

The only out-of-universe description of orcs that would be racist I'm aware of is this:

they 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

Which seems pretty racist at the outset, until you realize it's more of a comment on the racist attitudes among Europeans of his time. Could've been said in a better way, but it's hardly a damning "Oh, Tolkien thinks Asian people are Orcs!"

Proof? You see, interestingly enough, we can't know what Tolkien was thinking, but what we can determine is that he didn't find central Asians/Asians in general attractive because of their physical features. This is in fact racism, but it is not necessarily something conscious on his part, and I find nothing to suggest that a private letter about a movie adaptation is part of some grand commentary on racist attitudes amongst his fellow Europeans. It's still something relatively minor. Meanwhile, the

They're grass-skirted, pidgin-spouting, drum-playing, blowdart-using stereotypes. Do they have to have a neon sign labeled "Bushman/Pacific Islander stereotype" attached to Druedain Wood?

Because only Bushmen played drums and used blowguns? The description of them is unflattering, but the image of squat ugly people is something inherited from the source. And they end up being rather nice fellows.

Wow. When confronted with a stereotype, just deny the stereotype even exists, especially in the case of a stereotype commonly known in Tolkien's day, and indeed beginning to pass into cliche. Wahey, but there's something vaguely like them in the folklore of England, so let's pretend the stereotypical aspects (which Tolkien added) don't exist so we can ignore uncomfortable aspects of our favorite books!

Aragorn is the hero because being part elven/white, he's the greatest king ever, rejects the ring, etc. He's hardly an example of how the elves are white supermen who hate those dirty negroes.

I don't think anybody's claiming what your sentence currently says. All the overt racism in LOTR involves the Rohirrim (who mysteriously happen to be known for blond hair, persecuting on the basis of blood, and wantonly killing those they consider less than human. A marvelous coincidence.) in some way or another, or else is Elves and Dwarves.

[Simon_Jester]

But here we run into a language issue. Now, bear in mind that some of the relevant books I have not read, but this I think is a false equivocation potentially. Black (not the skin tone, but the color of the dome of the heat lamp I have over my turtle tank) is a symbol in english literature denoting corruption and evil just as while entails the opposite. Much of Tolkien's symbolism was cast in terms of color symbols. Darkness, Blackness and Shadow denoting evil, White, Light, and Radiance denoting good.

This combined with the geography and the historical context (Namely that he was writing an epic mythology for Europe) would seem like racism. Perhaps it was racism by carelessness, but it is not racist in the sense we tend to think of it.

Actually, that was the point I was trying to make, but I couldn't think of a better way to do it than by asking a rhetorical question. Thank you for doing the job properly.

I am not saying that a work that features a monoracial cast is necessarily racist. I am saying that having a monoracial group of heroes and a multiracial group of villains is racist.

Do orcs count as a race for this purpose?

Would Lord of the Rings have been nonracist if all the good guys came from one monoracial bloc and all the bad guys came from another? That would give the villains a non-multiracial cast, but I find it hard to imagine it would be less racist.

No, it has overtones because of the fact that nigh-upon all Sauron's other servants are non-white, including all the black people within LOTR. Do you see how using black in its negative sense gains racial implications in this scenario, now? The pejorative wouldn't be a problem except for the context surrounding it.

The problem for me is that I'm not sure the context is there unless you go looking for it. I mean, I understand what you're saying, but... there's also what Alyrium just said. The white/black good/evil imagery dates back at least to medieval times in Europe, into areas where there was no significant contact with nonwhite (or at least nonpale) people at the time. The only reason it's stopped being applied today is because today, now, in this era, we associate it with racism against dark-skinned people.

Tolkien was writing on the tail end of the period before that application stopped, about an era so deep into the period that it couldn't easily be removed from it. I'm not sure how much hay can be made fairly of the idea that he should have rejected the black/white evil/good imagery as we have.* Or of the associations it raises in the mind of some of the audience. Because I don't think Tolkien was trying to raise those associations: I don't think he deliberately played up a theme of "these people are dark-skinned and therefore inferior."

Now, it is a problem if we talk about the movie, where everyone on the good guys' team is chalk-pale. But the movies are not the books, and were written sixty years and a couple of major cultural upheavals later.

*Except, of course, that we haven't; I mean hell, look at Magic: the Gathering cards if you don't believe me.

I think the threat is that people today may take onboard such material as being somehow proper and A-OK, when in fact it isn't, but the usage today unabridged and edited is to simply keep the source clean and original. Given I've found a girl who claims The Wolfman ripped off the werewolves in Twilight: New Moon, I don't find this problem to be without merit.

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at, Admiral; could you explain?

Are you fucking retarded? LOTR is not "history". No one is going to "whitewash history" if he updates an old story to remove its more objectionable elements when he makes a movie adaptation. If you make an update of King Kong and remove the ridiculously racist elements of the original, that is not "whitewashing history". PJ made numerous alterations to LOTR anyway, like removing the entire original fucking denouement.

Speaking for myself, I have no problem with twiddling the racial balance in old works that simply leave out the multiracial aspect when there's no logical reason (that we see today) to do so. For instance, if anyone ever does a remake of the Star Wars original trilogy, I'd like to see more than one black character. For that matter, what I'd really like to see is everyone looking very "multiracial" personally, because I think that's what the distant future will look like: everyone is some shade of olive to dark brown with black hair, because that's the human average. White-skinned blondes are mutants.

But what we should NOT do is effectively bar the originals from being seen at all by refusing to show them on the grounds that they are racist. I mean, I could almost imagine doing it for Birth of a Nation or Triumph of the Will, though those are supposedly such brilliant works of cinematography that the historians of film would scream. But doing it to the Lord of the Rings novels? I would prefer not to.

And no, Darth Wong, I am not saying that you WOULD prefer to. I'm stating my own preferences regardless of what yours are.

Sure, lets put some black characters in Ivanhoe! Lets cut out the horrid racism of HP Lovecraft! There is no reason to respect the works of artists if those works are objectionable. Lets remove all the racist content from Othello and the Merchant of Venice. There is nothing inheirently special aobut literature, it's just words. You are placing it on a pedistal as though it were a holy book, it smacks of religious behavior.

That's a stupid idea, and here's why: you're not as good a playwright as Shakespeare was. Neither is the person you pick to rewrite Shakespeare.

People have tried removing content from Shakespeare because they found it objectionable and likely to pervert the morals of impressionable youth before. The most famous example introduced the word "bowdlerize" to the English language. Bowdler's "The Family Shakespeare, in Ten Volumes; in which nothing is added to the original text; but those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family" was... well, let's just say that it's not a masterpiece.

So I don't think what you propose is even slightly a good idea.

They're grass-skirted, pidgin-spouting, drum-playing, blowdart-using stereotypes. Do they have to have a neon sign labeled "Bushman/Pacific Islander stereotype" attached to Druedain Wood?

I don't remember the blowdarts, but it occurs to me:

You do realize that there were Neolithic people in Europe, right? The Iron Age did not emerge fully formed in those areas. To me it seems perfectly obvious that in the mythos Tolkien was actually writing from, the wildmen in the woods were white wildmen in the woods. I certainly never imagined them as Polynesians.

[Alyrium Denryle]

You do realize that there were Neolithic people in Europe, right? The Iron Age did not emerge fully formed in those areas. To me it seems perfectly obvious that in the mythos Tolkien was actually writing from, the wildmen in the woods were white wildmen in the woods. I certainly never imagined them as Polynesians.

Indeed. That they were Euroform seems to be lost on him. Hell, as a linguist, Tolkien may have just found their language fascinating. It is not as if he did not construct a dozen or more complete languages or anything in his spare time.

Tolkien may not have been constrained by history per se (IE. he was not writing an actual history)... but if you are trying to create an epic mythology for europe, it would make sense that your characters and heroes are "europeans" and to the extent that there are outside invasions that those should come from non-europeans. That he may have been inspired by historical groups that invaded europe and typically got stopped at the gates of Vienna is a product of cultural baggage constrained by his intent.

Again... it may be racism via carelessness (systemic racism as it were), but that is a different animal from intentional ideological racism. It is no more racist than if I were to create a story set in the crusades where most of the antagonists were non-europeans. It could be construed that way. However it would not be my intent.

[DudeGuyMan]

Where was this split from, anyway?

[Elfdart]

What was that about race?

What is the point of spoofing Black Belt Jones, when that movie is already ridiculous?

And you know, they could have added some racial diversity to the elves in the movie casting, in order to weaken that Aryan superman impression that they generated.

The word "elf" means "white". I suppose they could have cast black actors as elves. Of course they could also do a movie about the Civil Rights movement with Brad Pitt as Martin Luther King and Hayden Christensen as Malcolm X.

Since this is about the movie version, can someone show me where in the movies, the race or skin color of Sauron's forces is shown as the reason they are evil? or that these people are inherently evil? I ask because if there isn't such a scene, then this "racist overtones" talk is horseshit. One might as well accuse the makers of the Sharpe series of being anti-French racists, when the movies merely depict Napoleon's men as the enemy.

[The Romulan Republic]

Where was this split from, anyway?

The "Reprehensible Movies" thread. Still on the top page in Off-Topic.

[DudeGuyMan]

The "Reprehensible Movies" thread. Still on the top page in Off-Topic.

Thanks.

Of course they could also do a movie about the Civil Rights movement with Brad Pitt as Martin Luther King and Hayden Christensen as Malcolm X.

I would totally see that movie. It sounds like the comedy of the century.

[Formless]

The word "elf" means "white".

Oh, yeah, that really improves things. Not.

Do you really want to go there, or are you incapable of seeing how that just further worsens the notion that Tolkien's work encourages racial preference towards white people?

[Alyrium Denryle]

The word "elf" means "white".

Oh, yeah, that really improves things. Not.

Do you really want to go there, or are you incapable of seeing how that just further worsens the notion that Tolkien's work encourages racial preference towards white people?

Or it means white, as in the color. An symbol for their (within setting) god-created intrinsic goodness that independent of their skin color.

Remember, Tolkien was a linguist who IIRC was opposed to S. African apartheid. He may have been the sort of incidental racist that just about everyone was in that period, but I hardly think it would have been that overt.

No. It makes more sense that he used to term as a symbol in much the same sense that we refer to someone as a white knight, or wear a white dress when getting married as a symbol of purity.

[Formless]

The word "elf" means "white".

Oh, yeah, that really improves things. Not.

Do you really want to go there, or are you incapable of seeing how that just further worsens the notion that Tolkien's work encourages racial preference towards white people?

Or it means white, as in the color. An symbol for their (within setting) god-created intrinsic goodness that independent of their skin color.

Remember, Tolkien was a linguist who IIRC was opposed to S. African apartheid. He may have been the sort of incidental racist that just about everyone was in that period, but I hardly think it would have been that overt.

No. It makes more sense that he used to term as a symbol in much the same sense that we refer to someone as a white knight, or wear a white dress when getting married as a symbol of purity.

Except that Elfdart was arguing that there is nothing wrong with having them be white people as well as intrinsically good. If it were just a linguistic thing than there shouldn't be anything wrong with having a darker skinned elf-- he doesn't even have to be african, even an arab face would be an improvement. But if they are de facto white people as well as de facto good... we have a problem.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Except then we have the problem that the elves are de facto good as well as white. That's where it becomes racist.

Not when that is incidental. Remember what I said about an epic mythology for europe being populated by peoples that are basically european?

It is racist if they are good because they are white. It is not racist if they are good, and also white.

Except that Elfdart was arguing that there is nothing wrong with having them be white people as well as intrinsically good. If it were just a linguistic thing than there shouldn't be anything wrong with having a darker skinned elf-- he doesn't even have to be african, even an arab face would be an improvement. But if they are de facto white people as well as de facto good... we have a problem.

Would it make sense to have an epic european mythology with a main culture that is not basically euroform? Hell, the elves are even derived from IIRC northern european mythology.

[Formless]

Wow, ninja'd. Never done that before.

Look, Elfdart was trying to use the linguistics to argue that they should be portrayed as both white and intrinsically good. That's not racist... how?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Wow, ninja'd. Never done that before.

Look, Elfdart was trying to use the linguistics to argue that they should be portrayed as both white and intrinsically good. That's not racist... how?

I am not defending his argument. I am combating yours. The two are different.

I am not making the argument that they are called "white" and therefore them being black would not make sense. I am saying that them being called "white" is symbolic, and that them being black does not make sense due to the context of the story.

[Formless]

Would it make sense to have an epic european mythology with a main culture that is not basically euroform? Hell, the elves are even derived from IIRC northern european mythology.

I don't see how this changes the basic problem. If we were talking about an epic AMERICAN mythology where dark skinned people were depicted as evil and white people as good...

Shit, this isn't hard.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Would it make sense to have an epic european mythology with a main culture that is not basically euroform? Hell, the elves are even derived from IIRC northern european mythology.

I don't see how this changes the basic problem. If we were talking about an epic AMERICAN mythology where dark skinned people were depicted as evil and white people as good...

Shit, this isn't hard.

False analogy. America does not have a geographically constrained culture. European cultures do. The histories of europe and america are different in a few ways.

The history of europe (and therefore the historical events that feed into a synthetic european mythology) is dominated by two things (at least in terms of military matters). Infighting between white europeans, and invasions by non-white-europeans. The huns, the mongols, the turks, the moors etc. It would make sense then that a mythology of europe that features outside invasions (by the easterlings etc) would be done by non-europeans. It is not a matter of race in this case, but of geography. The invaders are evil. That they are not white is incidental.

To put it this way. I wrote a story a long time ago about a Romanian nobleman fighting to defend his lands against the turks in a sort of magic-infused 15th century europe. Is it racist that most of the antagonists were turks, or was the fact that they were turks a product of setting?

In the case of the US, it would be a matter of race. Why? Because our (americans) negative interactions with black people have explicitly been about race.

[Formless]

And the european's negative interactions haven't had a racist component to them? Seriously? Are you kidding? I guess slavery and colonialism don't exist, then.

Edit: and its not like the "invading barbarian hordes" stereotype hasn't existed going as far back as the greeks.

[Darth Wong]

And you know, they could have added some racial diversity to the elves in the movie casting, in order to weaken that Aryan superman impression that they generated.

The word "elf" means "white". I suppose they could have cast black actors as elves. Of course they could also do a movie about the Civil Rights movement with Brad Pitt as Martin Luther King and Hayden Christensen as Malcolm X.

Don't mush together history and fiction.

Since this is about the movie version, can someone show me where in the movies, the race or skin color of Sauron's forces is shown as the reason they are evil?

Precisely what kind of evidence are you looking for? Are you saying that someone must actually come out and say "they are evil because their skin is dark", and that nothing less than this standard will convince you that there are racist overtones in the movie?

or that these people are inherently evil? I ask because if there isn't such a scene, then this "racist overtones" talk is horseshit. One might as well accuse the makers of the Sharpe series of being anti-French racists, when the movies merely depict Napoleon's men as the enemy.

This is sophistic horseshit. You are saying that there are no racist overtones if there is no explicit racial message. In short, you reject the concept of an overtone; you want it to either be an explicitly stated message or you will conclude that it is nothing at all.

And don't give me this "European cultural background" bullshit either. The European cultural outlook of the time WAS racist.

[Alyrium Denryle]

And the european's negative interactions haven't had a racist component to them? Seriously? Are you kidding? I guess slavery and colonialism don't exist, then.

Before the colonial period? Not really. The romans for example did not care what race someone was. Roman citizens were found throughout the empire and not all of them were of european descent. They just had to meet the conditions of citizenship like military service etc if they were not born citizens.

Most of the cultural identities and emnities had more to do with geographic location, economics, blood feuds, and religious conflicts than race directly. They were co-related in some cases. However europeans were IIRC just as likely to kill other europeans as non-europeans all other things being equal.

I could be wrong here, I am no historian afterall. Most of the literature I have read (which is admittedly limited) speaks to the contrary.

[Elfdart]

The word "elf" means "white".

Oh, yeah, that really improves things. Not.

Do you really want to go there, or are you incapable of seeing how that just further worsens the notion that Tolkien's work encourages racial preference towards white people?

You'd have a point if Tolkien had coined the word. But "elf" has been around for centuries and it's descended from the same root word as albino. In Norse myths the elves are literally white, as opposed to Caucasian (it would be kind of redundant to single out elves for being Caucasian white when everyone in Scandinavia was "white" back then).

So if anything, Tolkien's elves weren't white enough.

Personally, for something as fanciful as LOTR I couldn't care less what color the elves, orcs or other creatures are. It's not like the movie is trying to accurately depict real-life people and events. I just think it's silly to say LOTR has racist overtones because the elves are played by actors of European descent.

[Formless]

Before the colonial period? Not really. The romans for example did not care what race someone was. Roman citizens were found throughout the empire and not all of them were of european descent. They just had to meet the conditions of citizenship like military service etc if they were not born citizens.

That doesn't mean they didn't have racist beliefs.

Most of the cultural identities and emnities had more to do with geographic location, economics, blood feuds, and religious conflicts than race directly. They were co-related in some cases. However europeans were IIRC just as likely to kill other europeans as non-europeans all other things being equal.

So fucking what if they were just as prone to killing each other as other ethnicities? That doesn't dispel the idea that they had racist ideas or that the "invading barbarian horde" stereotype existed. The fact that it was because of geography is incidental to whether or not there was racism present.

[Alyrium Denryle]

So fucking what if they were just as prone to killing each other as other ethnicities? That doesn't dispel the idea that they had racist ideas or that the "invading barbarian horde" stereotype existed. The fact that it was because of geography is incidental to whether or not there was racism present.

It matters when the people being called invading barbarian hordes were the same skin color as the romans, greeks, etc.

They were certainly ethnocentric, with their sense of superiority being controlled by geography and cultural identity. This correlates with race in some instances, but is not necessarily race. Ethnocentrism is an entirely different argument. I will concede that LOTR could be considered ethnocentric in that respect. Though whether or not that is any worse than any story that features an ethnic group as protagonists I am not sure.

[Formless]

The word "elf" means "white".

Oh, yeah, that really improves things. Not.

Do you really want to go there, or are you incapable of seeing how that just further worsens the notion that Tolkien's work encourages racial preference towards white people?

You'd have a point if Tolkien had coined the word. But "elf" has been around for centuries and it's descended from the same root word as albino. In Norse myths the elves are literally white, as opposed to Caucasian (it would be kind of redundant to single out elves for being Caucasian white when everyone in Scandinavia was "white" back then).

So if anything, Tolkien's elves weren't white enough.

And yet, I fail to see how this oh so important linguistic analysis means the elves had to be depicted as white. Fuck, how many people even know what that word means anyway? Its not like anyone would care if you changed that in the movie.

It matters when the people being called invading barbarian hordes were the same skin color as the romans, greeks, etc.

They were certainly ethnocentric, with their sense of superiority being controlled by geography and cultural identity. This correlates with race in some instances, but is not necessarily race. Ethnocentrism is an entirely different argument. I will concede that LOTR could be considered ethnocentric in that respect. Though whether or not that is any worse than any story that features an ethnic group as protagonists I am not sure.

What exactly differentiates ethnocentrism from racism? They're both forms of bigotry, and they both relate to heritable conditions no one can control.