A Disturbing Development

[Perethil]

I posted earlier saying that I found tolkien to be a bit of a racist, I was sleep deprived tired and my computer was lagging, there the post was short. unfortunately I cannot back up anything with quotes, I hope you all forgive me for that.

The racist elements that I drew out from LOTR arent were purely RACIST as opposed to anti semetic elements - which seems to be what that white supremacy or nazis are interpreting. In fact, I have never connected anything in the book to Jews at all. The main source of my argument is the fact that Easterlings and Southrons are poeples governed by Sauron in the third age, or traitors in the first age. Geographically, I would imagine the East would now be Asia, and South (Harad and such) would be north Africa (please correct me if wrong). Furthermore, Easterlings are discribed as narrow eyed and Southrons with darker skin. This specifically leads me to believe that LOtR has some racist elements. once again, I apologise for not quoting, I dont have access to my tolkien-library atm.

I am Georgian (caucasian ?) but I live in Turkey, and I remember a Turkish friend of mine showing me a quote from the professor offensively refering to asians. When discussing this with another friend, he brought up the fact the evil Numenoreans were the 'black numenoreans' - however that I do not find racist as such, because i believe the 'black' in the title is a refrence to their dark nature, not their skin tone.

I'd like to add that I am appalled at the fact that I share one of my biggest interests with such people as the ones contributing to that thread. Although I had heard of supremists liking Tolkien's work, I had never imagined I'd see threads offensively comparing Jews to Dwarves and Tolkien quotes next to swastika avatars.

Frankly, it disturbs me deeply, since I believe fantasy to be a clear example of what is right about humanity, and racial superiority a clear exaple of what is wrong.

-vasiko manjgaladze-