Racism and Tolkien.

[demnation]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Actually, the edict does indeed appear to totally bar Men from the Shire. From Appendix B The Tale of Years:



And in Appendix A:



If Aragorn only meant a ban on settlers, surely he wouldn't have seen the harm in making a brief visit inside to give Sam his award.



I wouldn't put a tremendous amount of stock in anything that starts with wiki, unless it's supported by other sources. Tolkien said in a Letter that Orcs were based on a very debased version of Mongols.

Letters # 210

Orcs were the spiritual and physical product of long corruption by Morgoth and Sauron, and their appearance has no real-world equivalent. That Tolkien there added the qualifier "to Europeans" to me indicates that he did not think such a perception valid, but instead a regrettable consequence of unfamiliarity.

A knee jerk reaction to the "Orcs are debased Mongols" quote would lead one to cry "racism!" racism!" But a closer look reveals something a bit more ambiguous. Because he is not saying that Orcs are Mongols, or that Mongols are repulsive, but that the (fictional) Orcs are repulsive versions of Mogols. Still, it is about the closest Tolkien gets to saying anything that could be interpreted as blatantly racist. And the funny thing about his Letters is that they contain more evidence that he actually wasn't racist than they contain evidence that he was.