The orcs are not a good form representation for black people. I’ve often seen the orcs used in order to defend Tolkien’s racism, with people often claiming that Tolkien can’t be racist because he has black characters in his writing. The orcs.
However that in itself is racist.
First of all, orcs are monsters and the prime villains of the LotR. It’s not good representation if the only people of color (or coded people of color) are villains. Let’s not forget that they have various white coded character who are constantly ruling over them and controlling them. The idea of representation coming from essentially a slave race is not good representation, not when their rulers are white coded (Morgoth, Sauron, Saruman) , and not when their rulers are notorious for influencing the only other coded people of color to do bad things (Maeglin, the Easterlings, the Black Numenorians).
Secondly, orcs as representation plays on the “Scary Black Man Trope” especially when you look at the story of Celebrian and the orcs. Black men being animalistic towards white women has been a racist trope used and exploited in many works of fiction (To Kill a Mockingbird, Birth of a Nation, Kid in Africa, etc). There’s various instances in Tolkien’s works where it is used as well (Eol and Aredhel, Idril and Maeglin). It’s a harmful trope that has very real racist roots (Emmett Till many before and after him, and to an extent, boys like TrayVon Martin). This idea of black men being animals towards white women translates into black men being animals in general, and is the main reasoning behind Civil Movements like Black Lives Matter. Claiming that orcs are good representation only feeds into that trope.
Thirdly, it implies that black is worse than white, primarily because the first generation of orcs were elves (coded by the fandom as primarily white) that were tortured by Morgoth into turning into orcs, which many people equate to black people. So here we have the white elves that are good, and white. But the orcs that are bad, and black.
Essentially, those are the three points that I wanted to hit up. I would like to remind every and anyone who decides to use “orcs are good representation for black people” in order to defend Tolkien’s racism that their representation is an embodiment of racism, and that they are not good representation at all!
-Maeglin is described as being swart, which coupled with Eol being called a “dark elf” most likely comes from the Moriqueindii side of the family, as the Nolodr are described as pale. I write about it here.
-While Morgoth and Sauron are valar and maia and should have no skin color, fandom idea of Morgoth is typically a white man with very few straying from that idea. Same with Sauron.
