_NP?_ =?ISO-8859-1?B?oA==?="the_formerly_colonised_coming_back_to_haunt_us"

[The Great Quail]

Tim writes,
 
> And this is precisely why the whole "racism" argument, for me at least, is
> an absurd one.

I agree that it is an absurd issue. Tolkien modeled LOTR on a selection of
myth from white, eastern European sources: Welsh, Anglo-Saxon, Teutonic.

Imagine an African writer of Tolkien's generation, creating an epic set in a
distant and mythologized Africa, based perhaps on a hodgepodge of legends
borrowed from various African cultures. Would you find it racist if they
"left out" a bunch of heroic white guys? To argue that his writing is racist
or sexist, well, you might as well argue the same for the Arthurian legends,
the Niebelungen, Beowulf, or the Eddas. Tolkien wrote for a primarily white
audience who already had a culturally-programed storehouse of archetypes.
That's part of why his story is so powerful for many of us.

Now, I won't completely deny that their are postcolonialist echoes in there,
certainly: the swarthy Southrons ally with Sauron, blah blah. Of course LOTR
also bears the impression of Tolkien's time and culture, not to mention his
personal history in WWI. But to me, it sounds like White Male Guilt Studies
101 to take seriously such accusations as, "It's white centered," or, "Why
aren't there more female characters?" It seems a bit superficial, even
sophomoric, the kind of argument best made by an over-zealous college
student. Certainly there are better places to direct energy than to finding
cultural centrism in a culture's mythology.

--Quail