NP Tolkien Picks Up A Few More Bits Of Cultural Baggage

[jbor]

      Frans could not know that except for a few others on the island of
    Reunion, these were the only dodoes in the Creation, and that he was
    helping exterminate a race. [...] "If the species were not such a
    perversion," he wrote, "it might be profitably husbanded to feed our
    generations." &c (_GR_ p. 110)

A "race of creatures" can refer, of course, to a species. In the context of
"racism", or "racialism", the word "race" denotes different *human*
ethnicities. It's just semantics and disingenuousness to try and conflate
the two categories.

best

on 8/1/03 12:24 AM, jbor at jbor at bigpond.com wrote:

> So, your argument now is that the orcs are a "race" of humans, members of
> the human race, is it? Sorry, that simply doesn't gel with the text or film
> at all, as the quotes illustrate.
> 
> The orcs, just like the dwarves, elves, trolls etc, are *not human*.
> 
> best
> 
> 
> on 7/1/03 9:46 PM, Dave Monroe at davidmmonroe at yahoo.com wrote:
> 
>>> God no. Life's too short. Just pointing out the
>>> obvious. I.e., that "race" does not equal "species".
>>> And that "racism" is a *human* phenomenon.
>> 
>> "Yet it is held by the wise of Eressëa, that all those
>> of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere
>> Utumno was broken were put there in prison, and by
>> slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and
>> thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in
>> envy and mockery of the elves." (Silmarillion, p. 50)
>> 
>> http://www.fortunecity.com/athena/emerald/236/fateoforcs.html
>> 
>> "... a race of rational incarnate creatures, though
>> horribly corrupted." (Letters, p. 287)
> 
>