If I remember correctly, the swarthy eastern men were the bad humans. Beyond that, it’s hard to argue that having an inherently evil race like the orcs doesn’t

If I remember correctly, the swarthy eastern men were the bad humans. Beyond that, it’s hard to argue that having an inherently evil race like the orcs doesn’t have racist undertones (particularly with the descriptions of the orcs mirroring racist caricatures). Sure, there were bad people in the other races as well (and not all of them swarthy!), but racism doesn’t claim that one race is without any bad people, it claims that certain races are inherently inferior (bad, weak willed, violent, etc.). This doesn’t mean that Tolkein was or wasn’t a flaming racist, but it’s hard not to see the parallels in his work to actual racism.