Reply #23: I don't think he was racist. And Screaming Lord Byron's selection

[Aristus]

from Tolkien's writing is a good sympathetic example. The 'dark men' were not evil, just swept up by forces more powerful than themselves. Surely they would much rather have stayed home with their families and lived and died in peace.

Although the hobbits themselves are light-skinned, if not white, (Several hobbits strains are described as having brown skin) consider for a moment their 'otherness'; small stature, hairy, thick-soled feet, peculiar insular society. That set them apart from the world of men and elves. But Tolkien makes them the unlikely heroes of his story because of the qualities they possessed which were not visible to the eye: stout courage, loyalty, devotion, and a tough resistance to the corrupting powers of the Ring.

Tolkien emphasizes the mutual cooperation and eventual love that grows between the members of the different races in LotR. That is his true legacy to the notion of racism and inter-ethnic harmony.