Lord of the Rings - Racist or not?

[Screaming Lord Byron]

What do you reckon. The highest evolved form are Elves, with milk-white skin, all the heroic men are white. All the bad (human) guys are either Easterlings (red skinned) or Haradrim (dark skinned). Sauron is the 'Dark Lord'

Other side of the argument is that it was written by a white English Literature Professor in the first half of the twentieth century who had absolutely no first-hand experience of other races, we don't know whether the Dwarves (good) are white (my guess is middle-eastern), and this passage from The Two Towers pg 332 is pretty sympathetic-

"He came to rest in the fern a few feet away, face forward, green arrow feathers sticking from his neck below a golden collar. His scarlet robes were tattered....His brown hand held the hilt of a broken sword....It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men and he did not like it much. He was glad he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was, or where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart. or what lies or threats had led him on the long road from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed their in peace"

Copyright George Allen and Unwin Publishers 1954.

What do you reckon?