some other residual thoughts:
the problem of racism in tolkien fandom will not be resolved for as long as people believe that the mere act of critique is a violence in itself, and that therefore having made a critique, the person who has made a critique can either be unpersoned or that norms of politeness no longer apply. of course, this fandom is too "polite" to do slurs in askboxes for the most part, but there are other mechanisms of rude communications that fly in the name of "debate". do you think its polite to misread someone and then accuse them via that misreading, of not extending enough grace to a dead historical figure? personally, i think that's quite rude as a quibble, not least because of the total disengagement with the actual arguments being made. do you think its polite to send people snide asks for weeks on end, insisting on them defending their viewpoint, their specifically racial critique of the canon? personally, i think not! but you know, ymmv.
the problem of racism in tolkien fandom will not be resolved for as long as it takes (primarily) non-white fans doing the careful work of exposition and critique in order to uncover and engage with tolkien's racism and genealogies of his thinking for any non-apologetic engagement with tolkien and race to occur in fandom. and what do i mean by non-apologetic engagement? i mean that so far outside of a very small selection of tolkien academics (and a tiny handful of white fans) who i can all roughly count on my fingers, very few expositions of race in tolkien's work are not accompanied by a cringing apology that insists that a) tolkien was not racist himself personally and b) he was a man of his time and c) that there clearly were "exceptions" to his racial ideology in his works. this defensive pose allows the protective psychological mechanisms of political whiteness to continually step in and therefore absolve itself of engagement with race in tolkien's text. to put it plainly: i am claiming that the problem of racism in tolkien fandom, in specifically making tolkien fandom a hostile space for fans of colour, will not be resolved for as long as white fans cannot call tolkien a racist. if that sounds hardline, so be it.
the problem of racism in tolkien fandom will not be resolved for as long as it is largely only non-white fans investing the time and energy in expositing and critiquing race and tolkien specifically within a fandom space. it will not be resolved for so long as non-white fans are forced to rehearse and explain racist ideas, histories and thinking to white fans who refuse to do any amount of research themselves, or who settle on an anodyne "listen to non-white voices". believe me it is not very hard to do the research if you are actually interested in creating a non-hostile atmosphere and space for non-white fans. but that process has to be co-creative. i am inviting you to participate in actually doing this hard work of critique and conversation because you care about race and because, hopefully, you care about your non-white brethren within fandom spaces.
the problem of a hostile atmosphere towards non-white fans in tolkien fandom is not a problem that non-white fans can resolve, but one that i think falls to white fans to police, resolve and make socially unviable. if there is something i want to communicate persuasively, i think it would be this: what exactly do the norms of "politeness" in the fandom serve? how are you thinking about what is polite and what is not? what feelings are you prioritising when any attempt to engage with race is treated as "hurting" people's feelings or making things "less fun"? what feelings are being prioritised when discussions abt race in the texts are labelled "fandom discourse" or "fandom wank"? what feelings are being prioritised when a non-white fan is being asked to extend grace to a dead white historical figure? are you able and willing to police such communications even internally, even when you think non-white fans are absent from your conversations? when they aren't watching? or is it only something you become aware of when a non-white fan turns their eyes on you? these are questions i would like liberal white fans to ask themselves and to have a serious debate about.
lastly, all of these things have been said many times before in many other fandoms and even within tolkien fandom. i think that should invite some amount of reflection.
