There’s no shortage of discourse concerning race and Amazon’s just-released series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The program, which has premiered to largely favorable reviews, introduces characters of color to Tolkien’s stories – a move that has sadly led to a ton of backlash, even in what are normally lighthearted meme communities. It seems that quite a few fans of Tolkien’s work happen to think that there were no people of color in his world – allegedly because the tales were meant to serve as a sort of mythology for Great Britain with Middle-earth having»the clime and soil of the North West, meaning Britain and the hither parts of Europe.» Even if that is true, it’s not like there was zero diversity in Europe. It was far from an all-white continent, which was a notion that became popular in Nationalist Germany and within Nazi war propaganda. 

The probably racists who are crying foul over the casting choices would probably be miffed to learn that there’s a very, very good chance that J.R.R. Tolkien based much of the lore on African history and mythology. This proposition, from @historyfellow on TikTok, went viral earlier this year and seems very relevant right now.