Mary Sunshine

person

The things we imply

We’ve been studying Sumer for world history and are now moving on to reading about Sargon the Great.  My daughter Phroo held her history text in her lap, about to read, and said, “Sargon - that sounds like Sauron.”

I thought I would let it slide.  Then she said, “Wait - Uruk-hai, that’s like city of Uruk.  Mom, do you think Tolkien borrowed names from Sumer?”

I said yes.  “Wow,” she said.  “But Sauron and the Uruk-hai were bad guys.”  And as she was reaching the natural conclusion, I could see it dawning on her face, I admitted that in Tolkien’s writings, all his evil people and foes were dark-skinned, Middle-Eastern/Indian, or Asiatic. We named examples, such as the Haradrim who were ‘slant-eyed’, wore nomadic clothing, and came to battle with Oliphaunts.

But what about Saruman, or Grima, who were white?  Well, that’s more difficult to explain.  I told her that the few ‘white’ people who joined forces with the ‘black’ people/creatures were viewed in the book as traitors, and possibly not just traitors to the ‘good’ side, but to the white races.  They were referred to almost as if there had been a double treachery (is my impression/interpretation.)  There’ve been people in our time who’ve been persecuted for joining the causes of black, indigenous, native cultures - and they were right to join - but the status quo can’t handle such blatant ‘race treachery’ and will do anything to smack down empathizing with ‘the enemy.’ These things are hard to understand at eleven years old, so I tried to keep the language as simple as I could. 

I explained that Tolkien himself came from an upper class, white, male-dominated, imperialistic world, and his views were heavily shaped by where he came from.  I didn’t want to paint Tolkien as a bad man; I don’t believe he was.  Whether consciously or subconsciously, he promulgated a west-centric, patriarchal, white supremacist world view in his writings, and he was deeply gentrified.  He bore gentrified opinions of the lower classes, see: the relationship of Samwise Gamgee, servant, to Mr. Frodo Baggins.  Rustic speech for the dumb, slow hobbits, such as Sam and his Gaffer, and dignity for the wealthy, such as Merry and Pippin.

All the heroes in Tolkien are men, save one example - one, and even though Eowyn makes it to battle after disguising herself as a man, in the end she is relegated to the healing halls to fall in love with Faramir her prince and live happily ever after, marriage and romance being all a woman ultimately wants, of course.  All the good guys are white.  Also, Tolkien stated categorically the dwarvish race was intended to seem Semitic.  The dwarves, misers and gold diggers, ugly, hairy, and squat, whom the white-skinned, gentrified elves despise and only reluctantly befriend.  Nice.

We discussed all these things, and that led us off into a brief history of imperialism, and the current guilt about imperialism our generations endure today, and we talked of anti-Semitism, and of the ardent racism toward Middle Eastern peoples in our country especially post-9/11 - and I have to say, at the end of it, it breaks my heart to have had this discussion with my child.  I know she’ll never look at Tolkien, perhaps anything, with the same innocence.

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