[Kalimac]

The scary thing is that there's probably a fanfiction story out there somewhere which deals with EXACTLY that combination of Sam and Bill. Ugh. I'm not sure which would be worse, that or a relationship between Gandalf and the Balrog (as they used to say in the SCA - "Don't visualize. Really, don't visualize.")

The racism thing - well, a few narrative remarks in a book that size aren't really much to go off of. The "slant-eyed Southerner" phrase is one that I think people point to most often - the Southerner is later implied to have been a "half-Orc" of some sort, but this doesn't necessarily mean that Orcs had Asiatic features or anything like that, just that to the hobbits (as to any northern European in medieval times who didn't get out much) dark skin or slanting eyes were two things that they would have noticed automatically because they were so unusual. And the Southrons and Easterlings are dark, but as several people already pointed out, in the scene with Sam seeing the dead warrior there's no implication that they were *evil* - they just happened to be the unlucky ones whose lands were co-opted by Sauron early on and became prime cannon fodder for him.

Judging by Orcs seems unfair, since Orcs aren't exactly their own race - they were probably created from Elves (who have varying characters) and were specifically mutilated into the horrible creatures that they were. They don't reproduce, they are manufactured. It's hard to see the Orcs as evidence of anything except the twisted imagination of Sauron et al.

Furthermore, if all the "good" characters were fair or at least had fair skin, so for that matter did all the "bad" characters of any note (as nasty as Bill Ferny and the Southerner are, they're not exactly major players on the world stage). Saruman is never described as being dark, Wormtongue has dark hair but pale skin (a trait he shares with Elrond and possibly Legolas, among others), Denethor has dark hair as do quite a few others in Gondor, etc etc etc.

As for all the "dark" imagery; Dark Lord, Dark Tower, the Nazgul wearing black - all you can say is, darkness has been a symbol of fear and uncertainty since approximately the beginning of time, and not just in Western European stories either (try the South African story "Mufaro's Daughters" if you want some very vivid imagery of a nighttime journey with visions appearing to tempt travelers). If it is innately racist symbolism, then Tolkien is certainly guilty, along with about 98% of all storytellers ever born.