They also ignore the fact POC existed throughout English legend. There's a place on the south coast where you can see France across the English channel, and there's a place in Gibraltar where you can stand and look at Africa. I find it utterly disgusting that people white wash the UK and act like there were no POC here until the 1960's. Since the years were counting down, not up (B.C).
The real place middle earth is based on has been the home of POC. The whitewashing of the UK is the most infuriating thing about being British to be honest, and the whitewashing of Tolkien based on this fictional England drives me crazy. He made it through Star Trek: Discovery without further commentary and enjoyed it greatly, after I did this little exercise with him, which was a massive improvement. And then his gripe is more that it breaks the immersion to have poignant social issues shoved in his face, which is still disappointing to hear, but at least not so on the nose. My dad, for example, now complains a lot less than he used to about such things, unless it is obviously in your face to make a statement (which does happen on occasion). It has worked a few times, for me, in-person. Make them work it through, question by question, rather than outright telling them they're wrong. Challenge those suppositions with essentially the same question or with "how do you know that?" If they don't just babble, you're likely to get a few common replies, such as "that's not what the author intended," all of which are conjecture and projection, at best. But, ask them this simple question: What, specifically, about the person being black/gay/whatever is specifically offensive to you, in this piece of entertainment? And maybe, sure, they don't otherwise perform overt acts of violent racism or whatever. Usually, they will claim they aren't racist. You can make their brains reboot with a simple challenge. because some asshole a thousand miles over there who shared an ethnic background with you had a position of authority and might have liked fucking demons. So if you were a "jungle elf" fisherman whose family had spent all of the Crown Wars just fishing and living off the land and never bothering with all the crusades and shit, nah, Corellon decided you were gonna get cursed and cut off from the grace of the pantheon. So because some of these proto-Drow leaders were corrupted by various fiendish powers and used their magics or pushed for various wars on top of the legitimate grievances that their respective nations could have had against other Elven nations (given the long history of warfare between them all), Corellon Larethian and the rest of the big Elf Pantheon got together and cursed fucking all of them into becoming Drow. The proto-Drow didn't really throw in entirely with a particular deity (Araushnee, who later became Lolth) against Corellon Larethian in a plot as such, they were just slightly more murder-y in the GIANT MURDER-HAPPY ELF KINGDOM WARS than most of the other Elven nations.
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