Boy, when I logged into twitter today, I did not expect to see a bunch of uninformed trolls talking about orcs and how the concept of orcs is not problematic.

Here's the thing, D&D and a number of the underlying concepts are based in other fiction and myth they borrowed from.

Some of these are actual historical religions and myths, but it is impossible not to see that a very large portion of the world is adapted from the works of JRR Tolkien. Do I love the Lord of the Rings? Yeah. Does the Lord of the Rings also have a ton of underlying racism. Yes.

Tolkien himself said that the world was created as a modern mythology for Britain, which places like Greece had and England did not - to his mind. He outright places Hobbiton in a secluded northwest portion of the map and makes the hobbits good tea sipping simple folks - British

That, in itself, is not really a problem. Hobbits are a little goofy and a little chubby and don't like to be disturbed. Checks out. The problem starts when Tolkien bases the entire mythology of his world based on the oldest archetype: dark vs light. Dark=bad light=good.

Literally, the symbol of all that is good and fading in the world are the very tall, very white, very well spoken elves. They are so good and so white as to make them magical. The orcs are dark and dirty and bloodthirsty. They're not just another culture - they're corrupted.

Men are capable of being good or evil, orcs don't choose. They just are. There are no good orcs in The Lord of the Rings. Now, Tolkien has mapped the Shire to England, he's placed the world of men just to the south and east of that, where are the orcs from? Very far south.

You know, the dark dirty beastly creatures live in the land to the south of where the white men live. Bad enough. But then when you get to the battle for Minas Tirith, the Easterlings show up. You know, corrupt evil men from the east who ride elephants. Come on.

At some point, growing up with fantasy stories means having to interrogate what's going on underneath. If you can't look at LotR and say "Yeah, there's problematic race stuff here" you're not being honest with yourself. As for what we can do about it...

Well, we can't go back and make LotR not racist anymore than we can go back and make every Greek myth not deeply troubling. Zeus is a rapist and a sex creep, but in Disney's Hercules he's lightning Santa Claus. It is what it is.

What we can do is recognize it, say it out loud, and take steps as creators and players to fix it. WotC and Co has been doing a lot of that kind of work both as it relates to race and gender. We can do more. Support black and black inclusive sci-fi and fantasy and

When black players and creators speak up and say "I find this troubling and problematic" we listen to them and try to make the stories and the space more inclusive. Putting your fingers in your ears and screaming doesn't help.

Ultimately, more of you than are comfortable with it are Bilbo, calling these things precious and completely ignoring the negatives. You just keep putting that racism back in your pocket when you meant to leave it on the mantle for Frodo. The ring should go to Frodo.

And when you see a person of color speaking out about the problematic nature of these things, don't be Bilbo or Boromir. Be Sam. Accompany them and help them destroy the evil.