Orcs in fantasy are mostly traced back to Tolkien, but they also stem from the myths and legends Tolkien drew from, particularly pre-Christian Celtic, Scandinavian and Finno-Ugric myth (trolls, fomorians, goblins).

Despite that, Tolkiens orcs are more akin to demons or devils.

Elves and other forces were more powerful and 'pure' in Tolkien's prehistory (dragons, balrogs etc too). In that sense, orcs are a twisted mockery, or deliberately corrupted elves. Much more like fallen angels. Not a 'mortal race' at all. They become more like that in later ages.

Even by the events of TLOTR, the orcs presented are not 'tribal', do not relate so much to african or mongoloid peoples, but seem more like corrupt, industrial age humans. Down to a fascination with machines, industry, explosives. They reflect Tolkien's WWI experience IMNSHO.

You'd have a better case talking about the Southrons or Easterlings, but then in Tolkien, that too is more about imperialism, fascism and how 'the race of men' can be corrupted by powerful, evil forces.

The closest you get is, perhaps, the Beornings, and they're not portrayed as evil.

Are there racial underpinnings to the Dunedin, bloodlines, Aragorn's heritage etc?

Still a bit of a stretch, since it's really a metaphor/analogy for morality, using old heritage tropes.

Finally, the 'good' peoples in Middle Earth are not unalloyed good. The elves are aloof and distant and leaving everyone else to it. The hobbits are cowardly and bucolic to a negative extreme, and so it goes.

DnD of course, took direction - in a more simplistic manner - from Tolkien, and Vance (and the much more 'problematic' CS Lewis) and more.

But the thing you really have to take on board is that the book-form DnD universe is very different to reality. Moral relativism doesn't fly

And I'm saying that as a moral relativist, within limits.

It's a world where good and evil (and law and chaos) are as real as wood or stone or metal. Where gods exist, and evil gods exist, and evil gods have created evil creatures to do evil deeds.

You can no more reform an orc in that default setting, than you could create a vegetarian lion.

Of course, you can do what you want in your own games, what REALLY FUCKING PISSES PEOPLE OFF is when you imply they're racist, or call them racist, when it doesn't apply.

So don't?

ESPECIALLY if you don't have the sufficient grounding in the texts, or the mythology from which they stem, to pass decent judgement.

And opinion essays by racial and gender studies demogogues aren't research, or science, they're opinion. Worth no more than anyone elses.

Not to mention they're distorted, because they view everything through an ideological lens, that distorts everything like a funhouse mirror.

Just please, stop being insufferable pricks. Run your game how you want and leave people the fuck alone to do the same.

Final word, if you want that kind of nuance - though still with 'races' as exaggerations of human characteristics, play Star Trek or customise your own game.

It's just not 'canon' with planes and gods and objective morality.