~~unfortunately, I disagree.~~ Actually I take that back. I don't disagree but I do think it's more complicated than that. Perhaps Tolkein would object to his orcs being used in this way but it's worth remembering that In a private letter, Tolkien describes orcs as:

"squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."

The Tolkien scholar Dimitra Fimi describes his mentions of "swarthy complexions" and slanted eyes as "straight out of Victorian anthropology, which links mental qualities and physique"

It's also worth noting the "moral geography" of Middle Earth.. Note the depiction of Eastern and Southern cultures as inherently allied with Morgoth/Sauron/Darkness.

Even if Tolkein's racism wasn't deliberate or conscious or ill-intentioned, it was still present.

There's a lot of cope/PR management from his estate about Orcs, The Haradrim, The "Black Men Like Half-Trolls" etc.

From Return of the King:

Not too soon came their aid to the Rohirrim; for fortune had turned against Éomer, and his fury had betrayed him. The great wrath of his onset had utterly overthrown the front of his enemies, and great wedges of his Riders had passed clear through the ranks of the Southrons, discomfiting their horsemen and riding their footmen to ruin. But wherever the mûmakil came there the horses would not go, but blenched and swerved away; and the great monsters were unfought, and stood like towers of defence, and the Haradrim rallied about them. And if the Rohirrim at their onset were thrice outnumbered by the Haradrim alone, soon their case became worse; for new strength came now streaming to the field out of Osgiliath. There they had been mustered for the sack of the City and the rape of Gondor, waiting on the call of their Captain. He now was destroyed; but Gothmog the lieutenant of Morgul had flung them into the fray; Easterlings with axes, and Variags of Khand. Southrons in scarlet, and out of Far Harad black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues. Some now hastened up behind the Rohirrim, others held westward to hold off the forces of Gondor and prevent their joining with Rohan.

Tom Shippey:

Additionally, Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey stated in reference to the 'black men like half-trolls' passage from The Return of the King that Tolkien was attempting to write like a medieval chronicler in describing the Rohirrim's encounter with a Haradrim: " and when medieval Europeans first encountered sub-Saharan Africans, they were genuinely confused about them, and rather frightened." He noted that Tolkien had pointed out in his early scholarly works "the ancient English seemed to have a belief in fire-demons, who naturally enough had skin like soot – their word for them, ‘harwan’, is related to Latin ‘carbo’, ‘soot,’ or carbon." Shippey concluded by remarking that, "An Anglo-Saxon meeting an African for the first time might then really wonder - for a moment, from a distance - whether this was a demon from his own mythology. This doesn't mean that Tolkien shared the mythology, or the mistake."

I think more influential to Tolkein's perspective than simple medieval chronicling, was the much more recent violent encounters British colonial troops had with the indigenous people of India and Africa.