And those that are nauseatingly railing against “wokeness” seem to have no issue with the actor other than that they are black. That’s not good enough. You seem distracted by a perceived agenda behind casting a non-white person, when really you should ask yourself “why not cast a non-white person?”
People with darker skin are affected by the Sun on Earth and the darker you are the closer you live to the Equator, that’s just how it has happened through evolution. How in the hell do you explain dark-skinned dwarfs who live inside mountains hardly at all seeing a Sun? They should be whiter than regular men. And don’t give any “it’s a fantasy world” answer… It is based on cultures on Earth.
So the many dark-skinned Orcs in in the books, movies, and show, who spent much of their lives in caves and avoided the sun whenever possible lived lives…closer to the equator basking in the sun? I can’t recall a single person ever being brought out of the story by this curiosity, and I don’t see any reason why other peoples of Middle Earth should be held to a different standard.
Unless, of course, you think that the Forces of Evil are the only ones expected to be multicultural in Tolkien’s world. Which is a…hell of a take.