Tolkien Black

**Tolkien Black**, formerly known as **Token Black** and **Token Williams**, is a male fourth grader at South Park Elementary and is voiced by Adrien Beard.

His name was a play on words referring to the tropeof the "token black guy" commonly featured on American television shows. However, in "The Big Fix", it was revealed that his name is actually "Tolkien", named after English writer J. R. R. Tolkien.

## Background

Tolkien Black is a regular member of Craig's gang and is most notable for being the only African-American child in South Park, other than guest characters and later Nichole. His name refers to the phrase "token black guy", a black man placed into a television show for racial diversity. Tolkien is also known to be one of the smarter boys, being a straight-A student.

Tolkien made his first appearance in the series pilot episode, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", where he appears as a background character. In early episodes, Tolkien was an unnamed character, but his name was revealed by Mr. Garrison in "Gnomes".

Tolkien's first major role was in "Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000", in which the boys were competing in a sled race against the girls. He made fun of Cartman's weight by saying: "Yeah! And with Cartman's enormously fat ass, the boys are sure to win!". Angered, Cartman throws a rock at him, giving Tolkien a black eye. However, because Tolkien is African-American, the FBI assumes this was a racist act. Cartman is tried in a federal court and convicted of a hate crime and was sentenced to juvenile prison.

After realizing that they had no chance against the girls without Cartman's fat ass, Stan and Kylego to Tolkien's house and ask him to help them get Cartman out of prison. The boys then put on a presentation before the governor, complete with visual aids, in which they detail their opposition to hate crime laws, declaring it as "savage hypocrisy".

They argue that all forms of crime warrant some sort of hate, and the laws serve only to encourage discrimination further, impressing the governor and securing Cartman's release. Cartman returns home, arriving at the sled race just as they are about to begin, and helps the boys beat the girls.

Tolkien had another major role in "Here Comes the Neighborhood" when he was being teased by his friends for being rich. For example, Tolkien was teased by the kids of South Park for having a DVD player, and not knowing what a VHS was, or for having clothes from Armani Exchange. Tolkien, sick of constantly being teased, decides to try and blend in, going to buy clothes at the local J-Mart. However, the people at the store gave him and his parents strange looks, upsetting Tolkien.

After failing to blend in with the rest of the town's kids, Tolkien sings a song asking God to send more rich people to his town. Soon enough, other rich people, including Will Smith, Oprah Winfrey, Snoop Dogg, and their families arrive in South Park. Tolkien tries to play with them, suggesting a snowball fight. Instead, the rich kids make fun of him and go off to play polo. Tolkien, downtrodden, says to himself, "I don't fit in anywhere."

Tolkien then goes to the zoo and asks Aslan the Lion if he could try to fit in with the lions, who inexplicably happen to be really into practical jokes and physical comedy. However, after Tolkien fails to understand the lions' humor, he realizes that he still does not fit in with them. However, in the end, his friends told Tolkien they were just ripping on him, which is just what kids do to each other, and that he had always been part of the group from the beginning.

In "Christian Rock Hard", Tolkien joins Cartman's new Christian rock band, Faith + 1. Cartman asserted that Tolkien being black automatically meant that he would own and be capable of playing the bass guitar. Although initially skeptical and annoyed with Cartman's racial profiling, Tolkien finds that he is, in fact, fully capable of playing the bass to a high degree of proficiency.

After selling one million albums, Cartman is informed that he cannot achieve platinum certification in a Christian rock band, because Christian rock bands are awarded gold, frankincense, and myrrh as opposed to gold, platinum, and diamond. Enraged, Cartman yells, "Fuck Jesus!", angering both the Christian crowd gathered at the ceremony and Tolkien, who beats Cartman up.

In "Raisins", Tolkien became Wendy's boyfriend, causing Stan to fall into a deep depression. However, Stan comes to terms with his loss, flipping off both Tolkien and Wendy at the end of the episode. They appear together in "The Jeffersons" at the ferris wheel in the Jefferson Residence. As Wendy and Tolkien are not seen together on any subsequent occasions, it can be assumed this relationship ended at some point following the episode.

In "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson", Tolkien is super pissed off at Stan's dad, Randy, for saying the N-word on *Wheel of Fortune*. Stan exacerbates the situation by claiming that he understood fully how the word was hurtful to black people, a claim Tolkien would never accept. However, Stan realized that as a white person, he will never understand how black people feel. Pleased, Tolkien responds "Now you get it, Stan", appearing to make amends.

In "Funnybot", Tolkien was unable to contain his laughter at Tyler Perry's jokes. Throughout the episode, Tyler Perry, as his character Madea, would continually make jokes that only Tolkien found funny. Each time this happened, Tolkien appeared disappointed and embarrassed at himself, but still handed the money over to Perry.

Tolkien reluctantly helped Cartman in "1%", who needed a place to stay safe from whoever was killing his stuffed toys. The climactic events of the episode unfolded at Tolkien's house.

* Tolkien is also a very smart character that, aside from Stan Marsh and Kyle Broflovski, is least affected by Cartman's attempts at manipulation, much to the annoyance of Cartman.
* The name "Token Black" was mentioned by writer Brian C. Anderson as an example of *South Park* being, in the words of Andrew Sullivan, "The best antidote to PC [politically-correct] culture we have."
* In the early seasons, a white version of Tolkien was occasionally seen, usually in background shots. In the Season One commentary, Trey and Matt say it is probably due to the animators being lazy (reusing Tolkien's model and then recoloring his face).
* In "The Succubus", a picture in the background of Herbert Garrison's class depicts a picture of a white Tolkien with "MY NAME IS TOKEN | I LIKE…" written on it.
	+ According to this picture, Tolkien likes rocks, hamburgers, Mr. Hat, spiders and fishing.
* Tolkien has spoken in every season since his first speaking role in Season Three.
* As of Season 19, Tolkien is one of the four minorities in South Park Elementary.
* Promotions for *South Park: The Stick of Truth* featured Tolkien as a blacksmith. This is referenced in the game, as Cartman tells Tolkien that he should be a blacksmith.
* In "Here Comes the Neighborhood", when his classmates decide to insult Tolkien for being a pussy is similar to when everyone mocks Butters Stotch for being wimpy.
* Tolkien is one of the only male students in South Park Elementary to not be voiced by Trey Parker or Matt Stone.
* Originally, in "World War Zimmerman" Tolkien was supposed to be killed off permanently.
* After Tolkien's real name was "revealed" in "The Big Fix," the closed captioning for all past and future episodes was updated to use "Tolkien" instead of "Token," except when spoken by Stan, emphasizing the in-joke that Stan was supposedly the only one who didn't understand Tolkien's real name.