Provocative writing can be good, yes. I quite like Camille Paglia, for instance - sometimes she does or says things I totally disagree with or find absurd, but that's part of the deal with provocateurs like her. This author (at least, are all posts on that blog by the same author? Some are signed, others aren't, so not sure, but assuming that they are: ) has rather too many ridiculous statements and pointless insult hurling to be seriously compared to Paglia, though. And when called out on it, doesn't seem to be able to take it the way she dishes it out.

I don't deny the obvious truth that a lot of people are less progressive and more racist than they consider themselves, and that even people holding liberal, inclusive viewpoints may still be caught with dubious thoughts or statements. But that quote is ridiculous for suggesting that that makes them the next best thing to a neo-Nazi.

Countered? Not really, no. Rather, Sam's comment to a certain, admittedly limited, extent "counters" the other elements of the trilogy. The orcs, goblins, trolls are still considered purely evil, of course, but the humans at least are not. Sam's comment is there, in my view, to make clear the racism is casual and, well, I can't say subconscious, but at least not intentional.

As for casual racism/sexism being "an insidious form of cross burning or spitting on suffragettes", that seems a bit exaggerated to me. At the end of a day, the difference between somebody who feels and acts positively towards ethnic minorities / women / LGBT-people / ..., and somebody who doesn't, is the critical one - not the difference between those who fully understand the minority position and accordingly have entirely "correct" viewpoints about them, and those who don't.

And of course I don't need to tell you that such things need to be seen in the context of their time and place; to be sure Tolkien was not particularly progressive for his time and place, but he wasn't as reactionary as he may now seem, either. We like to think that we got it right now and all generations before us were wrong; as far as minority rights, women's rights, gay rights are concerned, I certainly feel the same way, but still it's interesting to look forward a few centuries and imagine what the people then will be saying about us.

In the fictional universe, I seem to remember some lines about the Elves mourning their "fairest daughter" or some such, yes, caring more about her looks than about her actions. I doubt the readers of the Silmarillion feel the same way, though, nor its writer.