Fantasy Races

One of the themes in my books is racism, and so I wanted to have different races to explore that. How would humans act if confronted with another race or species that was as smart as they were. Science fiction sometimes deals with that, finding alien races, but fantasy does as well. There are the normal ones, like dwarves, elves, orcs, etc. Some authors, like Tolkien, have used these familiar races (or in his case, practically invented them), while others create their own races, often similar but with different names (trollocs as orcs from The Wheel of Time). Others just stay with humans and maybe some creatures (Song of Fire and Ice). I am writing thinking of using the familiar races and creatures, because they are familiar. I will add my own take on them, but right now, the names are the same. I felt that just changing the names wouldn't do much since people will think of them that way anyway. Anyone have any ideas on this? Comments? Should I have made some completely different races that don't look like humans at all? Would people be able to identify with them if I didn't? I feel like taking the Harry Potter approach, and using the familiar, although in a different way. But maybe someone can convince me to be completely original with this. Who knows?

Reblogged from http://sageeyesblog.wordpress.com/2012/12/30/fantasy-races/