Demographically, New Zealand has a predominantly white population. It is, in historical terms, a British settler colony, and at that level can be compared to Australia, Canada and the US.
The reason Maori were cast as Uruk-Hai is because Uruk-Hai are brown, not white. It's not mysterious, and frankly I'm baffled that you joke about this and note the contrast with the all-white heroes, while denying that there's anything racist in the pulp and fantasy heritage of tropes that D&D draws upon.
When did I joke? All I said is that Jackson hired people who lived in New Zealand, and Maoris better fit the mold of how Tolkien described Uruk-Hai. Nor did I deny that there's racism in fantasy tradition--there's racism throughout human history and tradition, and fantasy is no different. What I'm saying is that you and others are employing a very narrow, one-sided hermeneutic that only sees one thing and ignores everything else or, worse, sees everything as opposed to it. "If you're not with us, you're against us. You're one of
them."
As for the heroes, again, they fit the context--that is, what Tolkien described. How would you have had Jackson cast the characters, especially given that he wanted to stay true to Tolkien's vision? If a film-maker was recreating an (insert non-European ethnicity) myth, would you take issue if they only cast people of that ethnicity?
As far as I can tell, the "other perspective" is the claim that there is no racial context/heritage to the tropes present in pulp or fantasy.
I've considered that claim. I just don't think it's true. JRRT didn't just wake up one day and imagine a whole race of baddies who are dark-skinned and fight with scimitars, and whose allies are "Easterlings" and "Southrons". He drew upon a repertoire of readily-available tropes and ideas.
Yeah, you're not really hearing what I'm saying. There are many perspectives. Unfortunately, most, I've found, fall into a duality: the one you advocate and is popular here ("A"), and the "other perspective" that you mention that others hold ("B"). I'm speaking from a different view from either ("C"), although see partial truths in both A and B. I'm trying (and evidently failing) to push the conversation to a more dialectical and multi-perspectival approach, one that considers A, B, C, and others. What I see, time and time again, is people not really willing to entertain anything outside of their own preferred interpretive framework; and those advocating the "other perspective" are generally not better (and in some ways, worse). Advocates of "A" see anything different as "B," and vice versa. I suppose the only real recourse for those of "C" and other perspectives is to opt out and wait until the dust settles between A and B, so as not to be continually misconstrued as one or the other.