I played D&D for years and have never seen orks as being specifically asian or middle eastern.
And again, even if you limit it to this part of history because you want to, it has nothing to do with colonialism but with a very common worldview which at several times during history was rather justified.
When horse nomads swarm your country and demand that you surrender or die which they mean quite literally or, when the ones that conquered you steal your children to train them into fanatical warriors for their cause, it is quite understandable that in this situation you see the enemy as CE. And it are those events that got translated into fantasy.
And, that would be perfectly fine if orcs were described as horse nomads.
But, they're not. They're not described as vikings either.
They are being described, rather specifically, as a particular racial stereotype.
But, let's unpack that first sentence shall we? You've never seen orcs as being specifically asian or middle eastern. Fair enough. But, we have direct quotes from Lord of the Rings which does paint them as such. Does your particular experience invalidate that reading? D&D orcs are obviously based pretty heavily on LotR. That's indisputable. If LotR orcs are based on some fairly racist elements, then, well, by association, so are D&D orcs.
And, again, it's not like these are bizarre interpretations that require you to stand on your head under a full moon on the third Wednesday of August. Orcs as "the savages it's okay to murder" is pretty well established in D&D. And, that has some pretty uncomfortable parallels to real world strains of thought, as has been demonstrated in this thread.
See, the problem I'm really having with this discussion isn't the fact that we are having issues talking about what to do going forward. No, my problem is that we've now spent 40 some pages just having to justify having the conversation in the first place. Good grief, how much evidence has to be presented here? If you don't see a problem, fair enough. But, instead of repeatedly insisting that we have to justify that the problem exists at all, why not focus on resolution?
Does anyone really have an issue with the notion that fantasy elements in the game which are linked to racist underpinnings from the past, be given a broader treatment going forward and presented in a more nuanced fashion?
Is that seriously a problem for people?