While technically, the player race is "half orcs", in practice I haven't seen virtually anyone differentiate between the two. It's just "the stats for players who want to be orc" and "the stats for orcs as enemies".
It's quite common for people to play as races like bugbears or mindflayers. It's more a limitation of being able to create player stats for every humanoid monster.
I've never seen a critic of how D&D handles race argue that orcs are meant to represent black people. I think you might be reading into things.
While technically, the player race is "half orcs", in practice I haven't seen virtually anyone differentiate between the two. It's just "the stats for players who want to be orc" and "the stats for orcs as enemies".
It's quite common for people to play as races like bugbears or mindflayers. It's more a limitation of being able to create player stats for every humanoid monster.
I've never seen a critic of how D&D handles race argue that orcs are meant to represent black people. I think you might be reading into things.