The Orcish Enlightenment...

Old-school gaming benefits from a recurring cast of stock enemies; minions of monstrous aspect to pad armies and populate dungeons.  Traditionally, the orc has satisfied this particular need; but lately the poor orc has become, well, problematic.  I know, I know, orcs aren't even human, much less real; and inherently evil creatures of any race are simply impossible in our reality.  I've made myself clear on this point, but acknowledge that we must follow our conscience and that there's absolutely nothing wrong with the "nuanced" orcs preferred by some.  Indeed, such orcs can easily serve as stock enemies...     

Now if our only goal with enlightened orcs is to fight racism, we're misdirecting our efforts away from the actual humans we're trying to help.  But there are still plenty of excellent reasons for giving orcs a nuanced treatment; and the OSR, with its emphasis on personal creativity, agrees.  That said, here's some ways to make it happen:    

(1) Orcs are automatons, imbued by their gods with only one perspective.  Sure, these are still inherently evil; but they also aren't persons so much as an unusual golem having no discernable culture beyond acting on their programming.  There just has to be room for this sort of thing in a fantasy game, and it has absolutely no parallel in our universe.

(2) Orcs (and Drow) aren't inherently evil; but some of their numbers have succumbed to religious fanaticism, taking after evil gods.  This is similar to the Nazi cult of Hitler's Germany in its dark prime.  Hey, if orcs are a complex, nuanced race, there's no doubt some of them would turn to wickedness.  But still others would choose good, serving the orcish lords of light and fighting, perhaps alongside human allies, against the darkness.

In (2) above, evil orcs are just a faction of the whole, albeit large and distinctive enough to stand out.  It's not so much "orcs" as "evil cultists" of (insert wicked orcish god here).    

(3) Ultimately; some orcs are evil, just like some humans.  And if we can fight human bandits and diabolical wizards, we can surely fight orcs.  Perhaps an orcish warlord has arisen, amassing the worst of their kind under a banner of bloodshed.  Of course, these would be reviled by orcs of the honorable sort; and it provides a population of stock baddies to engage with proper, old-school abandon.  Call it a secular variation of (2), above.   

My beloved old-school orcs clearly fall under (1), above.  There's just enough personality to think you're engaging a person; but these aren't analogous to any so-called race, and the circumstances of their creation and continued existence should make that clear.  Everything else is what happens when we decide that orcs are people.  No, they aren't all uniformly wicked; but enough hold evil affiliations (we humans have many of our own) as to constitute a distinctive faction.  Anyway, there's never a bad reason to flex our creative muscles, even when we think we disagree with some conclusion.  Good ideas are everywhere...