Racism in Harry Potter?

[tipsyandtim]

Moving away from the JK Rowling transgender comments that seem to have caused a lot of drama on Twitter, I’ve also seen a lot of discussion about the HP books themselves. Many are claiming that they’re inherently pretty racist for numerous reasons- main characters are all white, characters of other ethnicities are usually minor and seem like tokens and tend to have quite stereotypical names- ‘Cho Chang’ was trending on Twitter as an example of a racist name choice.

Wondered what everybody’s thoughts were? I don’t agree that the text shows JK as ‘incredibly racist’ which some are claiming but I think in hindsight she wouldn’t have made some of the character choices if she could write it again. I suppose a lot of content was planned and created about 25 years ago now and what seemed like adding diversity and representation is actually seen as badly thought-out now, even though I think she had well-meaning intentions.

attempting to pretend you never meant anything to do with skin colour, the actual topic of the thread, because you've nowhere else to go.
Oh no you don’t. I jumped on your use of the word multicultural because I know what that means. You are trying to wriggle out of it. And she was living in London, you can easily google. FWIW I do not think she is guilty of non-inclusion, she did not specify at all in the early books, except of course the inclusion of homosexual characters and lack of misogyny. But despite the thread’s starting point of race, others have began to include culture, ethnicity, sexuality, etc, so I am not the only one.
I was in my twenties @Clymene Why?

I don't think the books encourage racism at all which is what people seem to be suggesting. If anything, the books teach you to treat everyone like they are human, to be nice to them and not make fun of them. Harry is even nice to his known enemies by the end of it, he rescues draco malfoy who bullied him for years. He shows pity towards voldemort. He stands up for his werewolf friend who has to put up with a lot of persecution from other people. He stands up for hagrid, his half giant friend, again who receives a lot of persecution once people find out. The books show how horrible people can be, not just to those they see as their equals, but also those they deem below them, and teaches you to stand up for them.

Maybe her choice in names is wrong, but I never saw anything bad in it as a child when reading them. Think the only name I found odd was longbottom, but that just made me laugh. Was highly childish.

But how could anyone think that Blaise is a female name, escapes me.

It may be an American thing. There are a few French names - Alexis and Rémi/Rémy come to mind - that are very masculine in French but used almost exclusively for girl babies in the USA. I'd put Blaise in that category, although I don't think it's as popular as the others.

It was probably a few particular people perceived it as a female name, and then it snowballed. I read Blaise as a male name, and then I got introduced to fanfiction by a friend, where it was all She-Blaise. I remember feeling very embarrassed that I'd got it wrong. I was a terrible writer who could barely manage to get through GCSE English Lit coursework so I never actually wrote any fanfic, but if I had, I would have done She-Blaise because "everyone else was doing it".

Blaze was the name of a female character in a computer game called streets of rage. I think its still around, but we had it when I was young. I think probably early 90s. Maybe earlier.

Its the first time I had come across that name. I didnt come across it as a male name (albeit with a different spelling) until I was much older.

I think of Blaise as female
Probably because of modesty blaise

@SiaPR

attempting to pretend you never meant anything to do with skin colour, the actual topic of the thread, because you've nowhere else to go. Oh no you don’t. I jumped on your use of the word multicultural because I know what that means. You are trying to wriggle out of it. And she was living in London, you can easily google. FWIW I do not think she is guilty of non-inclusion, she did not specify at all in the early books, except of course the inclusion of homosexual characters and lack of misogyny. But despite the thread’s starting point of race, others have began to include culture, ethnicity, sexuality, etc, so I am not the only one. I was in my twenties *@Clymene* Why?

You jumped on it about 5 posts in once you'd had some inconvenient stats pointed out to you. After having claimed she lived in London when writing and the books were written in the late 90s, neither of which would've made any sense if used to make the point you're now falsely claiming to have meant all along. You're lying.

If you want a discussion about the use of the term multicultural, I've no great objection to that, but I'm afraid you're not going to be doing it whilst pretending that was what you meant all along. It will be a new point, one that you made after various errors about the time and location of the books.

You are wrong honey @PrincessConsuelaVaginaHammock on all the points you raise. But ultimately I think we both have the same view of JKR’s intention. So I will overlook you saying ‘multicultural’ when you meant ‘non-black’ and denying she lived in London. And the timing of about errr ...5 years makes no actual difference really does it 😂

I find it amusing that after 20 years of bringing joy, fun and helping to boost literacy of children it is suddenly exposed as racist.
I suspect the frothing is more to do with JK standing up for her entirely sound views on women's rights.

Jesus Christ.

Just blow up the libraries on your way past to piss on a statue and have done