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.

Dumbledore’s gayness was subtly implied via his “friendship” with Grindelwald wasn’t it?

JK Rowling is not racist, and this social media witch hunt against her is one of the craziest things I've ever encountered. These people are unhinged

oh fuck off 🤣

Hermione is definitely white. Just portrayed by a black woman in a play.
Ifthe actor playing Harry was American, doesn't make the character American...

I have no idea why people think Hermione is black. She's described in a fair few occasions as white. Plus an early sketch of JKs show's she is white... No doubt, because Dean Thomas is in the same sketch and is black

@Queenoftheashes

Dumbledore’s gayness was subtly implied via his “friendship” with Grindelwald wasn’t it?

Yes, to be fair, I thought it was very obvious in the long passage about his summer friendship with Grindelwald. It was very moving.

Again, Cho is a female first name in Japan. I think I recall it means butterfly.

When they were created, she was actually pretty diverse tbh by having any non white characters and not making a fuss and point over them e.g. cho chang, dean thomas.

Most of the characters we don't know what colour they are. I agree the first two chris Colombus flms were horribly white. I remember jk making a point that Dean had to be black, but looking back maybe she could've pushed more? Seems a bit unfair to judge her harshly for that when you look at all the other children's books at that time.

Oh for goodness sake, not everything is racist. Some of these accusations are getting stupid and seem to be just calling it for the sake of it.

I can't believe there are people who think harry potter is racist. I can remember discussing harry potter with my friend at school (who is black btw) and we were saying how great it was that JK had prejudice and discrimination written so well that you could feel it whilst reading. You can use these books to teach people about racicism, sexism, and many other ways that people are discriminated against. She did a brilliant job. She wasn't racist and those that are trying to say that she is need to get a grip. You pointing the finger at non racist people and taking the limelight away from the things that really matter such as REAL RACISM that is still going on to this very day!

Scraping the goady barrel, OP.

All the ’ I was just musing, what does everyone think ? ‘ threads on here at the moment .......

I don't understand why Cho Chang is a racist name choice? Isn't representation (including names of various cultural origins) a good thing?

Because it’s a mash up of Chinese and Korean surnames, sounds like the very racist ‘ching Chong’ and could have been avoided with a very basic level of research that clearly wasn’t carried out.

There are other issues too, here are some links:

www.popdust.com/gringotts-warner-bros-2627451691.html

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/news/2016/03/160311-history-of-magic-in-north-america-jk-rowling-native-american-stereotypes

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/meaww.com/amp/jk-rowling-harry-potter-racist-asian-character-named-cho-chang-fan-reactions-transphobi-tweets

There is also the ‘Hermione is black’ issue. It’s great that JKR was supportive of a black actress being cast as Hermione in her stage play, but the bait-and-switch of her saying that she never specified Hermione’s colour is a clear example of her trying to gain credit for being diverse and inclusive when she didn’t actually write diversity and inclusivity into the novels. It’s the same issue with her revisionist comment that Dumbledore was gay. Great to support a diverse view of her characters, but why not write them that way in the first place? Why not actually write books with a diverse suite of characters instead of having them virtually all be straight and white and then retconning in diversity when public opinion makes it palatable?

Wait- The Little Mermaid doesn’t die????

Wow- I have never seen the film, but surely that's the whole point of the story?

My mum is of Chinese descent and I found 'Cho Chang' a little reductive when I read the books. I thought it sounded like what other kids used to call me and my sibling (more my sibling as they look more Chinese) when they were making fun of us for being Asian - they'd be like 'oooh your mum is Chinese, bet she talks like this - ching chong ching chong waaa' so yeah I thought it was an lazy choice, it just feels like a lack of care. Like she could be bothered to give other characters depth and cool names but not the Asian girl. And all the character did was have various boyfriends (as far as I can remember) which felt ick as well. But I guess some people will think I seek to be 'professionally offended'.

JK doesn't have to be a real live racist to do things that were insensitive, but so many people on this site this she is god herself so I expect no one will acknowledge my post!

Thinking of the future - If you're making a film set in a country or environment where you would see predominantly white people do you artificially inject the quota of non-white races or do you stick to reality?

They did something a little like this in the recent Mary Queen of Scots film - I think it’s called colour blind casting. Whether it worked well is up for debate I suppose. I personally found it was clumsily done. Bess of Hardwick was played by Gemma Chan, but the vast majority of actors, background and foreground were still white - it just made you wonder about her background and heritage which quite frankly may well have made for a more exciting story. There are plenty of unsung BAME historical figures that deserve more attention - having an Asian actress play a white historical figure doesn’t address this. And you just know they would never have even considered the further step of casting Elizabeth or Mary, the main characters, as other than white - so it was a pretty half hearted and gimmicky effort when it comes down to it. So no, I don’t think this is the way forward.

Naga is Sanskrit for serpent (Nagini = little snake, I think) so it's a bit like calling a lion cub Simba, or like the entire system of the Jungle Books (animal characters are named for the Hundu species names)

And symbolic naming is common across the books - Minerva is wise, Sybil is a seer, Malfoys have bad faith, Ludo is a sportsman, Sirius is the Dog Star, Fudge is incapable of clear policy, the Lovegoods love good, and Xenophilus loves strangers, Olympe Maxime is of giant heritage, and Newt wrote the textbook on creatures, Shunpike drives alarmingly and Mme Sprout teaches herbolgy, and Prof Vector arithmancy, and of course Voldemort is flight of death.

And as JK said recently that she did some of herbearlymwriting in a bedsit near Clapham Junction, which is within spitting distance of the home estates of the So Solid Crew, I think the point that she was not living in a racially diverse area is a bit misplaced.

But she didn't address racism in the muggle community. She did it between the wizarding community, the mudbloods and the halfbloods. And there can be no doubt which group of wizards were to be admired. It's a good allegory

Because it’s a mash up of Chinese and Korean surnames, sounds like the very racist ‘ching Chong’

No, it isn't. See my post upthread for why.

and could have been avoided with a very basic level of research that clearly wasn’t carried out.

Oh, the irony.

Basically everything she has ever written is being unpicke in a stupid way.

Imagine if she had purposely put in everything everyone is describing. That would also be taken badly as like she was ticking boxes and then she would have been stereotypical in that.

Let me guess - the Patil twins should have different names too? But then what names should they have?

Maybe you've never read the books @zscaler? There is no way that Hermione could have been written as black British, due to story lines around "purity" of families etc. It was the 1990s, not the 1890s.

@cheeseaddict420 fair enough. I genuinely didn't think of the 'ching Chong' reference. It would be interesting to see her reason for that choice! What name would be better do you think?

Yes actually for the person who asked, the black actress does clinch it. Because most other actors and actresses were chosen very clearly for their physical resemblance to the child actors eg hair colour, features, skin colour. It would have been easy to cast a white woman with wavy brown hair as Hermione but they didn’t do that.

Wake up and tackle actual racism FFS. Donate money to anti racism charities for a start rather than making rubbish up online.

The Cho Chang criticisms are just American Cultural imperialism writ large. The complaints that she fits into the standard American fetish for Asian girls ... in a British book etc etc. It has nothing to do with Cho Chang as a British Chinese girl or the experiences British Chinese people face. The person who originally complained about the 'racism' of Cho Chang was a Korean American. This is what a an actual British Chinese person had to say in response:

hollyand-writes.tumblr.com/post/106043675759/sorry-but-rachel-rostad-is-wrong-about-cho-chang

I also saw a man named Eric Wong on the Cho Chang hashtag pointing out it was full of white people chatting shit they knew nothing about - Chang is a Chinese family name and Cho means 'Autumn'.
'Cho' may be a Korean last name but that does not preclude it from being a Chinese given name as obviously they are different languages and different cultures and the muddling of the two of them together is pretty - well - racist.

Speaking as an Irish person, Seamus in the books always annoyed me- an Irish character who blows shit up? Groundbreaking writing, that.

Seamus does not blow things up in the books. The closest he gets to blowing anything up is accidentally setting the feather on fire during the Wingardium Leviosa lesson. Seamus blows things up in the film (and even that is accidental in the first film, never mentioned again throughout the others and then turned into a thing in the final film when they need someone to blow the bridge up. The bridge that does not appear in the books) but what the films do is not really J.K Rowling's fault - she didn't write them.

People conflating the books with the films and criticising the books based on that or imposing their own - massively different - American culture onto a book steeped in British culture is deeply unfair. Fortunately J.K Rowling can't hear the unwarranted, culturally imperialist and downright unfair complaints over the thunderous noise of her own fucking theme park

The one thing that does actually strike me about diversity within a British context though is Padma and Parvarti Patil sound Indian - and probably Hindu. Cho Chang is Chinese. Angelina, Kingsley and Blaize are all explicitly referred to as 'black'. Antony Goldstein is Jewish. The real question - considering the sheer number we have in Britain, is where the fuck are all the wizarding Muslims? But of course no American peering onto British culture and assuming they understand it are going to take the time to protest that.

Not to mention - a black girl was originally cast as lavender brown in the films, only to be recast as a white girl as soon as she has lines and played a more important role. If diversity is important to JKR, why didn’t she stand up against that?

Also aren't there so many social media post going around now about how learning is a continuous process, how we should listen and accept our mistakes without fear of ridicule?

Can't these people criticizing her think yes, maybe cho chang was clumsily named, but JK has learnt and grown since then, and as long as she meant no harm by it, and has since learnt from it, then it's ok.

JK doesn't have to be a real live racist to do things that were insensitive, but so many people on this site this she is god herself so I expect no one will acknowledge my post! grin

Nope, I completely agree.

At the same time, I agree with her in sex/gender and know that the clunky attempts at racial diversity in her books are only being dragged up today because of the trans issue.

So I’m a bit “meh”.