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.

Or you know @zscaler you could accept that this is a work of fiction for children and that it wasn't a manifesto for a new world.

Or you know @zscaler you could accept that this is a work of fiction for children and that it wasn't a manifesto for a new world

I have high enough standards for children’s fiction that I don’t want it to contain slavery apologism.

I found wizarding society mocking Hermione for protesting enforced slavery deeply unpleasant, despite the fact Hermione was a white girl.

@toastofthetown yes!!! Exactly!!!

I always thought the house elves was really interesting. It showed how if something is considered normal and the way it should be even ‘good’ people start accepting what is actually pretty awful behaviour and justifying it and the elves have been slaves for so long it’s their normal, living in dire conditions and suffering abuse they developed a warped devotion to their abusers. Despite actually being more powerful than their masters.

And Hermione standing up for them in the face of ridicule and apathy.

Dunno maybe it struck a chord with me being in a horrifically abusive marriage at the time but it resonated with me.

I’m not a TRA, or Jewish, and I agree with @lazylinguist about the house elf storyline.

However, I found and continue to find the goblins at Gringott’s to be entirely racist and a spectacularly lazy bit of anti-Semitism. Everything about them, even the vaguely Mitteleuropaisch name, is dripping with it. I have no idea if JKR is an anti-Semite but she certainly didn’t exercise any good judgement there.

Let's be honest, Hermione was the heart and the head of the books so the reader was supposed to side with her over the house elves and be appalled at everyone else's apathy.

I always assumed Hermione was white? She's described as going pink/red in the face when embarrassed, brown after her holiday and white when scared.

Can I just point out that these traits are NOT exclusive to white people.

Non white people are not one homogenous colour & actually come in a whole range of shades from fair to dark.

I have brown skin & believe it or not, I can blush / go red when I’m embarrassed or get too hot, I go deeper shades of brown after being in the hot sun (as evidenced by the “tan” lines my clothes leave) & yes I can also go “white” - which in this context, is a literary term to describe someone going PALE - when scared / shocked, yes black & brown people can turn pale.

Having said that though, I do think Hermoine was written as a white character.

It's all just nitpicking now from the people who want to silence her on other matters

The books are not racist. If people don't like them then just don't read them.

Exactly. If you're supposed to empathise with anyone it's Hermione.

Characters in novel flawed shocker.

Have you considered writing to Tolkien? I am reliably informed that the Tolkien team at HarperCollins read all the batshit letters they're sent

The Harry Potter series isn't perfect in respect to diversity but it was quite groundbreaking for it's time and did subtly challenge notions of prejudice for a young audience. I imagine it's why it became so popular and spawned a couple of generations of children's and young adult fiction in a similar vein.

I do wonder if anyone will be able to write something as popular and loved as the Harry Potter series again. The internet and social media have changed so much.

In the last few years there's been some big controversies in the YA book market with authors being cancelled and their books withdrawn because of backlash. It's gone beyond having a good range of diversity in fiction and into accusations of appropriation if you write about something that isn't a lived experience.

If JKR published the first HP book in 2020 there's a good chance she'd receive the same treatment and never write the remainder of the series. Is that what we want from fiction?

I've dabbled in amateur writing in the past and I'm one of those (many) people who been meaning to get around to writing that book they've had in their head.

In the last few years I've been hugely put off the notion because I wonder if anything wrote would be not diverse enough or appropriative of something I haven't experienced. Worse than that it just might offend someone on twitter who riles up a big enough mob against you for reasons that have nothing to do with your book.

Efforts would be better spent encouraging people from a wide range of backgrounds to write and offering more publishing opportunities to those who otherwise might go unheard than picking apart something written 20 odd years ago.

I've never liked the books much.
But JKR is wonderful.
The books are as old as my oldest daughter, and in that time, she, and the world, and JKR, have all changed a lot.

JKR is an easy target for people to spout off at on Twitter.

She's a woman, she's white, she's hugely successful.

Cho and Chang are both surnames. Korean ones. She could have done a lot better there let’s face it

What?! Chang/Zhang/Cheung are all Anglicised versions of the same Chinese name, 张. There are 88 million people in China with that surname. It's one of the 'old 100 family' names - the 100 families/tribes are supposedly the ancestors of all Chinese people. It's the Chinese equivalent of 'Jones' or 'Evans', in terms of how common it is.

Is it International Numpty Day on Mumsnet, or something? If you're going to criticise JK Rowling for something ridiculous, at least get your facts straight.

I don’t think it’s racism. Stephen king books are 95 percent white no black main characters. I’ve never worked with anyone black, had a black friend or lived near anyone black. I’m not racist just how my life’s been

Isent it cultural appropriation to assume you can write characters who are poc if you are white?

OvaHere

That was a well written and thought provoking post.

I hope you manage to write that book one day.

Chinese students often take up English names when they study abroad and I think it's reasonable to think that the character might have had a fantastically unusual name like Hermione. Severus or Albus. Patel and Chang is pretty boring (I know that the main character HP is a pretty ordinary name)

On the house elves point, I don’t see the issue. They’re not human - they’re a different species. Most people don’t think it wrong to keep working animals, so why not an elf, if they existed? The idea of elf rights shows Hermione’s sensitive and compassion nature - maybe she’d have been a vegan or a member of PETA if it was written more recently.

Thank you Ickabog. I'll also have to get over my own procrastination issues which is a whole other story!

Many are claiming that they’re inherently pretty racist for numerous reasons- main characters are all white, characters of other ethnicities are usually minor

People have it in for her because shes a successful outspoken woman on Twitter.

Let's be honest, Hermione was the heart and the head of the books so the reader was supposed to side with her over the house elves and be appalled at everyone else's apathy.

This is true and it’s a valid point. But it doesn’t change some really important fundamental issues - Harry inherits ownership of a slave and doesn’t set him free, and this is not remotely seen as an indictment of his character, or a problematic way to behave (even by Hermione - she seems to be fine with Harry owning a slave because most of the time Harry isn’t actively hostile to him). Mrs Weasley, another character who is seen as morally sound, is said to have wished she had a house elf and that’s a completely legitimate view.

Hermione is the only character who’s even close to being on the right side of the slavery argument in HP, and even then she is happy to accept her friends owning slaves where it benefits her as long as the slave owners aren’t too cruel.

Isent it cultural appropriation to assume you can write characters who are poc if you are white?

and how would she had even managed to do this back then without it being problematic now?

We shouldn't confuse the books with the films of the books. JK doesn't mention skin colour in the books for most of the children. This means that people can draw their own conclusions based on their own experience and background, which is rather nice. We also shouldn't assume race from someone's name!

The difference with the films is that they have cast actual people in the roles, so the filmmakers clearly drew their own conclusions about what they looked like and what 'appearance' was most likely to sell the film.

I’m a little younger than JK. When I grew up there were no non white people at my school, college or on my university course.
Now there are 3 non white families living in my parents very rural village. Times have changed.

I don’t think she is racist, just that she can only write from her experience, it possibly didn’t even occur to her to include to include other races.

I always felt that Cho Chang jarred slightly. One, because alliterative names do to me but also because it brought ‘ching Chong chinaman’ to mind which was a very common racist chant.