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.

Discrimination based on who you are, muggle-born, house-elf, centaur, werewolf is a theme that is woven through every page of those novels. The books may not focus on skin-color, but the message is clearly anti-racist. Fairy tales and science fiction often use mythical characters or tech based situations as allegory for addressing social issues. That is part of the beauty of genre fiction, it can get away with much stronger social commentary.

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

No! Just no

I have read these books several times and never once thought thats racist. My Grandma gave me a Billy Buntin book she was given as a girl for my ds which described black characters using words you wouldn't dream of today but rightly or wrongly those words at the time it was written were not considered racist/wrong. You cant always judge things from the past by the standards we live by today. I'm sure words/phrases we use today will not be considred ok.

The real question - considering the sheer number we have in Britain, is where the fuck are all the wizarding Muslims?

There aren’t any, practicing Muslims would not attend Hogwarts.

Islam, along most of the world’s major religions, is against the use & practice of witchcraft / sorcery / magic / the occult - it is strictly forbidden.

I imagine most at Hogwarts are atheists.

Speaking as an Irish person I'm pretty sure Rowling's Seamus isn't portrayed as an idiot who blows things up. He messes one thing up in first year. Ron messes far more up, and probably Harry does too. Not actually counted.

As for being upset about no magic school in ireland - would be pretty flipping small wouldn't it? Considering there's one school for Scotland, Wales and England. Or maybe all witches and wizards should go to one of the two other schools in Europen?

Wait!! Is there a welsh character?!!!

The proportion of BAME people in the HP films is pretty much identical to the proportion in my DCs school.

When I was at primary school in the 70's, there were none at all.

It seems that some people have it in for JKR on Twitter at the moment, and they are using this as another stick to beat her with.

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

That's an element of his character from the films, and not the original books (IIRC).

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 house elves aren’t animals in the books. They’re intelligent, sentient beings who speak and feel and experience emotions as humans do. It’s not clear if their intelligence is (to use a term from the books) ‘human level’, but again - justifying enslavement on the basis of assumed distinctions in intelligence is hardly an unproblematic trope.

The point about the goblins/house elves - there are characters who fight for their representation and rights, such as Hermione. Rowling wrote that too.

As for a black actress being cast as Hermione in the play - I thought absolutely nothing of it at the time. In theatre, actors of different ethnicities and races are cast all the time for the same role - Lea Salonga, Shanice and Samantha Barks have all played Eponine in Les Mis, for example. It doesn't change the fact the Eponine was most likely white in Victor Hugo's original novel - they simply go with the best actresses.

But then Rowling said she had never specified if Hermione was white or not, so I don't know what her intentions were with that.

@zscaler I read it as Hermione as an outsider was able to see that the house elf slavery wasn’t right and it was the gateway to seeing how all the pure blood and prejudice was institutional and deep in Wizard of society. Hermione was the cleverest one and brave, she stood against it even though they laughed at her and I felt it was written as if she was in the right. Remember that bit about the statue in the wizard of ministry and all the magic races staring adoringly at the wizard? And how sickened the were by it?

Actually, a surprising number of authors have been “cancelled” recently for writing characters that do not match the author’s life experience.

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

Not to mention the outrageous lupine appropriation of writing a werewolf character, if you are not personally hairy of palm.

where ... are all the wizarding Muslims?

Sorcery is haram, so presumably any Muslim child getting the calling would be turning down their place at Hogwarts. So jkr was right to have no Muslim characters.

Hermione was the cleverest one and brave, she stood against it even though they laughed at her and I felt it was written as if she was in the right.

This is true, and it’s a good aspect of Hermione’s character. But she still doesn’t stand up to her best friend owning a slave. She still accepts his ownership because he’s an indifferent owner instead of a cruel one. She objects to the way some house elves are treated but not to the whole institution of slavery.

@zscaler

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.

Don't you think that's because her attempt to free the Hogwarts elves has been a complete disaster and as one of the brightest characters in the books, she's noticed that Winky has become an alcoholic?

@Amymone

Really curious to know what success would look like in the minds of those accusing JK's writings of racism. How many of the main characters should she have made BAME? One, two, all of them? Just one and she'd be accused of tokenism. Writing mainly BAME characters I'm sure she'd be attacked for writing characters of an ethnicity of which she had no lived experience. And how is she supposed to represent other cultures without using culturally identifiable names? Seems like a totally un-winnable game to me in which she is set up to be criticised whatever she does. I don't know how anyone dare create anything these days to be honest. Requires skin like a rhino.

Exactly. Success in the minds of the people currently criticising JK for her portrayal of race in her books would be JK saying transwomen are women. Because it’s got zero to do with her portrayal of race and everything to do with finding any stick they can to beat her for being pro-women.

I have no particular partiality for JKR (after all, she's never had a good word to say about me) but surely all this talk about elves and house goblins is absurd.
Is this thread a spoof?

Not true, she sets up SPEW to end elvish slavery. She berates Harry about how weird it is, and as they are both outsiders in that world they’re not the most confident. They tricky Lucius into freeing a badly abused Dobby after all. And Harry is deeply uncomfortable with owning Kreacher but reacts like a teenage boy who has suffered abuse and neglect about it.

Because it’s got zero to do with her portrayal of race and everything to do with finding any stick they can to beat her for being pro-women.

From my perspective, it looks like the complete opposite. These criticisms about racism and anti-semitism have been around for years, and people are now bending themselves into mental pretzels to justify it because they are supportive of her stance on transgenderism.

Fucking hell, the desperation from these TRA vultures picking and scraping at whatever they can to try and defame her. It's beyond pathetic.

@Clymene if we're going to do Tolkien, how has no-one taken Peter Jackson to task for the horrific portrayal of hobbits, Pippin and Merry in particular, as "comedy" Irish buffoons, with Hollywood shite Emerald Isle music to boot?
Ooh, let's see what the eejits done now...

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

No.

Surely it is up to the author to write the characters and the story as they envision it? If people don't agree with the way something is written don't read it. Every author, screenwriter, etc can't be constantly monitoring their work to ensure it meets everyone else's picture of an ideal world.

also because it brought ‘ching Chong chinaman’ to mind which was a very common racist chant.

Define common? I grew up in a very diverse part of south London & like myself all my childhood friends were children of immigrants, mixture of races & religions. Never heard that slur, I guess because of who I was around?

@Pinkblueberry considering the world & what was deemed acceptable back then was very different to now how could she have managed that in a way that wouldn't be problematic today?