Hagrid’s half-Giant identity is a plot arc in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, so too are the House Elves and Hermione’s crusading, if not paternalistic, attempts to free them from oppression. In the Deathly Hallows the penultimate “other” becomes the mudblood, a term we first hear in Chamber of Secrets. The final book, too, revolves around non-wizarding creatures of, as the Ministry of Magic and Dolores Umbridge put it, “near human intelligence,” and Harry is labelled as a very odd, special, and different wizard by Griphook the Goblin because he treats non-humans with courtesy and respect. The books are dedicated to highlighting the fallacy of “the other” but, and file this under uncomfortable truths, all the human characters of colour are relegated to the sidelines.
JK Rowling has called her books “very British” in a number of interviews, and has even stated that they are a “prolonged argument for tolerance.” However, I can’t help but draw parallels (note: I’m drawing parallels, not determining causality) from her treatment of race and “otherness” in the books to the conversations about multiculturalism and race theory that have occurred throughout British history and continue today.
Rowling has been very explicit about the connection between Pure Blood Wizarding ideology and the Nazism that led to the holocaust. But race theory, the belief that attributes and abilities could be determined by the socially constructed notion of race, was equally dominant in the United Kingdom. Weeding out “undesirables” wasn’t particular to Nazi ideology and was common across Europe.
British identity was partially constructed using internal colonization, where Welsh, Scottish and Irish minorities were subsumed into Britishness, an identity which still remains ambivalent and dynamic. Britishness was also constructed in opposition to a number of external European threats and was only reinforced through colonialism, which was justified by applying race theory.
Even after the Second World War, Great Britain restricted entry to Jewish refugees while simultaneously citing its own tolerance. Jewish bodies were and continue to be racialized, but even though Rowling has been explicit with her works’ connection to the Holocaust, racism is constructed as pureblood witches and wizards versus muggles, mudbloods, and magical creatures.
I’m not the first person to note that the fantasy genre has a history of replacing PoCs with monsters and magical creatures. Writing for Fantasy Book Review, author Lane Heymont states:
…[I]t feels like white authors have an easier time, or are more comfortable, writing from the perspective of dragons, ghosts, elves, Minotaurs, and other non-humans than another human being. Seems ironically odd, don’t you think? And the writing suffers for it, as does the cause.
I target fantasy specifically because I know that Rowling has the ability to write from a PoC’s perspective as evidenced in The Casual Vacancy, but her fantasy works imitate most of the genre: There’s a brilliant ability to create non-human cultures and magic systems, but fantasy novels with people of colour as main characters are sadly rare.
If these books are “very British” and the quintessential “others” in British society are racialized minorities, than why has race been rendered invisible? Whether intentionally or not, side-lining characters of colour matches the British multicultural model that defines racial integration as near invisibility.
Racialiazing “otherness” has been part of the British experience, and Rowling, with her progressive roots, seems to be reacting towards this kind of cruelty by dedicating seven books and several years of her life to combatting it, only to create works that replicate the systemic exclusion of minorities. To clear up any confusion, I’m not saying that Rowling had to talk about how it feels like to be black at Hogwarts, but what it feels like to be Dean Thomas at Hogwarts. (Incidentally, I was disappointed that while Thomas’ backstory was potentially up for inclusion in the official cannon, it eventually had to be axed due to editorial limitations. I look forward to reading more about him in Pottermore.)
As a series that practically begs the reader to take it personally and that has birthed devoted communities and fan conventions, issues of representation and inclusion become incredibly important: fans want to know that they’re allowed in, and if you’re aiming for an emotional reader response, then this is a reaction that should be taken seriously. Further, the exclusion of active people of colour in fiction constitutes a form of erasure that undervalues their construction of and contributions to both fictional and real societies.
As it stands, we know that Hogwarts plays host to a variety of people of colour (Cho Chang, the Patel sisters, Dean Thomas, Blaise Zabini, Kinglsey Shacklebolt etc.) but they are, in a sense, rendered invisible. Their races are so invisible, in fact, that they’ve become model minorities; their races do not detract from their Britishness.
The idea of integration as a key to a successful multicultural policy stems back to the Second World War. British politicians knew, especially after Kristallnacht, what Germany’s Jews were facing, but still worked actively to limit the number of entries into the country. In 1965, Roy Hattersley, a Labour politician argued that “without integration, limitation is inexcusable, without limitation, integration is impossible,” the idea being that immigration should be restricted because it might rile the emotions of British citizens, the same rational for restricting entry to Jewish refugees. Minorities became responsible for the resentment directed towards them.
The subtle casuistry of this linkage of a commitment to “harmonious community relations” to necessary restriction on immigration and immigrants has continued to be employed by successive British governments. It has a wonderfully corrupt, but popularly acceptable rhetorical formula which argues that:
- as decent and tolerant people we are naturally opposed to any form of racism or discrimination.
- simultaneously, we are committed to a harmonious society.
- however; immigrants and ethnic minorities have a capacity to generate racial hostility and discrimination from the majority population.
- consequently: in order to guarantee harmonious community relations we must rigorously control immigration.
–Charles Husband, Doing Good by Stealth, Whilst Flirting with Racism: Some Contradictory Dynamics of British Multiculturalism
More recently, government officials stated that the reason the London Bombers carried out the 2005 train attacks was because they were insufficiently integrated into British culture, even though the evidence pointed otherwise, thus starting a firm government push to ensure that Britain’s Muslims were also “well-integrated.”
In 2003, in response to the Labour government’s proposed legislation on asylum seekers, British tabloids exploded with accusations that immigrants were abusing the system and dirtying the country with AIDS, Hepatitis B, and TB. These accusations don’t seem so far off from the hearings held in the Ministry of Magic, where we saw a witch being accused of stealing a wand (stealing from the system) and not being sufficiently magical (British.) While Rowling’s stories may have been inspired by the holocaust, they still play out in Great Britain today. They are indeed “very British” books; Rowling is both prescient and astute when she highlights government and media sanctioned oppression and she’s at her strongest when she writes these scenes.
Only last week The Guardian published a piece by David Goodhart, who accused liberals of favouring a highly-individualistic identity that transcended the boundaries created by the nation state, roughly defining certain liberals as being pro-immigration and therefore anti-community.
This individualistic view of society makes it hard for modern liberals to understand why people object to their communities being changed too rapidly by mass immigration – and what is not understood is easily painted as irrational or racist…If society is just a random collection of individuals, what is there to integrate into? In liberal societies, of course, immigrants do not have to completely abandon their own traditions, but there is such a thing as society, and if newcomers do not make some effort to join in it is harder for existing citizens to see them as part of the “imagined community”. When that happens it weakens the bonds of solidarity and in the long run erodes the “emotional citizenship” required to sustain welfare states.
According to Goodhart, the very presence of immigrants destabilizes allegedly harmonious British communities with resentment (a romanticized fallacy, especially when looking at Britain’s long history of class warfare), their bodies becoming symbols of chaos that disrupt a cohesive national identity. To be a racialized minority is to have people assume that you are unwilling to emotionally integrate into British identity and society. Some conservatives argue that under multiculturalism people will abdicate working together towards a common collective goal known as nation-building; however, the examples above show that Britain’s ideal form of multiculturalism has always been assimilationist.
Rowling is progressive, clearly pro-immigration, and the Harry Potter series illustrate a typical liberal approach to race blindness. Her works still presuppose that integration is synonymous with invisibility, but she also argues for the potential success of Britain’s multicultural model. Their well-integrated and invisible races ensure that Cho Chang, Dean Thomas, and the Patel sisters can be British without disrupting British identity with their racialized bodies. While I appreciated that Cho Chang became a sobbing mess in Order of the Phoenix without her emotional deterioration being tied to her ethnicity, I can’t separate issues of representation from the larger systemic trend found within the fantasy genre. (Cho is the character of colour with the most screen time. One chapter is dedicated to her character in Order of the Phoenix, where she spends most of the time crying, and she receives a few sentences here and there from books 4 to 7. When we meet her, in book 3, she doesn’t say much of anything.) That characters of colour are in the background allow the reader to know that Hogwarts is Very Diverse, but their importance to the plot is minimal. As the very worst possibility, they act as ornaments to Hogwarts’ status as a Very Progressive School.
This integration-as-invisibility approach is distinctly different from the movie adaptations, where the characters of colour wore clothing representative of their ethnic backgrounds to the Yule Ball, whereas the same characters in the books wore dress robes like everyone else. Except…children of immigrants don’t uniformly wear clothing from their parents’ home country. While the Potter books erase ethnic difference, the movies champion essentialism which, to her credit, Rowling can’t be accused of doing.
Rowling spends seven books opining about the importance of diversity, while replicating the systemic sidelining of characters of colour. The characters in the Harry Potters books are proof of multiculturalism’s success, but the structure of the books imitate systematic issues concerning racial representation. There’s tension in this approach: on one hand, it becomes exhausting to have one’s entire identity defined by ethnic background (something we can’t choose) and being able to choose one’s identity through acquired membership (identity markers we can choose, eg. being part of an SF/F fandom) can be a highly liberating experience. On the other hand, if Rowling believes in anti-otherizing, then why isn’t the quintessential British “other” given more screen time, not to discuss race, but to simply be? While a British progressive may envision a rainbow utopia of immigrants and new citizens, we know that their invisibility exists to comfort us while we pat ourselves on the back for being progressive. When it comes to screen time for characters of colour, their stories are still marginalized. The Harry Potter books are in no way the worst offenders in the genre—and I still remain a loyal fan—but there’s a serious cognitive dissonance that needs to be analyzed when a book series extolling the virtues of diversity are not particularly diverse themselves.
There’s also some problematic racial stuff vis-a-vis Jews and Gnomes who– at least in the movies– look like political cartoons of greedy Jewish moneylenders from the 19th Century. They are, of course, the bankers of the Harry Potter world. Sigh. How I wish someone had interrogated that particular design choice before they greenlit it.
I hadn’t thought about the gnomish bankers. That’s…really not ideal.
Sarah, I was wondering if there’s a parallel here with how Harry Potter views magic and the magical world more generally. That is, the ideal for the magical creatures is complete invisibility/integration — being indistinguishable from muggles, basically. And then Voldemort is the anti-integrationist Nazi…but if you squint you could instead see him as someone insisting on minority pride and refusing integration (the Malcolm X of wizardry.) Part of what the series is doing, then, is arguably equating people like Malcolm X with Nazis — or at least suggesting that the only two options are integration and race war.
Maybe i’m totally out of touch with current terminology but this article seems like a bit of a mess to me, with things like
“Britain’s ideal form of multiculturalism has always been assimilationist.”
Isn’t multiculturalism a reaction against the assimilationist model? you get to keep your culture and also be a member of “our society” (our society being the society implementing multiculturalism).
Also, by way of personal opinion, i find it pretty hard to blame anyone for not wanting to take boatloads of German nationals in the run up to WW2 (or ever).
Isaac: I never thought of the Goblins at Gringotts that way–really good point. The Goblins have always fascinated me. Rowling has actually referred to Griphook as a radical (in reference to his belief that Goblin-made artefacts are only loaned to Wizards and must be returned to the Goblins after the Wizard’s death.)
Noah: I think Rowling, as per the Griphook comment above, is uncomfortable with both extremes. This hasn’t stopped the fandom from taking the canon and injecting their own diversity into the story. I don’t think she’d equate Voldemort with Malcolm X–a closer resemblance would be Griphook to Malcolm X. Exhibit one from fandom:
http://maladicta.tumblr.com/post/46238931247/so-this-new-gen-hogwarts-thing-has-been-eating
Jay: There are a variety of multicultural models, some taking a laissez-faire approach, believing that immigrants would just naturally assimilate and become indistinguishable from the majority population (France, the Netherlands.) These countries have no problem claiming that “multiculturalism hasn’t worked” even though “multiculturalism” in these countries has never really amounted to much pre-meditated government policy.
And then you have some countries that use multicultural policy to grant accommodation rights to minorities (Canada.)
The term “multicultural” needs to be unpacked. Sometimes a cigar isn’t actually a cigar.
And maybe you can’t blame someone for refusing to take in refugees, but I certainly can, especially after countries targeting Germany’s poor treatment towards its minorities didn’t bother to stare at their own reflections.
And just to add: there are some countries that label their political policies explicitly as multicultural. Then there are countries that are polyethnic and therefore multicultural by default, even if “multiculturalism” as a policy isn’t a specific government mandate. Multiculturalism isn’t necessarily a policy that’s led by the state and can occur organically.
For example, in Canada, people differentiate between the Canadian multicultural model versus the American multicultural model as the “Mosaic versus the Melting Pot.” The indication here is that Canada’s multicultural model tolerates/encourages/allows its immigrants to retain their own cultures and live in their own collectives, while the American version encourages immigrants to assimilate into the government’s vision of civic nationalism (for better or worse, and whether it’s worked or not.) Both countries, however, are still technically “multicultural”–even if the United States doesn’t use the word in its government programs. Still, the American version of multiculturalism is a lot more assimilationist. So yes, you can have both terms in one sentence.
I’m an assimilationist, though not an extreme one– I grew up bicultural. (But those two cultures are some of the most zealously assimilationist of all: France and the USA.)
Yes, ‘toggling’ between cultures should always be an option. But push multiculturalism too far and you wind up with ghettoes, both geographic and mental.
It’s Blaise Zabini, I think you’ll find, not Zabini Blaine.
Vommarlowe: When I first read your comment I thought, “well, obviously.” And then I went and re-read the article and found that I actually DID write Zabini Blaine. Oops. I have no idea why I did that, but thanks for pointing it out. I’ll see if Noah can make the proper editorial adjustment. Cheers.
Fixed; thanks VM!
What would be the Harry Potter equivalent of banning minarets and head scarves? I never read those books.
Oh, that’s a good one. Definitely something to ponder.
Rowling’s actually on record saying that Hogwarts is a multi-faith school, even though it appears that only Christian holidays and Halloween are celebrated. If we look at France, for example, they’ve banned all religious symbols in public schools and have opted to define secularism as “no religion.” So no hijab. No crosses. No stars of David. Nothing. [SPOILER. SPOILER.] But seeing as Harry basically “does a Jesus” in Deathly Hallows, I doubt Rowling would find this ideology alluring. Part of the “very British” comment quoted in the article is in direct reference to the role Christianity plays in the books. So Hogwarts might be a multi-faith school in theory, but Christianity definitely takes precedence.
Since Muggles and Muggle-borns are constructed as the “others” in the books, the banning would probably deal with them. I think the closest analogy we see takes the form of the Wandless (those who are deprived of their wands because they’re Muggle born.)
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Sarah Shoker says:
As it stands, we know that Hogwarts plays host to a variety of people of colour (Cho Chang, the Patel sisters, Dean Thomas, Blaise Zabini, Kinglsey Shacklebolt etc.) but they are, in a sense, rendered invisible. Their races are so invisible, in fact, that they’ve become model minorities; their races do not detract from their Britishness.
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How are their “races invisible”? If, say, a Hispanic character — of black hair and dark skin — would not be wearing a sombrero and huaraches, munching on tortillas, speaking in broken English, talking regularly of how he misses his mamacita in the pueblo, would you gripe that “his race is invisible”?
Ironically, if the character would behave thus, then activists would be griping about the “stereotyping”…
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This integration-as-invisibility approach is distinctly different from the movie adaptations, where the characters of colour wore clothing representative of their ethnic backgrounds to the Yule Ball, whereas the same characters in the books wore dress robes like everyone else. Except…children of immigrants don’t uniformly wear clothing from their parents’ home country.
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No, they don’t uniformly do that. Aside from stuff like needing to breathe and eat, humans don’t uniformly do anything.
Why did the movie do that “different costumes” bit? You don’t have to read tons of “the making of the movies” books to guess: because it made for a more varied, visually interesting “look.”
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While the Potter books erase ethnic difference, the movies champion essentialism which, to her credit, Rowling can’t be accused of doing.
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So when in one sequence, characters’ dress reflects their ethnic backgrounds — race no longer, as charged, “rendered invisible” — then the filmmakers are likewise damned.
What we have here is a case of “more-liberal-than-thou-ness,” where no one is ever enlightened enough…
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Isaac: I never thought of the Goblins at Gringotts that way [as Jewish stereotypes] –really good point.
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Um? It was pretty obvious.
But, weren’t actual Jews historically forced into looked-down-upon professions like moneylending (the Bible condemns “usury”), which is how come so many ended up there rather than, say, farming? And couldn’t the goblins have ended up thus through similar circumstances?
Recall that Rowling’s wizarding world is no utopia, but a fantasy mirror through which the flaws, injustices and horrors of “real world” human behavior may be addressed; while clad in the tasty candy coating of fantasy.
Which is why, when…
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Lane Heymont states:
…[I]t feels like white authors have an easier time, or are more comfortable, writing from the perspective of dragons, ghosts, elves, Minotaurs, and other non-humans than another human being. Seems ironically odd, don’t you think?…
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…it’s absurdly wrongheaded. Might as well gripe about how Aesop’s Fables show a fox concluding that those unreachable grapes “were probably sour.”
Why, it feels like white [boo! hiss!] authors have an easier time, or are more comfortable, writing from the perspective of foxes, cranes, mice, frogs, and other non-humans than another human being. Seems ironically odd, don’t you think?
Hi Mike,
I’m going to invite you to read the article again.
The opposite of invisibility isn’t stereotyping. Let me repeat: the opposite of invisibility isn’t stereotyping. There’s a serious lack of imagination on display when people can only come up with the two options you’ve mention above.
The opposite of invisibility is giving characters of colour screen time and not marginalizing their stories while simultaneously opining about the importance of diversity. I am drawing parallels (note: not establishing causality) between Rowling’s treatment of race and the British multicultural model.
Like I say explicitly in the article, Rowling doesn’t necessarily have to talk about being black at Hogwarts. But her works STRUCTURALLY replicate the injustices she damns.
Mike said: “What we have here is a case of “more-liberal-than-thou-ness,” where no one is ever enlightened enough…”
Ah yes, how to respond to a comment that damns a person for TRYING to critique something about race? So let me tell you straight up: Call me a liberal if you want and accuse me of having whatever attitude problem you’ve imagined, but when you criticize someone for even daring to open her mouth, then you’re contributing to a culture where talking about race remains taboo. I want you to seriously consider if this snark is merited.
Mike said: “Why, it feels like white [boo! hiss!] authors have an easier time, or are more comfortable, writing from the perspective of foxes, cranes, mice, frogs, and other non-humans than another human being. Seems ironically odd, don’t you think?”
Uh. If there was a fable that talked about diversity and all the main characters were white and the role of the “other” was played by a fox, then yes, it would be ironic. But–and this is why using analogies is fraught with problems–the Harry Potter series aren’t animal fables.
Mike said: “Why did the movie do that “different costumes” bit? You don’t have to read tons of “the making of the movies” books to guess: because it made for a more varied, visually interesting “look.””
Oh, well if it was an editorial decision, then of course it can’t be criticized. But wait–
Mike said: “No, they don’t uniformly do that. Aside from stuff like needing to breathe and eat, humans don’t uniformly do anything.”
Oh, so you agree with me then? And yet, the movies did treat the characters of colour pretty uniformly. And if all that went through their brains was that dressing up the characters in costumes representative of their culture just makes the movies look “interesting” then we get into the territory of using culture as a prop, and that’s still pretty awful. However, I’m optimistic because I don’t think movie producers are that dumb.
Mike said: “Recall that Rowling’s wizarding world is no utopia, but a fantasy mirror through which the flaws, injustices and horrors of “real world” human behavior may be addressed; while clad in the tasty candy coating of fantasy.”
Of course it’s not a utopia. When did I ever say that? I’m critiquing Rowling’s editorial decisions, which replicate the injustices of the real world while simultaneously arguing against them. Rowling is doing something that she condemns in others. That is something worth pointing out.
The entire tone of your comment has come off as resentful. You use words like “boo, hiss” to sarcastically refer to white authors and “griping” to refer to work done by activists.
Isn’t it easier for just about all authors to write about fictional beings like talking foxes or dwarves than another ethnic group with an entire history that is not just stereotypically reflected in behavior but that’s idiosyncratically intertwined with the individual? I don’t know children’s lit very well, but my impression is that there are a lot of demands that its authors include as many representatives from various ethnic groups as possible for some notion of inclusivity. But most authors aren’t up to the task; and since they’re not, what we get is either an erasure of ethnic difference or stereotypes. The author’s inability is understandable, since it takes a good amount of knowledge (preferably living around various ethnic groups and having a diverse group of friends) to really get at the nuanced differences. Even in the essay above and the subsequent discussion, I hear a call for diversity without stereotypes, but no specifics about what, say, the nuances of a Chinese kid would be that Rowling is missing.
Maybe we should just let authors write about the characters they feel most comfortable with and not insist that they target all ethnic demographics. I love Asian films (and so do a lot of kids) which don’t tend to be very diverse. I don’t feel excluded from them, though; I can still identify with the characters. What would Hong Kong films be like if they had to include representatives from other nations and ethnic groups? Probably something like Rowling’s treatment or a Saturday morning cartoon. I’d rather just have more access to Chinese authors, instead of people like Rowling feeling the need to include some token.
As a final thought, it would also seem to be the case that the more ethnic groups live together, the less likely any clear differences, nuanced or otherwise, between the groups will persist. A white man living in Hong Kong his whole life isn’t going to act the same way a British citizen will. Thus, if there’s ever a “perfect future” where authors aren’t fucking up ethnic behavior in some way it’ll be when people no longer live separated according to ethnicity.
“Even in the essay above and the subsequent discussion, I hear a call for diversity without stereotypes, but no specifics about what, say, the nuances of a Chinese kid would be that Rowling is missing.”
I hear what you’re saying, and actually, I’m not advocating for authors to imbue their characters with specific “race-specific” mannerisms. Like I say in the article, Rowling doesn’t need to talk about race specifically, but just let her PoC have active roles in the story. This is especially important in a story that talks about the importance of diversity. I’m basically saying “practice what you preach.”
“As a final thought, it would also seem to be the case that the more ethnic groups live together, the less likely any clear differences, nuanced or otherwise, between the groups will persist. A white man living in Hong Kong his whole life isn’t going to act the same way a British citizen will.”
I totally agree with you here, and that’s why I don’t believe in essentializing race. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean PoC should be shunted to the sidelines and forgotten, because even in societies where mannerisms become homogenized, systems of power exist that prioritize certain groups over others.
I would never tell an author to target all ethnic demographics and I definitely support the inclusion of more authors of colour. I enjoy plenty of stories with an all-white cast. However, I do think that if you’re writing a story about how diversity is important, then the least you can do is ensure that you have a diverse cast.
There’s something to that perhaps…but then, as Sarah says, Rowling is deliberately and even insistently attempting to address themes of racial difference in her book. It’s not like Sarah came along and said, “your villain has to rattle on about eugenics and you must have themes of racial slavery and morals about tolerance.” Rowling decided to do that herself. And once Rowling has gone there, it seems like pointing out that the racial politics are in a number of ways fairly stupid is fair game.
“And the last [comment] shall be first…”
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Sarah Shoker says:
The entire tone of your comment has come off as resentful…
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Indeed, I become massively irritated when utterly fair-minded, their heart (and money! http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/blogs/jk-rowlings-charity-giving-knocks-her-off-forbes-billionaires-list ) in the right place, liberals like J. K. Rowling and Alan Moore are attacked by twisting and distorting their work.
(“Alan Moore frequently has women characters being raped or almost-raped by villains, therefore his work is misogynist!” is what one major strain of accusation boils down to.)
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You use words like “boo, hiss” to sarcastically refer to white authors…
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If you’d follow my posting here, you’d be aware that — as I’ve done before — the “boo, hiss” was actually a mocking imitation of those more-liberal-than-thou types (as one article writer at HU did) consider being white, male, and heterosexual as automatically indicating prejudiced, reactionary perfidy.
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…and “griping” to refer to work done by activists.
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When instead of focusing effort on campaigning against serious, vile injustices, “activists” instead niggle away at relative trivialities, not only is valuable energy wasted, but the greater Cause is trivialized in the eyes of the public, then “griping” is an appropriate characterization.
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The opposite of invisibility isn’t stereotyping. Let me repeat: the opposite of invisibility isn’t stereotyping.
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So, if some characters are described as of Black, Chinese, East Indian ancestry in the books, shown as that in the movies, because they’re “not on the spotlight” the way the main characters are, therefore they’re “invisible.” Okaaayyy…
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…how to respond to a comment that damns a person for TRYING to critique something about race? …when you criticize someone for even daring to open her mouth, then you’re contributing to a culture where talking about race remains taboo. I want you to seriously consider if this snark is merited.
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It is, because it’s not “talking about race” that I have any problems with at all, or “daring to open [your] mouth,” but doing so from absurd premises, coming up with conclusions to match. Sorry, but I don’t believe in awarding an “A for Effort” for just “TRYING”to address a subject.
…And America is supposed to be “a culture where talking about race remains taboo”? (I guess “taboo” sounds more fearsomely dire than “not widely addressed.”) To the waiter: “Reality check, please!”
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…I’m not advocating for authors to imbue their characters with specific “race-specific” mannerisms. Like I say in the article, Rowling doesn’t need to talk about race specifically, but just let her PoC have active roles in the story.
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So we should have “affirmative action” quotas for fictional characters? “Your novel set among the Triads in Hong Kong is good, but you need to have some major Triad members be Black, White, Hispanic…”
But, alas, “you just can’t win!” As the superb fantasy author Caitlín R. Kiernan wrote in her blog ( http://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/ ) in July 20 of last year:
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I will also point out that the individual who considers [my novel] Silk racist also made statements like “goddamn 99% of white people should break their keyboards and their hands period unless they promise only to write about whites.”
No, truly. I’m not making this up. “jesus white people really can’t write China for shit. or Thailand either.” And “white people writing fantasy China give me the creeps.” Okay, so. If I am of whichever many, many Caucasian lineages (many of which readily qualify as people of color), I should never, ever write Thai or Chinese characters, unless I want my hands and keyboard broken. Because, by this person’s estimation, in so doing, I shall inevitably commit “racefail.”…Should Caucasian Americans never write about any other people in any other country? Or an American member of a race other than one’s own?* Is that forbidden?
Flashback to an old episode of M*A*S*H, and something Hawkeye says about the McCarthy trials (“Are You Now, Margaret”): “Testify before the committee? You’ve read about the committee. They make it very simple for you. You can either hang yourself or your friends. Or both. Whatever you do, just showing up can cost you your career.” To me, these lines are eerily prescient of our current situation with the self-appointed guardians who decry cultural appropriation, “racefail,” sexism, homophobia, etc. over…well, for example…one word in a rather long novel. People who would have one race never speak of another. And so forth. Don’t agree? You can stay quiet and be branded. Or you can speak out and be branded.
…[These are] people who have failed, to understand art, to understand the process of art, and even to understand the nature of the struggle for equality in this and all nations, for “whites” and all other races.
* In a marvelous Catch 22, I was once accused of “whitewashing” because there were no people of color in The Red Tree.
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So it looks to me like Rowling managed to walk a fine line in her Potter books; both include, er, PoCs*in her books (diversity!!), and then making them generic youths, about as interesting as Franklin in “Peanuts,” thus for the most part not arousing the ire of those who’d attack her for the characters not being perfectly accurate embodiments of their racial identity. ([Sarcasm Alert] “Because your race is what you are…”)
*The very people who condemn society for treating whiteness as the “default setting” of racial composition in America and its fiction think that “white” doesn’t qualify as a color. Isn’t that treating those “afflicted” with Caucasian-ness as “invisible”?
Mike, if you want to rant away about things that I’ve haven’t said or addressed, then that’s your business.
I will however lol at the idea that I’m “twisting” Rowling’s work. I’m a huge fan, and have been for 13 years, and I’ve spent thousands of dollars attending HP conventions in other countries (like the United States, where I’m definitely not from even though you seem to use the U.S as the original point of reference.) I would suggest you attend one of these conventions, because if you think THIS article is “twisting her work,” then you’re in for a surprise. For some fans, love isn’t blindness.
I was just reading Brian Atterbery’s Gender in Science Fiction, and he was talking about the nervousness SF fans have historically expressed about readings that don’t focus straightforwardly on plot — literary readings, basically. There’s a lot of that nervousness in comics as well, I think.
Yes, absolutely. What kind of discourse is allowed in fandom and who gets to act as a gatekeeper? More women and PoC self-identify as nerds and disrupt traditional discourses. Information is cultural currency for nerds, and these groups challenge and try to reinterpret what counts as cultural currency. I think, though I couldn’t really prove it on the spot, that this challenge is partially why there’s so much policing around who gets to identify as a “nerd.”
Sounds like an interesting book. I’ll have to check it out.
It’s pretty good. The best part is that he recommends all these feminist sci-fi books I hadn’t heard of. His own analysis is often interesting as well though….
No one seems particularly nervous about the discussion here. Rather, it probably comes down to opinions on Good Times vs. The Cosby Show.
I just read Ender’s Game and it’s interesting that the reactionary Card seems to do a better job at including POC (in 1985 or so?), with some actual differences (granted, it’s not real deep or anything, mostly just some religious expressions), than the liberal Rowling.
And then there’s the whole Rue controversy from The Hunger Games. She was clearly marked as black through social correlations (playing music on the porch, from Georgia, etc.), but that proved too subtle for many of Collins’ readers.
Rue is, if memory recalls, explicitly described as having dark skin in THG, isn’t she?
The best of these controversies is actually Ursula LeGuin railing against the tv adaptation of her own book for whitewashing it: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2004/12/a_whitewashed_earthsea.html
Ender’s Game is better than Harry Potter by quite a bit, is my recollection.
I’m pretty sure Rue is in fact described as black (though can’t remember for sure.)
And yeah, Ged is definitely not white in Earthsea. Le Guin very often uses non white characters…the terran in Left Hand of Darkness is black, for example (which is an interesting and I’d be intentional glance at the meme of black mascuinity as a kind of ur-masculinity.)
And I don’t think Good Times vs. the Cosby Show is a good description of arguments over interpretive matters. The question is more whether the Cosby Show must be read solely as sit com humor or whether you’re allowed to talk about its take on race relations.
Rue’s described as having satiny brown skin, but I don’t remember which site that I just got that from. I’m pretty sure she was never directly referred to as “black,” though.
No one here has suggested that you can’t talk about race in pop culture. The argument is over the correct way of doing it.
Many oppose The Cosby Show because it wasn’t authentically black enough, whereas others contrast Good Times as being more authentic, even though it was created by a white man. And then there are others who consider the latter full of stereotypes (JJ was controversial back when he first appeared) while the former was a breath of fresh air. It seems to cover a good deal of ground when it comes to this kind of discussion, actually (provided you don’t reduce it to “it’s okay/not okay to talk about race”).
But it’s not me reducing it to that. People who criticize literary readings are often pissed at the mere mention of race as a category that might be useful for talking about literature.
Sarah’s not saying that HP is insufficiently authentic. She’s saying that book claims to be working for diversity, but that it doesn’t do a very good job of it. She’s judging it on the basis of the author’s stated goals, not against some absolute (or even relative) idea of authenticity.
I haven’t actually seen Good Times. The Cosby Show seems a good bit more thoughtful about racial issues than Harry Potter is, though.
Basically, anything even moderately good — from Orson Scott Card to Bill Cosby — is going to be more thoughtful and accomplished than Harry Potter, at least from my perspective. Harry Potter just isn’t very good.
Thanks, Noah. :)
I really try to avoid questions of “authenticity,” because these questions can very easily delve into policing identity and reducing differences within a group to a check-list of acceptable behaviours. This policing is propagated by both members inside and outside of the group. Goodness knows that I wanted to bang my head whenever someone said Obama (or any prominent black official) wasn’t “black enough.” So you’ll note that in my article I advocate for increased representation (which Rowling talks about, but doesn’t really DO) instead of an essentialist reading of race. Great shows that follow this example? Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, which have a very diverse and dedicated fandom.
“Sarah’s not saying that HP is insufficiently authentic. She’s saying that book claims to be working for diversity, but that it doesn’t do a very good job of it.”
On other hand, as Sarah seems to imply in some of her statements above, would it be correct to say that Rowling does in fact do a good job at reflecting the current British attitudes towards race and multi-cultural assimilation? I’m not going to read the books but the films seems like a fairly idealistic view of what they should be and sometimes are like.
My personal observation (re: the UK) from over 10 years ago is that you have to assimilate or be treated as an other/outsider. There’s little leeway for lifestyles which detract from the sanctioned norms. The Hogwarts of the films seems like an accurate reflection of this.
“would it be correct to say that Rowling does in fact do a good job at reflecting the current British attitudes towards race and multi-cultural assimilation?”
Maybe? I think she’s especially saying that the hypocrisy is spot on….
Seems to me that no one is calling for merely a diverse representation of any sort whatsoever, but a diversity that’s true in some manner to POC. If you don’t claim that, then you’ve got nothing to justify calling the diversity in HP phony or hypocritical. I guess you don’t have to use words like ‘authentic’ and ‘essence’ … just like the eskimos have a lot of words for ‘snow’.
Noah: “But it’s not me reducing it to that. People who criticize literary readings are often pissed at the mere mention of race as a category that might be useful for talking about literature.”
Ok, so some people somewhere get pissed about the mention of race. Why did you bring this up?
Well of course, you can’t call a racist stereotype a boon for diversity. So naturally, not *any* kind of representation will do. Some sense needs to be used when creating characters of colour. What I’m warning about is the fallacy commonly referred to as “No True Scotsman.”
I’m not calling the representations in HP “phony” because, frankly, the PoC don’t have enough time devoted to their stories for me to know whether they’re stereotypes or not. I’m calling her representations *inadequate* (big difference) because all the PoC are sidelined and not given any screen time in a series that talks about the importance of diversity. We don’t even get the chance to KNOW who they are,so any claims to authenticity would be made with insufficient information. We can’t even get into debates about whether Dean Thomas was “authentically represented” because we don’t know anything about his personality–and that’s how marginalization works.
And Charles, I think Noah brought up the issue of race and discomfort due to a rather passionate protester who commented earlier…
Ng Suat: Yes, Rowling does replicate the British multicultural model in her novels, but she does so unintentionally–I’m not saying she actually used the model as a guide to her work, and that’s why I establish early on in the article that I’m only establishing parallels. Rowling considers herself a progressive woman (if you follow her interviews etc.) and she usually IS progressive. But, as I state in my last sentence: there’s a serious cognitive dissonance that needs to be analyzed when a book series extolling the virtues of diversity are not particularly diverse themselves.
So, in these interviews, Rowling tends to say that Britain’s multicultural model is corrupt or needs fixing? Would she, for example, support the idea of replacing one of the “meaningless” British bank holidays with a Ramadan holiday for example? The population of Britain is only about 5% Muslim at present but I assume things will change in the coming decades. I just assumed that Rowling liked the status quo as demonstrated by Hogwarts.
Rowling is pretty pro-Labour (And once donated a million pounds to the party when Gordon Brown was leader.) She talks more about class inequalities in these interviews, as she was a former single mother living on social assistance. I have never seen her talk explicitly about multiculturalism in interviews, but her new novel, The Casual Vacancy, does briefly talk about the struggles an ethnic Indian family faces in a small English town, and there are two main characters of colour in the novel. I can only speculate on why there’s such a difference between The Casual Vacancy and the HP series, but I suspect it has something to do with how the fantasy genre is conceptualized, especially in Britain.
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Ng Suat Tong says:
…would it be correct to say that Rowling does in fact do a good job at reflecting the current British attitudes towards race and multi-cultural assimilation?…the films seems like a fairly idealistic view of what they should be and sometimes are like.
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Speaking of “idealism,” it’s been elsewhere noted how Rowling took the usually prejudiced, hidebound, “classist” realm of British public schools (what in the U.S. are called “private”) and made it one where diversity and tolerance are the general rule, rather than the rare exception.
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Harry Potter, too, has the British class system at its heart. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry depends for all its imagery, its charm, its wickedness, on the values of British public schools: with children in different houses, a selective entrance system, glowering Gothic architecture, and huge chunks of Latin. How many other schools have a motto involving that scariest of terms, the gerundive: Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus, or “A sleeping dragon must never be tickled”?
All this bears little or no relation to the experience of most children in this country, and yet it has proved addictive to readers across the planet. George Orwell examined a similar curiosity about the workings of the class system in 1940, in an article on the so-called “boys’ weeklies”, old magazines about British public schools that sold spectacularly well, not just to schools, but to boys – and grown-up men – across the social spectrum. In analysing their appeal, Orwell pointed to several characteristics shared with Potter, including a great variety of stock characters to draw from: the clever swot, the oddball and, crucially, a toff. There was almost always a titled boy in the class, alongside pupils with famous aristocratic surnames, such as Manners, Lowther or Talbot. A “Harry” or “Hermione” wouldn’t have looked out of place, either.
———————-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9561968/Still-a-land-of-nobs-and-snobs.html
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Sarah Shoker says:
Mike…I will however lol at the idea that I’m “twisting” Rowling’s work. I’m a huge fan, and have been for 13 years, and I’ve spent thousands of dollars attending HP conventions…I would suggest you attend one of these conventions, because if you think THIS article is “twisting her work,” then you’re in for a surprise. For some fans, love isn’t blindness.
———————–
Oh, so does being a “huge fan” therefore = being able to see the object in question in a particularly perceptive, accurate and astute fashion?
I guess this chap — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZaobadbp8s — must better understand Elvis and his oeuvre than those snotty music critics or biographers, then.
And I’m aware of such nonsense as “Kirk and Spock were lovers” (or even, “the Hobbits in LOTR were lovers”) slash-fiction; I’m not so easily surprised.
And (SARCASM ALERT), ooh, “for some fans, love isn’t blindness”?? Mind-bender! DOES NOT COMPUTE!! My narrow perspectives are thus shattered…
———————–
…there’s a serious cognitive dissonance that needs to be analyzed when a book series extolling the virtues of diversity are not particularly diverse themselves.
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They are “diverse”; only by your particular definition, “not being a major character in the story” translates to being “invisible,” not actually being there at all.
And centaurs, giants, goblins, werewolves, elves, even boggarts and dementors, join the more mundane Blacks, Orientals and East Indians in the “Potterverse”; that’s not “particularly diverse” enough, though.
Apparently, if you’re not Homo Sapiens, your existence doesn’t count. How “speciescist” can you get?
Mike: I am not convinced that anything I can say will help you, so I’m just going to let the conversation between us end here.
I found a very interesting slam poetry entry called “To JK Rowling, From Cho Chang” that’s on this very same topic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFPWwx96Kew&feature=youtu.be
The fact that Mike is using the terms “East Indian” and “Oriental” is indicative he’s racist, anyways.
Are indicative of his racism**
No, they aren’t at all.
The thing is, as the irascible Mr Hunter mentioned, these books are about children who go to public school.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_%28United_Kingdom%29#Associations_with_the_ruling_class
The public schools are a very specific area within British society. There is probably nowhere else more assimilationist than a public school. Children are sent to public school for the very reason that they will learn and practice assimilation, vastly more effectively than people who aren’t sent there, into power.
There is absolutely no way that a public school ceremony would be attended by people wearing anything without of a narrowly proscribed dress-code, certainly not foreign national dress – unless they were especially invited there to be othered whilst the rich resources their patrial lands offer up were rapaciously drooled over by the 1-percenters who send their kids to public school before employing them in multinational corporations.
Now, I’m not saying there shouldn’t be more prominent characters from ethnic minorities in populist fantasy, or that there aren’t any extroverted Black- or Asian-British students in public school at all, just that you have to look at the notional setting of these books/films: not Britain in general, but the peculiar place where toffs learn how to be toffs, where they acquire arcane magics that set them apart from the herd. It’s not some inner-city comprehensive, if it was then the visible ethnic balance would be disturbingly off.
Oh, speaking of disturbing, I think ‘cognitive dissonance’ is when your brain trips out because it’s trying to cling onto incompatible (but firmly held) beliefs – it’s not just when you notice a mismatch or contradiction in someone else’s words. I.E. it’s ‘cognitive’ dissonance, not ‘conceptual’ dissonance.
Largely, however, the world seems to be moving towards using that phrase to mean ‘evident contradiction,’ ‘hypocrisy’ etc, so whatevs anyway. Nothin I can do.
That’s a pretty interesting point about public schools. It sort of underlines Sarah’s point, though, rather than contradicting it, maybe? That is…Hogwarts doesn’t *have to* be set up along public school lines, right? That’s a choice to put the books in this extremely assimilationist setting, and it undercuts in some ways the Rowling’s avowed commitment to diversity.
Yeah, I think she set them in a public school because she’s not a very good writer of fantasy. Her imagination is conservative. Like Joss Whedon, she can’t seem to conceive of fantasy that isn’t crudely allegorical, or allegory that isn’t rooted in the cozily familiar. Soap operas with substitution. Whedon, though, is far more insidiously compliant.
Anyway, I didn’t intend to contradict Sarah Shoker’s central complaint, just to point out the very peculiar setting of the stories, and the bearing which that has on issues related to cultural diversity.
The public school setting gives it crossover appeal.
You could write a series of Wizard’s Apprentice books, like David Eddings’, Raymond Feist’s etc, but they wouldn’t have anything like the same popular buzz. The whole Nordic myth thing has to be thoroughly reframed for a modern mass audience if they’re going to actually read it and ‘relate’ to the struggles of those plucky characters therein.
British people like to fantasize about privilege, and the international market wants British stuff to be old fashioned. Throw in some magic spells and what-not and all of a sudden it’s not just a load of posh kids worrying about growing up, it’s an epic, spectacular thrill-ride.
I’ll just point out that “boarding school stories” could be an entire sub-genre in themselves (which I loved to read, and still continue to do so) and that the Harry Potter series falls into this same tradition which, yes, feeds the Anglophilia so prevalent in North America.
“The public schools are a very specific area within British society. There is probably nowhere else more assimilationist than a public school. Children are sent to public school for the very reason that they will learn and practice assimilation, vastly more effectively than people who aren’t sent there, into power.”
I don’t necessarily disagree (though there are always students willing to wear their religious garments, regardless of bullying etc.) but the fact is that we don’t even get to see characters of colour assimilate or know if they even need/want to. There’s this kind of “Good Little Minority” trope that’s going one here, in which PoC duck out of the way and are irrelevant to the plot. What you’re pointing out is that British schools homogenize their students, which is fair enough. But not only does Rowling homogenize her students, she trumpets the greatness of diversity, while ensuring that PoCs get next-to-no screen time. Whether public schools are highly assimilationist or not, that has no bearing on representation. Could this failure be the result of Rowling’s own experiences growing up in a majority-white small town? Possibly.
But what further complicates matters for Rowling, is that these books, despite their public school setting (I’m pretty sure Hogwarts is a private school, but I suppose that doesn’t matter for this discussion) are geared to discussing “the other.” She certainly doesn’t let the school atmosphere intercede when she discusses mudbloods and house elves etc.
“…unless they were especially invited there to be othered whilst the rich resources their patrial lands offer up were rapaciously drooled over by the 1-percenters who send their kids to public school before employing them in multinational corporations.”
Nicely done.
“I’ll just point out that “boarding school stories” could be an entire sub-genre in themselves (which I loved to read, and still continue to do so) and that the Harry Potter series falls into this same tradition which, yes, feeds the Anglophilia so prevalent in North America.”
George Orwell’s essay on ‘Penny Dreadfuls’ and their conservative tales of boarding school life is well worth a read. I wonder if it’s partly a response to GK Chesterton’s more favourable appraisal.
Chesterton:
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/penny-dreadfuls.html
Orwell:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part9
As for Anglophilia in the US, you should see the way British people gaze adoringly at, and aspire to, the culture of the USA. Obviously both sides have their reservations, but most of the time it seems like Britain is willfully ignorant of its European connections in favour of this fantasy that the UK is actually part of the USA.
“What you’re pointing out is that British schools homogenize their students, which is fair enough.”
No. I’m pointing out something about independent schools, not the state-funded ones that most people go to. (There is no relevant difference between ‘public’ and ‘private’ independent schools: they’re both payed for privately and they’re both instruments of class engineering, public schools just have a slightly higher historical status and are governed a little differently.)
I’m not saying the schools force cultural conformity/compliance onto the students as some unwanted side-effect, I’m saying that that is the service they provide to those who wish to occupy a high social status. They teach the magic of being (and remaining) upper class, not of being generally British.
I suppose what I’m wondering is: are you conflating two (or more) kinds of difference into one which is solely about ethnicity? Are muggles really foreigners/immigrants, or are they British people who are undereducated and can never wield (or even comprehend) the kind of powers that amount to ‘might’?
Was that thieving witch condemned for her lack of Britishness, or for behaving in a way not especially ‘classy’?
What do wands represent?
When Rowling mentions her supposed argument for tolerance (I haven’t read the full interview that quote is pulled from) is she specifically claiming to engage with ethnic diversity, or does she have various kinds of diversity in mind? Maybe just some nebulous, general kind of egalitarian liberality?
I mean, having a mere handful of barely adumbrated characters from diverse ethnic backgrounds in a story that goes on for thousands of pages is clearly not making any attempt to do anything for multiculturalism. If it was written 60-odd years ago, maybe she could lay claim to some kind of progressive gesture on that front, but it was written in a time when to make it any more white could only be taken as an act of either satire or parochial ignorance.
“I suppose what I’m wondering is: are you conflating two (or more) kinds of difference into one which is solely about ethnicity? Are muggles really foreigners/immigrants, or are they British people who are undereducated and can never wield (or even comprehend) the kind of powers that amount to ‘might’?”
JK Rowling is explicit (interviews etc. If you ever have a chance, I’d recommend watching JK Rowling: A Year in the Life. Absolutely fascinating) about the connection between the treatment of Muggle-borns at the hands of Voldemort and the treatment of Jewish people at the hands of Nazi Germany. So there is absolutely a link to ethnicity. She DOES talk a little bit about class, and if you know Rowling’s politics and background, it’s not hard to see why. Draco Malfoy mocks Ron Weasley for being poor, but the Weasley family are also “blood tratiors” because they shun the idea that being pure-blood is a virtue (they’re pure-blooded themselves.)In the 7th book, The Weasley family’s blood status actually gives them immunity against being hunted down and turned “wandless.”
I would say her views on class are a lot more apparent in “The Casual Vacancy.”
Having read the Casual Vacancy, I doubt that Rowling would vouch for egalitarian liberalism, and she clearly favours a strong welfare state. That’s not apparent in the HP books, but Rowling is on the left of the political spectrum and she doesn’t hide that.
An egalitarian liberal would definitely vouch for a strong welfare state.
I’m actually really surprised to hear of Rowling intending the Potter books to operate on some political/polemical level, I always had her down as a straightforward, populist, commercial writer out to shift units. I’ll have to watch that documentary and find out more.
I don’t think there’s going to be a genocidal holocaust in Britain just because some people don’t want fresh immigrants to get unemployment benefit, though. There might be a move towards a US attitude to welfare, combined with escalated propaganda against any and all non-taxpayers (especially the disabled), but I can’t see the public purse stretching to pay for concentration camps.
“An egalitarian liberal would definitely vouch for a strong welfare state.”
I think we’re using different definitions of “liberal.” I’m going with traditional polisci definitions which equates egalitarian liberalism with a strong belief in negative liberty etc. But such is the problem with using the word “liberal,” I guess. I once had a professor ages ago who wanted to banish the word because theorists couldn’t even agree on what it meant. So, to put it this way: Rowling is someone who favours positive liberties and an aggressive re-distribution of wealth. Whether she’s a reform liberal or a social democrat, I have no idea, but she did donate one million pounds to Labour during the last election as an endorsement of Gordon Brown. But let’s not forget that Rowling’s background isn’t in political theory; it’s equally likely that she might not label herself a darn thing.
“I don’t think there’s going to be a genocidal holocaust in Britain just because some people don’t want fresh immigrants to get unemployment benefit, though.”
And I definitely would never say that, either. I’m linking her treatment of characters of colour to the British multicultural model, and I’m saying for someone who’s interested in issues of “otherness” that she kind of missed some of her own writing’s problematic elements.
That being said, and to quote Rowling herself, “the world isn’t divided between good people and Death Eaters.” Anti-semitism doesn’t just show up as genocidal behaviour, and goodness knows that that there are plenty of PoC who generally feel unsafe and are the targets of violent hate.
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“Since there are still people who hail JK Rowling as the goddess of anti-racism, let’s shit on her some more.”
That’s one of the funniest link summaries we’ve gotten, I think. Cracked me up.
[“How are their “races invisible”? If, say, a Hispanic character — of black hair and dark skin — would not be wearing a sombrero and huaraches, munching on tortillas, speaking in broken English, talking regularly of how he misses his mamacita in the pueblo, would you gripe that “his race is invisible”?”]
It’s not so much that their races are invisible, but they are. Aside from Cho Chang, none of the minority characters can be viewed as major . . . and I mean major supporting characters. They usually have very few lines in each movie, despite being part of the regular cast. And both the novels and movies’ handling of Cho seemed rather vague.
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I was just arguing on this very topic and decided to see if anyone had written about it — and I found your excellent essay, with so much more context specific to the UK that I didn’t know. Thanks for the detail and analysis.
I don’t have time to find it now (I’ve already put off work too long reading comments!), but there was a controversy over slight changes to how Hermione was described in the American edition. In the original, there are suggestions that she might be black, and as part of clarifying Brittishisms American readers wouldn’t get, those elements were removed.
Interestingly, the U.S. continuity editor (who may or may not have been involved in the above changes) later became one of the co-founders of We Need Diverse Books, which arguably does more to address the lack of representation in publishing than any other group.
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