WHY IS THERE SO MUCH RACISM?
Dec. 18th, 2015 04:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyAnd who spread it all over Harry Potter fandom? Seriously, why is this happening?
Soooo, Hermione. Fair enough, she was probably written as white, if JKR thought about it at all. (And on this, I'm convinced she probably did. I mean, she has this whole chart of Harry's year, carefully written such that the diversity of Hogwarts exactly matches the demographics of Britain at the time.) JKR is white, most people in the UK are white, Hermione is JKR's wish fulfillment (and apparently JKR wished to marry Ron, which is weird, but whatever) - yeah, okay.
It is equally true that her race is never explicitly stated in the text. (And no, book covers don't count. Book covers are full of lies at the best of times, especially when it comes to race.) So if you read Harry Potter, fixate on her "bushy hair", and go "Wait, I'm black and I have bushy hair, maybe Hermione looks like me!" - well, good for you!
It is also true that Hermione's race, whatever it is, doesn't seem to affect her character at all. Hermione doesn't ever mention race one way or another, not even to go "Oh, all this pureblood garbage is just like racism in the muggle world!"
So, as you may have heard, the actress for Hermione in the new play is black. And some of fandom went "WTF?" and others went "Yay!" So then JKR weighed in, as she does, and said that sure, Hermione's race is never spelled out in the text. JKR likes to stir the shit, have you noticed?
So now all the racists have crawled right out of the woodwork, with their scanty evidence. The arguments used seem to be as follows:
1. This one scene in PoA, where Hermione is rightly stressed and scared, she's described as having a "white face". It's ludicrous for you to assume that this means she's stressed and scared, as it isn't explicitly stated in the text, so it must mean her actual, literal skin color (and all black people have very dark skin). Oh, you're pointing to one scene where she's described as "looking very brown" and Ron as "very freckled"? Despite the fact that Ron always has freckles, it's ludicrous of you to assume that this could mean her natural skin color. Even though it's not explicitly stated in the text, it's obvious she's tanned from vacation. (Also, black people don't tan. Or blush. Never.)
1a. It literally said white! Therefore she must be white! Because white people literally have white skin!
2. Dean is black, and the text describes him as black. Lee and Angelina are black too, and the text describes THEM as black. (Nobody ever bothers to quote where this is done, leaving me wondering if, in fact, this is the case or if Lee and Angelina just have dreads and braids and we all extrapolated from there. But I digress.) Also, Blaise is black. She doesn't give us the race of any other character, therefore we know those other characters (except Cho and the Patils) are white. How do we know this? Because when a character is white, she doesn't describe their race, therefore every character whose race isn't described must be white. No, this isn't a circular argument at all, you just weren't listening!
3. Obviously, the only reason to do this is to get attention for being PC. So Hermione is white, really.
4. There's this one pencil sketch by JKR where I don't think Hermione looks black, therefore, she's white. The fact that no unambiguously black characters are in the sketch for comparison purposes doesn't affect my judgment, there is NO WAY JKR draws black characters the same as white ones. Also, all black people have super dark skin.
5. Black people can't be named Granger, and there's a literally 0% chance that there were any black dentists in the UK at this time. Like, none. It's impossible, but not impossible like witches, really REALLY impossible.
6. The only possible way to tell who is black and who isn't is skin color. (And if they believe this one, I think my friend Mr. Jim Crow has a bridge to sell them. It's not true in the US. Maybe it's true in the UK, but it's never been true in the land of "one drop".)
Soooo, yeah. I wouldn't want to call all these people racists (after all, each and every one of them has multiple black friends....) but somehow, there's a lot of racists happily agreeing with these people. People who openly say things like "being smart isn't a black girl thing" (but that's not racist either, apparently). And I don't know, I guess I can't see why you'd spend a lot of time making passionate arguments on this subject if you don't have an agenda. What could that agenda be? What could possibly prompt people to spend hours and hours repeating "I don't think black people blush, do they?" in defense of white!Hermione?
So, yeah. I want all the racists out of the fandom, and I want them out now.
Soooo, Hermione. Fair enough, she was probably written as white, if JKR thought about it at all. (And on this, I'm convinced she probably did. I mean, she has this whole chart of Harry's year, carefully written such that the diversity of Hogwarts exactly matches the demographics of Britain at the time.) JKR is white, most people in the UK are white, Hermione is JKR's wish fulfillment (and apparently JKR wished to marry Ron, which is weird, but whatever) - yeah, okay.
It is equally true that her race is never explicitly stated in the text. (And no, book covers don't count. Book covers are full of lies at the best of times, especially when it comes to race.) So if you read Harry Potter, fixate on her "bushy hair", and go "Wait, I'm black and I have bushy hair, maybe Hermione looks like me!" - well, good for you!
It is also true that Hermione's race, whatever it is, doesn't seem to affect her character at all. Hermione doesn't ever mention race one way or another, not even to go "Oh, all this pureblood garbage is just like racism in the muggle world!"
So, as you may have heard, the actress for Hermione in the new play is black. And some of fandom went "WTF?" and others went "Yay!" So then JKR weighed in, as she does, and said that sure, Hermione's race is never spelled out in the text. JKR likes to stir the shit, have you noticed?
So now all the racists have crawled right out of the woodwork, with their scanty evidence. The arguments used seem to be as follows:
1. This one scene in PoA, where Hermione is rightly stressed and scared, she's described as having a "white face". It's ludicrous for you to assume that this means she's stressed and scared, as it isn't explicitly stated in the text, so it must mean her actual, literal skin color (and all black people have very dark skin). Oh, you're pointing to one scene where she's described as "looking very brown" and Ron as "very freckled"? Despite the fact that Ron always has freckles, it's ludicrous of you to assume that this could mean her natural skin color. Even though it's not explicitly stated in the text, it's obvious she's tanned from vacation. (Also, black people don't tan. Or blush. Never.)
1a. It literally said white! Therefore she must be white! Because white people literally have white skin!
2. Dean is black, and the text describes him as black. Lee and Angelina are black too, and the text describes THEM as black. (Nobody ever bothers to quote where this is done, leaving me wondering if, in fact, this is the case or if Lee and Angelina just have dreads and braids and we all extrapolated from there. But I digress.) Also, Blaise is black. She doesn't give us the race of any other character, therefore we know those other characters (except Cho and the Patils) are white. How do we know this? Because when a character is white, she doesn't describe their race, therefore every character whose race isn't described must be white. No, this isn't a circular argument at all, you just weren't listening!
3. Obviously, the only reason to do this is to get attention for being PC. So Hermione is white, really.
4. There's this one pencil sketch by JKR where I don't think Hermione looks black, therefore, she's white. The fact that no unambiguously black characters are in the sketch for comparison purposes doesn't affect my judgment, there is NO WAY JKR draws black characters the same as white ones. Also, all black people have super dark skin.
5. Black people can't be named Granger, and there's a literally 0% chance that there were any black dentists in the UK at this time. Like, none. It's impossible, but not impossible like witches, really REALLY impossible.
6. The only possible way to tell who is black and who isn't is skin color. (And if they believe this one, I think my friend Mr. Jim Crow has a bridge to sell them. It's not true in the US. Maybe it's true in the UK, but it's never been true in the land of "one drop".)
Soooo, yeah. I wouldn't want to call all these people racists (after all, each and every one of them has multiple black friends....) but somehow, there's a lot of racists happily agreeing with these people. People who openly say things like "being smart isn't a black girl thing" (but that's not racist either, apparently). And I don't know, I guess I can't see why you'd spend a lot of time making passionate arguments on this subject if you don't have an agenda. What could that agenda be? What could possibly prompt people to spend hours and hours repeating "I don't think black people blush, do they?" in defense of white!Hermione?
So, yeah. I want all the racists out of the fandom, and I want them out now.
