Argh.

[conuly]

Apparently, in addition to not blushing, tanning, going pale from shock/fear, reading (!), or being dentists, black people don't get black eyes. And if somebody is described as having "brown eyes" that can't mean "dark brown eyes", it has to mean "normal" brown eyes, which are light brown.

Oh, yeah, there's no racism here at all.

(Pro tip: If you're trying to claim you're just "shocked", leave it at one comment. One comment "Gosh, I thought she'd look more like Emma Watson, I wasn't expecting this" can mean anything. 500+ comments "Oh, I HATE how everybody has to FORCE diversity into EVERYTHING where it doesn't BELONG, they're RUINING the character and making a MOCKERY of everything I love, sjws, ugh!" starts to look, well, kinda like racism. I'm just saying.)

Comments

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Black people do go pale when they're in shock, but it isn't necessarily obvious, which is why the first-aid manuals say to check the inside of the lower lip.

It always astonishes me how many people apparently know almost nothing about how the human body works. Duh; everybody blushes, everybody pales, everybody bruises, everybody's skin produces as much melanin as it can to protect from ultraviolet, everybody burns when the melanin produced is not protection enough, because skin is skin.

Not understanding how human skin functions is not racism; it's just ignorance. However, the remarks about black people not reading or being dentists do count as racism, because they're based on an assumption of intellectual inferiority. Not sure what to make of the 'normal brown eyes' thing: anyone who has teh Intarwebz can see for themselves that brown eyes normally come in every shade from almost-green to almost-black.

I don't see any reason why Hermione couldn't be black - there are certainly plenty of black people in England, after all. However, if Hermione was intended to be black, how come there's no indication of that? Is there no 'black culture' in England, or are her parents British Oreos, or what? I think it's pretty obnoxious to assume that there's no difference between a black character and a white one except skin color.

Peter Jackson is, of course, an idiot who failed to read Tolkien's work closely enough to notice that he was NOT writing about some fantastic alien world - he was writing specifically about the 'pre-history' of northern Europe. Therefore, shoving 'diversity' into The Hobbit was total bullshit, because there is absolutely no evidence that black people lived in northern Europe until the Roman era. It's like making a movie about ancient Japan, and sticking a bunch of obviously-European people in the crowd scenes: WTF?!? they could not possibly have been there yet!

[redbird]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and things like the paintings on pottery at best indicate "some of the people looked like this" rather than "everyone looked like this." Or maybe it's "this is what the person painting the vase thought people looked like" or "wanted some people to look like": Artifacts from our time include photos as well as paintings of people who are literally physiologically impossible.

Also, how closely do you have to read Tolkien's work to notice that this "'pre-history' of northern Europe" includes tobacco and potatoes? (While the text says "pipe-weed" rather than "tobacco," the potatoes are in there by name.) Once you're using source material with that a-historical potato crop, either including or excluding black characters is a decision made on political, artistic, or commercial grounds, not "but they can't have been there in the pubs with the fish and chips."

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

It is when you're looking at gene frequency (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_admixture_in_Europe#Assessing_African_genetic_contributions_in_non-Africans):

A similar study by Auton et al. 2009, which also contains an admixture analysis chart but no cluster membership coefficients, shows little to no sub-Saharan African influence in a wide array of European samples, i.e. Albanians, Austrians, Belgians, Bosnians, Bulgarians, Croatians, Cypriots, Czechs, Danes, Finns, Frenchmen, Germans, Greeks, Hungarians, Irish, Italians, Kosovars, Latvians, Macedonians, Netherlanders, Norwegians, Poles, Portuguese, Romanians, Russians, Scots, Serbians, Slovakians, Slovenians, Spaniards, Swedes, Swiss (German, French and Italian), Ukrainians, United Kingdom and Yugoslavians."

As to the 'pipe-weed', tobacco is certainly not the only herb people have ever smoked, and the use of cannabis in ancient Europe is extremely well-documented. But Tolkien does not identify the plant; he only offers an opinion that it could have been "some species of Nicotiana". And yes, in fact, it could have been, because as you say, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" in the matter of pre-glacial plant species. But hemp is still a lot likelier than tobacco, and we know the hobbits grew hemp, because rope-making is named as one of their industries.

One doesn't have to read Tolkien very closely to notice that he's an Oxford don who has no idea where food actually comes from. His hobbits have coffee and cinnamon rolls too, and that's almost as big a stretch as the Solanaceae species. The dwarves of Khazad-dum didn't grow their own food; they traded with Men for it: yeah right, vegetables literally worth their weight in gold? because that's what the Men would be charging. The Elves have the best-ever apples and soft white bread - oh yeah, because of their vast expanses of wheat fields and apple orchards? Elven lembas is made of grain, and not of mallorn-nut flour as one would expect. The list goes on. It's clear that Tolkien didn't give the matter a lot of thought.

"Once you're using source material with that a-historical potato crop, either including or excluding black characters is a decision made on political, artistic, or commercial grounds"

That doesn't follow. You are assuming that Peter Jackson both knows and cares where the Solanaceae family originated. Jackson's cavalier disregard for the laws of physics and the limits of physiology certainly indicates that science is not his strong point, and the jumbled mess he made of Tolkien's plot and characters is proof enough that whatever he was basing his decisions on, it was definitely not respect for the source material.

[conuly]

Interrupting to say two things. First, eggplant is an Old World nightshade, so it's not just potatoes and tomatoes.

Second, everybody ought to know where potatoes and tomatoes come from, and I will actually refuse to read books that put those in the wrong time periods. Which may or may not include LotR, there's other reasons I never got into that series.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

You're quite right; the Solanaceae are a huge family, and there are lots of Old World species, but eggplant is the only one I can think of that was cultivated for food in Europe, and I don't think it does very well in a northerly climate. At any rate, I'm sure it would never have occurred to Tolkien that some readers would call his novels too implausibly fantastical because potatoes.

"everybody ought to know where potatoes and tomatoes come from, and I will actually refuse to read books that put those in the wrong time periods."

The things everybody ought to know but everybody doesn't know are as many as the stars in the sky. But it seems a bit inconsistent to refuse to read books that have too much botanical diversity, then to complain about people who object to too much human diversity. The question of what color skin Hermione Granger has is a pretty trivial issue, but it's of far greater importance to the story than the question of how Sam Gamgee can possibly be growing those taters.

[conuly]

But it seems a bit inconsistent to refuse to read books that have too much botanical diversity, then to complain about people who object to too much human diversity.

I am large, I contain multitudes.

The question of what color skin Hermione Granger has is a pretty trivial issue, but it's of far greater importance to the story than the question of how Sam Gamgee can possibly be growing those taters.

You and I clearly have different priorities :P

but eggplant is the only one I can think of that was cultivated for food in Europe, and I don't think it does very well in a northerly climate.

No, and in fairness I don't think it was *eaten* in most of Europe until well after it was cultivated there as an ornamental because, well, nightshade.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

"I am large, I contain multitudes."

LOL, good answer.

"You and I clearly have different priorities :P"

Well, yeah: you're a Potter geek, I'm a Tolkien geek.

See, here's a secret only Tolkien geeks really grok about The Lord of the Rings: according to canon, LotR is a translation of the Red Book of Westmarch (http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Red_Book_of_Westmarch):

"In the first edition of The Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien's foreword claimed he had translated the Red Book (http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Red_Book_of_Westmarch) from the original Westron (http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Westron) into English, and it therefore must be supposed that copies of the book survived through several Ages."

"In The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Westron was presented as having been completely translated by English. This had certain important implications: first of all, proper names with derivations somewhat evident to speakers of Westron had been translated, to preserve the effect. Thus, names like Baggins, Bagshot Row, Peregrin, Rivendell etc., are presented as not the actual names. "

There is more explanation (http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Westron) of all this if you want it. Anyway, what this means is that the Westron word Tolkien 'translated' as potato might have been better translated as turnip. So those who complain that the potato is a New World plant are perfectly correct, but their complaint is not relevant, because the author cleverly left himself an unassailable 'out' in the very first edition.

Really, I'm amazed that such a conlang geek as yourself is not a Tolkien geek. There is some justification to the claim that Tolkien wrote his stories to give his constructed languages someone to speak them. Anyway, if you mentally substitute the word turnip every time potato occurs in the text, it will not affect the story. Same for the coffee and cinnamon rolls: the 'translations' of Westron are meant to convey an image, not to be literally accurate. Probably only Tolkien could have gotten away with this, but he did, and it works.

I suppose it doesn't affect the story much if Hermione Granger is black. My daughter thought that her description is so minimal so that more girls can identify with her, which is sensible enough. However, Rowling did not leave herself an 'out' there, because if Hermione is black, why is that fact never mentioned?

It doesn't wash to say "because it doesn't matter". Ron's red hair is certainly mentioned often enough, and Harry Potter's complexion is described (so I'm told) as 'olive', so if Hermione was black, she'd have been described as such. England may not be as race-obsessed as America, but it's not totally color-blind either.

"... because, well, nightshade."

Good reason; the nightshade family is all more-or-less poisonous (http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/nightshades/), even the species we eat anyway.

[conuly]

However, Rowling did not leave herself an 'out' there, because if Hermione is black, why is that fact never mentioned?

Because she was too busy calling Hermione "waspish" every time she opens her mouth.

Good reason; the nightshade family is all more-or-less poisonous, even the species we eat anyway.

And I will say I'm frankly astonished there are so many edible members of that family, and also tobacco. (Which will kill you, of course, but not right away, so....)

Centuries ago, the common eggplant was referred to as “mad apple” due to belief that eating it regularly would cause mental illness.

Not exactly true. Mad apple is a poor translation of "melanzana" as "mala insana", when in fact the word doesn't have that origin at all. Of course, once the translation appeared, an explanation appeared to justify it, and the one probably just kept on reinforcing the other.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I get the impression that Hermione in the books is not much like Hermione in the movies.

Heh, humans can and will eat anything that doesn't kill us immediately. "Mithridates, he died old."

"once the translation appeared, an explanation appeared to justify it, and the one probably just kept on reinforcing the other."

That makes sense, because eggplant doesn't actually drive people mad, or at least not so's you'd notice.

[conuly]

Well, I'm just wild about eggplant, and eggplant's wild about... no, wait, that doesn't work. :)

I've never seen the movies. Hermione's skin color may not matter much to me, but Harry's eye color manifestly does. (We all have our things.) Plus, I usually don't like movie adaptations.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I liked the movies well enough, having never read the books. My daughter doesn't care for the movies because she says they get too much wrong. She loves the first three books, but says they go downhill after that.

Apparently the actor who plays Harry was supposed to wear emerald-green contact lenses, but couldn't tolerate them. I suppose they could have CGI'd his eyes, but it might have looked hokey

[conuly]

Undoubtedly Hermione was written as white originally, but this actress is black, and so she's black in this play. In Hermione's case, her race isn't exactly crucially relevant to her character, you know?

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I don't actually know, because it's not my fandom. I haven't read the books, only seen the movies, and my daughter (who is a fan of the series) did not think much of them, so I'm not basing anything on them. I've never known anyone who's both British and black, so I have no idea to what extent 'black culture' is a thing in England generally, or in whatever part of England Hermione comes from. (I don't know England well enough to know where the good or bad parts are, but if Hermione's parents are dentists, it's a fair bet she did not grow up in the London slums.)

Hermione's nationality is certainly relevant: Harry Potter could not possibly be set anywhere but in England. So is race crucially relevant to the characters of real, living black people in England? Or not so much? Do black British people regard themselves as black first, or as British first? (When black British people become US citizens, do they then regard themselves as British-Americans or as African-Americans?)

I was at boarding school as a teen, and there were only four black students; two boys and two girls. My first year of college, I went to a college that was 3/4 black (and had only 7 male students, having just gone co-ed that year.) Being in an obvious minority group is crucially relevant to one's school experience - especially when you live at the school instead of going home to your family every afternoon, and your teachers and schoolmates are the only people you see or talk to.

Apparently the wizarding community is rife with racism against muggles and mud-bloods. Hermione gets mocked for being a mud-blood; if there was something else to mock her for, wouldn't Draco and his flunkies have mentioned it? But Hermione's parents aren't part of the wizarding community; they're just ordinary Brits, and while Britain is better than the US, it is certainly not 100% free of race-issues.

I have no dog in this fight. Hermione can be black for all I care - and Tiger Lily can be white - because both the Harry Potter 'verse and Neverland are 100% totally-made-up fantasy worlds (UNLIKE The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, based on the real Teutonic myths of real northern Europe.) The 'redskins' in Neverland are supposed to be a Victorian British child's concept of Indians, not actual Native Americans.

As for Rue in The Hunger Games:

"And most hauntingly, a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark brown skin and eyes..."

... I say, if a character is specifically described by an author, the actor playing that character ought to match the description. Faramir of Gondor has "raven hair", dammit; accept no substitutes.

[conuly]

All I can say on the issue of Hermione's race is this:

1. JKR has said that her race is not a crucial part of her character (and I'm willing to go with authorial intent if it backs my argument, why the heck not?)

2. There are other people who aren't JKR who, prior to JKR saying that, read Hermione as some version of a. black b. Jewish or c. biracial. I think it's the hair...?

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I asked my daughter, and she said the only description of Hermione was "brown frizzy hair and braces", so she could just as well be black, Jewish, or bi-racial.

[conuly]

Indeed.