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Pondering for the zillionth time the intended-to-be inspiring Great Love of Severus for Lily, I finally hit upon what bothers me so deeply about the prospect that he spent his entire life in Eternal Love of Lily to the exclusion of all other loves: It's not so much the idea of exclusive and undying devotion, itself, although the idea of having only One Great Love in one's life is probably more romantic than realistic in terms of how life plays itself out, as well as in terms of standards of mental and emotional health. Still, widows and widowers do find themselves content with the memory of a happy marriage, so it happens.
That doesn't bother me. What has been bothering me about Severus and Lily finally articulated itself in a single, simple question: HOW COULD HE STILL LOVE HER AFTER WHAT SHE DID TO HIM?
She cut him off. She refused to accept his apology. She refused to consider that the circumstances under which he shouted the offending word might possibly be a mitigating factor in judging his "culpability." As far as we know, Severus and Lily never spoke again, let alone reconciled, after his apology was rejected by Lily.
And many in the broader Harry Potter fandom nod their heads, pseudo-sagely, and say, aha, yes, rightly so, because calling someone a "Mudblood" is the Unpardonable Sin, and anti-Muggle prejudice is the Unpardonable Sin.
Never mind that Severus himself had been the subject of an appalling degree of prejudice, from James and Company, and apparently other students, for the past five years. Never mind that Severus shouted his epithet out of humiliation and rage and a less than clear mind in the midst of being horribly ABUSED by James and Company. Never mind that when he did lash out, it was in self-defense and retaliation for abuses initiated by James and Company. That he was being tormented is of no import to these people: Nope, they say, Severus got what he deserved. In fact, he was lucky that Lily had bothered to put up with him for so long, because Severus Snape, in using the word "Mudblood" and in associating with an organization that espoused anti-Muggle prejudice, was a racist. And racism, in this view, is the card that trumps all other considerations.
Is that so?
Should anti-Muggle prejudice be equated with racism? Here are a few thoughts on why I think it should not be.
First, applying the term "race" to one's blood status in the wizarding world is imprecise. Concern with "purity" of blood lines, coming from the "right" families and the "right" kinds of families, is surely as much a class issue, if not more so, than a race issue. Better, I think, to view anti-Muggle and blood status prejudice as just that: a form of prejudice in its own right. Label it simply "prejudice," "bigotry," or "bias," rather than applying the highly-charged term "racism" that carries a lot of emotionally volatile connotations in our own lives.
Race already exists as a distinct category and basis for prejudice. The wizarding world, like the larger world, is multi-racial. Adding Muggle-blood prejudice to the term tends to, pardon the pun, muddy the waters. Invoking racism in a discussion of anti-Muggle prejudice also effectively acts to stop further inquiry and discussion rather than open it up; why, if you don't see the term "Mudblood" and the anti-Muggle bias of the Death Eaters as The Unpardonable Sins, well, then, you are Being Racist! End of discussion. Slam.
Reducing Severus, purebloods, and the Death Eaters to the label "racist" also ignores the fact that anti-Muggle bias exists in the entire wizarding world, not just among those who use disdain the Muggle-born as "Mudbloods" or seek to "purify" the lines of wizarding blood. The real crime, that which distinguishes the Death Eaters and their allies from the Order and its allies, isn't that they were biased against Muggles and the Muggle-born. The real crime is that they expressed their prejudice by torturing and killing innocent people. The larger wizarding world expresses its prejudice more benignly, with amusement, patronization, and zoo-exhibit curiosity towards Muggles, and not so benignly in various magical forms of manipulation of Muggles. Less harmful than genocide, to be sure, but it is still a form of prejudicial treatment, rooted in an attitude of "us" vs. "them" on the part of the wizarding world.
Finally, as I suggested above, treating Severus' anti-Muggleborn epithet and bias as an Unpardonable Sin takes the focus (conveniently) away from the biases to which he has been systematically subjected since his arrival at Hogwarts five years earlier: biases on the basis of appearance, class and economic status, being sorted into The Wrong House, and, of course, his interest in the Dark Arts and in excelling in the defense against them. When people say of James Potter that "he hated the Dark Arts," I cannot help but wonder if that is "code" for "he hated Severus Snape, whom he associated with the Dark Arts." Did he bully Severus because he was interested in the Dark Arts, or did he bully Severus simply because he disliked Severus and use the Dark Arts as a noble-sounding excuse for his prejudice and aggression?
(Of course the Dark Arts, like the notion of blood prejudice, is one of those concepts in Potterdom which is never quite clearly delineated. Isn't hexing and torturing a fellow student for years on end a Dark practice?)
The prejudice James and Sirius held against Severus Snape was no more morally acceptable than the prejudice Severus held against Muggles and Muggleborns. Class prejudice, coming from the "wrong" sort of background--in the end, it's simply another form of blood prejudice.
In conclusion, I propose that fandom discussions describe blood prejudice in the wizarding world as just that, blood prejudice, not acceptable, but neither unpardonable, and no more or less culpable than any other form of prejudice--especially in a world in which nearly everyone is guilty of it to some degree or other--and leave the highly-charged and not entirely accurate label of "racism" out of the discussion.
ETA: I continue this discussion in Still Further Thoughts on Prejudice in the Potterverse and Snape's Worst Memory. That post analyzes, in detail, my view of the ethics in the situation of Snape's Worst Memory, and also makes brief observations on Muggleborn prejudice and on using the term "racism" in discussion.
That doesn't bother me. What has been bothering me about Severus and Lily finally articulated itself in a single, simple question: HOW COULD HE STILL LOVE HER AFTER WHAT SHE DID TO HIM?
She cut him off. She refused to accept his apology. She refused to consider that the circumstances under which he shouted the offending word might possibly be a mitigating factor in judging his "culpability." As far as we know, Severus and Lily never spoke again, let alone reconciled, after his apology was rejected by Lily.
And many in the broader Harry Potter fandom nod their heads, pseudo-sagely, and say, aha, yes, rightly so, because calling someone a "Mudblood" is the Unpardonable Sin, and anti-Muggle prejudice is the Unpardonable Sin.
Never mind that Severus himself had been the subject of an appalling degree of prejudice, from James and Company, and apparently other students, for the past five years. Never mind that Severus shouted his epithet out of humiliation and rage and a less than clear mind in the midst of being horribly ABUSED by James and Company. Never mind that when he did lash out, it was in self-defense and retaliation for abuses initiated by James and Company. That he was being tormented is of no import to these people: Nope, they say, Severus got what he deserved. In fact, he was lucky that Lily had bothered to put up with him for so long, because Severus Snape, in using the word "Mudblood" and in associating with an organization that espoused anti-Muggle prejudice, was a racist. And racism, in this view, is the card that trumps all other considerations.
Is that so?
Should anti-Muggle prejudice be equated with racism? Here are a few thoughts on why I think it should not be.
First, applying the term "race" to one's blood status in the wizarding world is imprecise. Concern with "purity" of blood lines, coming from the "right" families and the "right" kinds of families, is surely as much a class issue, if not more so, than a race issue. Better, I think, to view anti-Muggle and blood status prejudice as just that: a form of prejudice in its own right. Label it simply "prejudice," "bigotry," or "bias," rather than applying the highly-charged term "racism" that carries a lot of emotionally volatile connotations in our own lives.
Race already exists as a distinct category and basis for prejudice. The wizarding world, like the larger world, is multi-racial. Adding Muggle-blood prejudice to the term tends to, pardon the pun, muddy the waters. Invoking racism in a discussion of anti-Muggle prejudice also effectively acts to stop further inquiry and discussion rather than open it up; why, if you don't see the term "Mudblood" and the anti-Muggle bias of the Death Eaters as The Unpardonable Sins, well, then, you are Being Racist! End of discussion. Slam.
Reducing Severus, purebloods, and the Death Eaters to the label "racist" also ignores the fact that anti-Muggle bias exists in the entire wizarding world, not just among those who use disdain the Muggle-born as "Mudbloods" or seek to "purify" the lines of wizarding blood. The real crime, that which distinguishes the Death Eaters and their allies from the Order and its allies, isn't that they were biased against Muggles and the Muggle-born. The real crime is that they expressed their prejudice by torturing and killing innocent people. The larger wizarding world expresses its prejudice more benignly, with amusement, patronization, and zoo-exhibit curiosity towards Muggles, and not so benignly in various magical forms of manipulation of Muggles. Less harmful than genocide, to be sure, but it is still a form of prejudicial treatment, rooted in an attitude of "us" vs. "them" on the part of the wizarding world.
Finally, as I suggested above, treating Severus' anti-Muggleborn epithet and bias as an Unpardonable Sin takes the focus (conveniently) away from the biases to which he has been systematically subjected since his arrival at Hogwarts five years earlier: biases on the basis of appearance, class and economic status, being sorted into The Wrong House, and, of course, his interest in the Dark Arts and in excelling in the defense against them. When people say of James Potter that "he hated the Dark Arts," I cannot help but wonder if that is "code" for "he hated Severus Snape, whom he associated with the Dark Arts." Did he bully Severus because he was interested in the Dark Arts, or did he bully Severus simply because he disliked Severus and use the Dark Arts as a noble-sounding excuse for his prejudice and aggression?
(Of course the Dark Arts, like the notion of blood prejudice, is one of those concepts in Potterdom which is never quite clearly delineated. Isn't hexing and torturing a fellow student for years on end a Dark practice?)
The prejudice James and Sirius held against Severus Snape was no more morally acceptable than the prejudice Severus held against Muggles and Muggleborns. Class prejudice, coming from the "wrong" sort of background--in the end, it's simply another form of blood prejudice.
In conclusion, I propose that fandom discussions describe blood prejudice in the wizarding world as just that, blood prejudice, not acceptable, but neither unpardonable, and no more or less culpable than any other form of prejudice--especially in a world in which nearly everyone is guilty of it to some degree or other--and leave the highly-charged and not entirely accurate label of "racism" out of the discussion.
ETA: I continue this discussion in Still Further Thoughts on Prejudice in the Potterverse and Snape's Worst Memory. That post analyzes, in detail, my view of the ethics in the situation of Snape's Worst Memory, and also makes brief observations on Muggleborn prejudice and on using the term "racism" in discussion.
The Death Eaters are not bad merely because they are prejudiced, but because they start a war, try to get an evil Overlord to rule the country and generally harm people very badly.
I don't think a racist slur alone makes you a horrible person that everyone should give up on, no. I do think that mudblood is comparable to the most serious racist slurs in the most serious times. It implies that you have no right to be here and less right to live than better, purer people, because of your blood, while everybody knows that there are powerful people who are more than willing to act on this implication.
So of course it should be rightly called "blood-prejudice" and that's what I mostly see in discussion, but there is no reason to not compare it to racism or to pretend that it's somehow more harmless than racism - or that mudblood is more harmless than a racial slur.
As for the entire wizarding world being anti-muggle, here is another comparison: Our entire world is racist as well. That still doesn't excuse people who use violence out of racist motivation. This works for everything, though: Our world is sexist, but this still doesn't excuse appallingly sexist behavior.
First, I don't see that there's any racism as we usually define it in the wizarding world. Is there ever a hint of racism towards the Patils, Dean Thomas, Blaise Zabini? I don't think so. Therefore, I think it's a logical conclusion to regard the obsession with pure blood as the wizarding form as racism. After all, that's what JKR constantly did in the books. She created wizarding equivalants for "Muggle" things and concepts.
Why shouldn't it be possible that (almost) the entire wizarding world is racist? Isn't that true for our world as well? The larger wizarding world expresses its prejudice more benignly, with amusement, patronization, and zoo-exhibit curiosity towards Muggles, and not so benignly in various magical forms of manipulation of Muggles. Less harmful than genocide, to be sure, but it is still a form of prejudicial treatment, rooted in an attitude of "us" vs. "them" on the part of the wizarding world. This is true of many past and present societies all over the world, and they are usually called racist.
The Weasleys are proof that blood and class prejudice aren't the same. The Weasleys are poor and have to endure prejudices, but they never had to fear for their lives in contrast to Muggleborns and Halfbloods.
veradee
As far as the class issue is concerned, the Weasleys don't strike me as a good example against the blood=class argument. The Weasleys are considered 'blood traitors', which is basically used for anyone who doesn't fit the proper pureblood ideal. Which, from what we see in canon, is a very wealthy ideal. The characters in Slytherin seem to all be old money. The Black family tree showed us that when their children stray toward Weasley blood, they're disowned. And from watching them in the final books, they certainly had to fear for their lives as much as anyone else involved in the war. Before the war started full-force again, the Weasleys didn't seem worried, but then neither did the muggleborns. It's impossible to distinguish whether they would have been a target because of status, because their lives were endangered at the same time that the muggleborns were. We don't know that they wouldn't have had to worry about their safety if they weren't in the Order. And, considering the general attitude of the other characters in the books, I'd say it's very likely that they would have had as much reason as any other characters to feel endangered. The Death Eaters were trying to kill everyone who wasn't of a certain type, and if they were willing to fish up tiny (or untrue) reasons to do it.
..how do I use OpenID..?
Here from the Daily Snitch
Given what was going on at the time, I can go with Lily on this one, though. Not that I don't see her having plenty of flaws as well, but I can understand somebody just cutting off a friend who's involved in what Snape's getting involved in. He's becoming a DE--I'd worry about any Muggleborn who did stay friends with him while he's doing that. If he'd actually cut himself off from those people etc. I think she might have forgiven him. At that time in the story Snape didn't seem to get that--he didn't make the connection between calling Lily that name and the bigger attitude problem. (He's not the only Wizard who doesn't make connections like that, imo!)
But I've pretty much given up trying to make sense of these books. I don't really understand why Rowling depicts some sorts of prejudice as acceptable while others are the worst thing a person could possibly do. In my mind, they are all bad and wrong.
Not in the sense of "they can't be happy together" or "they can't have children"--but there are physical differences. (Meaning, differences that affect the physical world, not that they're shaped differently.) Wizards may perceive all Muggles as "disabled;" they lack what wizarding society considers essential survival abilities.
Anti-Muggle prejudice may compare more directly to disablism, believing that anyone who lacks [Ability X] is less than fully human. But even that's not a direct parallel; there's also aspects of human society's tendency to ostracize and sometimes kill people who are "exceptional"--geeks, artists, scientists and so on, who are sometimes the target of weird purges.
Except there's never been a culture of "exceptional" people. (Unless one believes various conspiracy theories. M'self, I'm not buying that the Bavarian Illuminati were really wizards in disguise.)
This is such an interesting and complicated topic, especially in light of JKR's 800 word prequel! Here we have JKR's "heroes" of the Light, pureblood scions James and Sirius, out there basically taunting and toying with Muggles, by leading a Muggle police patrol car on a merry chase at dangerous speeds for a quarter of an hour, on Sirius's motorcycle. Oh, but they hate Dark magic, so i guess that's okay! They're not the bad boys.
i don't know why that would have surprised anyone, especially after reading the Epilogue, whereby Ron gleefully mentions that he used magic to rape a Muggle's mind so that he could get a license, and Harry...? doesn't he laugh or something?
i mean, i think discussions like these tend to border on the 'we're reading too much into it' category, but if we follow it to its logical conclusion, ron has little opinion on Muggles, too -- and that opinion has even seeped into Harry's mind -- and Hermione's too, for god's sake!
However, I don't think that the problem within HP fandom has to do with racism per se, but with the fans' very strong feelings about the characters. There's a segment of fandom that is very anti-Snape, who tend to see any attempt to defend Snape as merely whitewashing his character, without accepting that we can sympathize with him while still not condone his mistakes, such as joining the Death Eaters. So when you say, for example, that Lily was unfair to sever her friendship with him over the insult of "Mudblood," they respond with "Oh, so she should be okay with him joining the Death Eaters and murdering innocent Muggles?" when that isn't at all what you meant.
Just to clarify: I'm not saying that *everyone* who dislikes Snape is a singleminded fanatic. Some people like Snape, and some people don't, and that's cool. It would be boring if everyone thought the same. But there are a few people out there who can't accept an opinion that differs from their own, and I think the problem that the Bohemian Spirit is referring to lies more with those sort of people than heated feelings about racism.
Okay, so moving on to the issue of Lily. I know I've said this before in my Snape and Lily essay, but I'll go ahead and say it again. The whole problem with Lily lies in the "too much telling instead of showing" style of writing. I think that she wouldn't be justified in cutting Snape off over a single insult spoken in the heat of the moment. But I don't really blame her for ending a friendship with someone joining a group of bigots that targets people like her.
However, once they enter Hogwarts, we see mainly scenes of Lily being critical of Snape: believing the Marauders' version of the werewolf incident over Snape's, even though he is her best friend and James is a "toerag"; criticizing his friends' bullying even though the Marauders do also (but they're not as bad because they don't use Dark Magic); and the whole argument over the "Mudblood" insult. Lily *tells* us that she's been defending him to her friends, but we never actually see that. (We see her verbally standing up for Snape in the "Snape's Worst Memory" scene, though she does not make any physical attempts to break the spells James and Sirius cast on him.) We do not see any scenes of them having fun together, or confiding in each other. We don't see any understanding on her part that dropping the Death Eater crowd might make Snape an outcast in Slytherin and make him a target for even more bullying. (Although that is speculation on my part. But I do suspect his association with the DEs was more out self-preservation and ambition than actual beliefs in pureblood superiority.)
If we had seen scenes where Lily and Snape appeared to be close, where she seemed to actually value him as a friend, then we might be more sympathetic when she says that she can't take anymore and has to end their friendship.
It's the same problem that I have with James in the books: we're told that he matured, but we only see him acting like a bully the few times that he actually appears in the story.
Sorry for being so long-winded, but those are my thoughts. It's certainly a difficult and heated topic to deal with.
But really, as mary_j points out, the "moral murkiness" of the books reflects so much unreasoned prejudice on the author's part, or at best inability to follow the reasoning of the ethical system she invented, there's hardly any possibility of carrying out the level of literary analysis that could be done on better thought out works.
As to the anti-Snape group -- Word. They have their own problems, among which critical thinking skill is only one small part. Polite or even civil discourse online and in fandom is, sadly, another.
I just wanted to say that this is the way the situation should always be phrased. It really frustrated me when people say "HE WAS JOINING THE DEATH EATERS Dx" as Lily's defense. She suspected he WOULD join the Death Eaters, but he was not a Death Eater when he was fifteen years old, and likely wasn't one until he left school. The fact that we know he goes on to become one doesn't mean that Lily is right to assume he WILL do it, when he hasn't yet.
What he DID do was become friends with, as you said, a group of bigots who target people like her. His friends were openly anti-muggleborn and supposedly mistreated other students, and Lily is punishing him for their behaviour. HE is not the one who did such-and-such to Mary MacDonald. The only time in canon that we ever see him use 'mudblood' is during the OWLs scene. I very much doubt that Lily saying "that's what you call everyone of my birth" is based on her own observations, he wouldn't have used it in her presence. I don't see him as the sort of boy who would have done a lot of 'swearing' anyway. (Ron doesn't say that mudblood is a racist word, he says it's a word one doesn't use in polite company.)
While I certainly think there is a level of justification to what Lily did in ending the friendship, I don't think either of them are totally blameless. From what we see, Lily was assuming things about Severus based on the things his friends and housemates did, rather than her own experiences with him. I think that she was more influenced by her friends than she would ever admit, she was probably flattered by James Potter's open advances, and even a bit attracted to him (popular, athletic, talented, etc).
Essentially, I think she was a teenage girl and her values reflect that. She short-sightedly refused to view the situation at anything other than face value, but she had already suspected Severus of being on his way to become a Death Eater (helped along by the attitude of her house) and his slur to her only confirmed that belief.
I know that it is not actually an excuse, but she was sixteen years old! She was a dumb kid like the rest of them. While I think that the level of bullying that James and Sirius did was above and beyond the sort of things I'm willing to forgive based on the stupidity of adolescence, Lily and Severus are different. Severus' need to be accepted by the students in his house, his attraction to what was powerful, and his attempts to impress Lily with that Dark power is something I would definitely expect from a teenage boy. Lily's own tendency to assume that She Is Right is also something that I would think was a very teenage attitude. I don't think that we should judge either of them too harshly for it.
I just hate when people compare the fact that Severus was friends with other Slytherin boys to the idea of him joining a Neo-Nazi group. He hadn't actually joined anything yet, he was simply friends with some of the rougher people in his house. But knowing JKR, it's difficult to know whether any of his housemates would be given the luxury of being fair-minded, and I can't agree that Severus should have chosen to have Lily alone and no other friends, that's an unfair expectation.
Even if the Slytherins in his year weren't all purist, it's unlikely that the Gryffindors would like them, anyway. When Lily's opinion of Severus is based on what her friends tell her about what his friends do, there's a certain level of inaccuracy that I think would skew her perception of him a great deal. The same goes for what Severus would hear about Lily's friends, but the difference is that he doesn't seem to accuse her of anything based on her friends (though he does have insecurity about whether she likes the Marauders, he seems to be reassured by her responses, unlike her reaction to him.)
They were both stupid kids and didn't really see the bigger picture, and I think both of them were to blame but neither of them were actually being overly horrible about it. Just self-centred.
What interested me most about your post was this part:
She cut him off. She refused to accept his apology. She refused to consider that the circumstances under which he shouted the offending word might possibly be a mitigating factor in judging his "culpability."
I certainly agree that Snape was bullied and treated horribly by James & Co., but I think in this specific situation Lily was under no obligation to consider what led Severus to say what he did to her. She could have if she wanted to, or she didn't have to, the choice was hers.
If she felt it was unpardonable, then it was unpardonable. If, later on (off the page), she thought back about her school days and felt differently, it could become pardonable, but it's not something Snape got to decide. To have said, or shonw how much he cared about her and through that, deserved pardon.
I don't see why his history and motivations and emotions should have automatically been considered. If I call you something horrible, something that hurts you deeply, should you be required to hear my reasoning why, and from that, be required to weigh that information in your decision on whether to forgive? No. You may opt to, but you don't have to. By insulting you I give up the "right" to have my side of the story heard unless you want to hear it. When Snape called Lily a Mudblood, he gave up his "right" to explain why he did so and have that information considered.
Snape was in the wrong, whether you see the term as racist or blood prejudice or a more general prejudice. His personal history - as painful as it was - still would not justify his use of the term. It may shed more light on why he used it, but understanding his motivations doesn't necessarily mean his actions were excusable.
No. That just reflects whether she was willing and/or able to pardon him. Whether the offense itself was pardonable is a matter of its objective nature, based on ethical analysis from a third-party viewpoint.
I explain more in my follow-up post
The follow-up post I wrote to this one is here and addresses the objections you raised to considering Severus' point of view in analyzing Snape's Worst Memory.
The short answer is that a fair ethical analysis needs to take in all points of view and all the mitigating circumstances, as much as humanly possible. To simplistically say "Snape was in the wrong" and that Lily had no ethical obligation to consider the fact he was being tortured when he broke is just plain wrong.
When Snape called Lily a Mudblood, he gave up his "right" to explain why he did so and have that information considered.
No, he did not. Absolutely not. If I stab you with a knife, it makes all the difference in the world if I did it as a surgeon or as a murderer or as someone being attacked and wildly flailing about and injuring you in the process of trying to regain my control. Basically, you are arguing that saying "Mudblood" IS worse than the abuse that was being committed against Severus--and I absolutely disagree with that, and will challenge it whenever I see it, because it is wrongheaded and wronghearted. Wrong, intellectually and morally. Just plain wrong.
Rowling does a mediocre job of dealing with racism, sexism and a whole lot of other isms in her text. She is quick to deounce overt prejudice of Voldie and his followers but, won't take on the institutionalized sort of the wizarding world at large. She is a typical liberal in that sense.
To me Lily personifies the girl that comes from a mixed race home that fits because she is pretty enough (white enough) and smart enough not to offend. Marries the handsome jerk and dies saving her perfect hero son.
Severus is not pretty(too ethnic despite pale skin) too uppity(ambition bad) with no support system so he winds up with the bad crowd who don't really trust him. Worst of all he is not a nice sweet doormat (like Lupin) who begs to be in the Marauder's favour. He repents saving the green eyed hero time and time again. Dies a lonely death.
If this were bad 1950's American melodrama Snape and Lily both would fall onto the tragic mulatto syndrome
It’s interesting to me that you see this as a mitigating factor, because I feel like if the equivalent happened to me it would be the unclear state of mind that made me most uncomfortable continuing the friendship. I can’t see someone saying a word like that in a fit of unclear rage without, on some level, actually thinking of the person, or at least their [insert minority here] in that way.
Because, I just can’t see myself saying a word like that to someone in a fit of rage. If I were mad at a black friend and was logically trying to figure out the worst thing to say to them, sure, I might call them the N word (same goes for any minority). But in a fit of rage, especially unclear rage, I’ve always found what I say is something I really feel, on some level. And those words are not something I connect to any of my minority friends.
For example, I have one friend, he’s gay. He’s also obese, sometimes smells, and is struggling a lot with finding work. I’m about 99.9% sure that if I were Snape and he were Lily in that situation, that word fag would not enter the equation. What I would probably do is call him some variation of “stinking, fat fuck up,” maybe with some addition about dieing young and alone. Because those are things I really think about, on some level.
And to me, if I friend really thinks of me in a term like that, that would make it hard for me to keep up the relationship even if he weren’t hanging out with a bad crowed. Coupled with hanging out with a bunch of bigots who hate my minority, and I’d be out of there, at least until he changed in some fundamental way (and who knows what Lily would have done if Snape had gone a different path?).
Basically, I agree with you that Snape, at that point, was not the equivalent of a Neo-Nazi, nor were his friends. But his friends, at least, were wannbe Neo-Nazis, and if my friend were hanging out with a bunch of wanna-be Neo-Nazis, even when I told him it made me very uncomfortable, and then he called me a Kike? It’s not worth it. Honestly, there are some lines you don’t cross and remain my friend, and no mitigating factor can change that. (OTOH, I’d like to think that James-like bullying is another such line, but that’s a different story).
Wow, that was long. I guess that I’ve just always found Lily’ actions really justifiable in this case, despite being a Snape fan.
--Agnes_Bean on LJ, here from hogwarts_today
and no, you can't really call an anti-Muggleborn a 'racist', but that term is bandied about because bloodcist is just stupid. ;-) really, it's for lack of a better term.
but it's no different than being prejudiced against blacks or -- probably more apt -- jews. in fact, i bet in determining how someone is a Half-Blood or no, Rowling used Hitler's "who's a jew" standards, with tweaks where appropriate to her story.
that doesn't make it any more or less racist.
i don't understand where you're coming from. actually, i understand where you're coming from; i just don't understand where you're going.
i think the reason why people use 'racist' in this regard is because it more aptly encapsulates the issue, more so than saying 'classist' or 'ageist' or what-have-you.
it's a way of bringing everyone to the same understanding on how bad the anti-Muggleborn mentality is. we don't have any modern example -- or understanding -- of rampant classism that matches the examples of racism that we have had in recent history and even in the now. so it's a way of bridging the two concepts.
i don't think anyone truly considers a blood-status a 'race'; that's not the issue. it's really just a way of saying, "you know, like racism..." without having to say, "you know, like racism..." which clogs discussions with an unnecessary need to clarify.
no, half-blood, pureblood, muggleborn... they are not races, but they are also not real. and a way to bridge concepts is to equate one with something that is real.
no one has claimed that anti-Muggleborn is the Unpardonable Sin, have they? but for Lily, considering the environment that was going on, the fact that they were deep friends before, the fact that he was turning to people who helped foster the anti-MB environment, the fact that he lashed out using a term that is supposed to be as strong as nigger. all these things means that, for Lily, it may have been unforgivable.
people forget, and I insist that Rowling ret-conned this, that Lily and Snape were already friends for a LONG time, even if they were drifting apart for awhile. and she comes to his rescue, this friend, and he looks are her square in her face -- his friend -- and says nigger.
and yes, i deliberately used the N-word instead of mudblood, because it's hard to feel the sting of a made-up word in a made-up world. but THAT is how deep it is MEANT to be.
it's like if you lived in pre-Nazi Germany, and your friend suddenly called you some hateful term that the rising National Socialists used to refer to jews. it has tons more meaning: it means that this growing environment of hostility, where you're hated for being things you cannot control, has been accepted by the long-time friend.
it's not JUST that he said Mudblood. It's that he said it to HER, being her friend, meaning it -- even if for a moment.
your other examples of benign bloodism is true. but it's the same with benign racism. all these things have their parallelisms with real-world -isms, but they most completely fit with racism.
is it prejudice? certainly. but that word is too... tame to represent what anti-MB attitudes are supposed to represent.
so it's a completely moot point on whether WE -- the readers -- should consider blood purists to be racists; because Rowling does, and she made them have extreme views in order to drive home the point. She said it in interviews, she's said it in the books -- it's there.
blood purism = racism.
Oddly enough the class and blood purity issues to me read more akin to Nazism and the 'do anything for the purity of the Aryan race' than racism (which to me is prejudice + institutional racism + privilege or to simplify it. PREJUDICE + POWER).
To me, a harrassed and shamed and bullied Snape shouted the equivalent of 'You filthy Jew!'. And the shock was all about him having said such a thing aloud. It's not something discussed.
I realize that for other people they're trying to think of Muggle-borns in the context of people who are bi-racial. But to me, they haven't got enough of a handle on on the black and white of things to go using analogies involving those of mixed race.
The othering of Muggles and Muggle-borns seems to have more to do with "They look just like us but they do things differently!". There is also a healthy dose of fear. After all the wizarding world is a minority in a world where Muggles have spread out with their technology and beliefs.
It's far more akin to the furor that Hitler tried to stir up about the Jews owning all the banks and controlling everything to keep good Germans down. The Jewish people being a group that was once in the minority in the country now being seen as having comfortable positions of power. Just like how the Wizards didn't have to hide who and what they were until Muggles were in a position of some significant control of the world.
So I guess I agree with you that racism is entirely the wrong tack to take with this but not because racism is a fuzzy highly charged word. It's not fuzzy to me. Though perhaps thinking of it like that is why lot of HP fans are more comfortable trying to think of racism in terms of white Lily Potter and white Severus Snape and unpardonable things one is never to think or say (without looking at why those words exist in the first place).
Hmm, if I were a better Mod I'd invite you to
Would you mind, however, if I linked you? (You likely don't want to repost in some rather half dead atm comm)