Snapedom

*Kicks self across room.*
James’s specific claim to non-racist fame is, “I would never call you a you-know-what.”

I don’t know how it is/was in Britain, but when I was growing up in America, by the late sixties, certain racial epithets were considered absolutely vulgar while racist attitudes were still considered natural and normal. Only poor white trash would use the n-word: you know, those stupid, ugly, poor, ill-educated, inbred people like the Gaunts and Carrows, whose only possible claim to consider anyone else inferior is that they at least aren’t filthy you-know-whats. My mother would have washed out my mouth with soap in 1970 if I had used the n-word, but a few years back she was totally comfortable advising my sister to remove my niece from her pre-school because her friends there—guess which color—would teach her bad habits. My mom was open and unashamed—because she takes it for granted that she IS superior, by being white and in other ways. But it’s terribly rude and vulgar to insist on it by using the cruder terms. One uses code words instead. My mother would NEVER call anyone a you-know-what.

I know from reading Dorothy Sayers that as recently as the thirties, using racist epithets did not apparently mark a character, as lower-class. And, of course, the wizarding world in general seems... conservative. So what was the situation in real Britain in the seventies, and how does that intersect with the whole Nature’s Nobility theme?

Is it, in fact, possible that the Blacks and Malfoys are overcompensating nouveaux riches? That tapestry sure doesn’t go back very far…. (And given the longer wizarding lifespan, nouveaux would be a relative term.)