![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
If we carry through on the racism/blood prejudice equivalency...
was James Potter a racist of the worst order?
Think back to the Snape's Worst Memory scene. Remember when Lily asks James just what Severus ever did to him? The reply from James was, "it's more the fact that he exists if you know what I mean. . ." Most people, IMO, interpret that to mean the bully's "natural" prey instinct had kicked in, but what if we are going to carry through on the claim that anti-Muggle and Muggleborn prejudice is equivalent to racism.
These boys were born in 1960, and it was not until 1967 that Loving v. Virginia struck down anti-miscegenation laws in the US. Ahhh, you say, stop trying to apply American standards and baggage to Brits. So let's look at Rowling's model: Anti-miscegenation laws were enforced in Nazi Germany. They were also enforced in South Africa between 1949 and 1985. So....was Snape's existence the result of a violation of the law? How many half-bloods did we see in the Marauder era? And even if it's not illegal, was it considered shameful by a large segment of the Wizarding population? No, it wasn't by Harry's time, but mores change. Is that part of what James meant when he said it was that Severus existed? He added "if you know what I mean", which is the nod-nod, wink-wink of a racist, roughly equivalent to the loaded statements characters in Seinfeld used to make about homosexuals, always followed up with the tag line: "Not that there's anything wrong with that." (nod, nod, wink, wink). It's also the shrug and eye-roll that accompanies many whites' comments about Native Americans, with the apparent idea that they can imply the most outrageously racist things, and it doesn't count because they trail off towards the end. But their buddies all know what they meant, so they're covered either way.
I can almost hear the howls of outrage. ;-) You idiot, they say, he was married to LILY, the ultimate poster child for Muggle-borns. But...
How many friends did James Potter have who were not pureblood? I mean friends, as opposed to hangers-on or sycophants. We know he was married to Lily, obviously. Which means that he made an exception for his own behavior, not uncommon at all for bigots. And yes, he "befriended" Lupin the werewolf in school. But how much did he do after school, when Lupin was not a dorm-mate and, later, a prefect in a position to choose between admiring them or blowing the whistle on Sirius and him? Rowling said in her interviews post-DH that James was independently wealthy, which allowed James and Sirius not to worry about having jobs, so they could "work" for the Order full-time. Note that she does not include Lupin in James' largesse, which according to her extended to James' wife and Sirius, who just happened to be pure-blooded.
These boys were born in 1960, and it was not until 1967 that Loving v. Virginia struck down anti-miscegenation laws in the US. Ahhh, you say, stop trying to apply American standards and baggage to Brits. So let's look at Rowling's model: Anti-miscegenation laws were enforced in Nazi Germany. They were also enforced in South Africa between 1949 and 1985. So....was Snape's existence the result of a violation of the law? How many half-bloods did we see in the Marauder era? And even if it's not illegal, was it considered shameful by a large segment of the Wizarding population? No, it wasn't by Harry's time, but mores change. Is that part of what James meant when he said it was that Severus existed? He added "if you know what I mean", which is the nod-nod, wink-wink of a racist, roughly equivalent to the loaded statements characters in Seinfeld used to make about homosexuals, always followed up with the tag line: "Not that there's anything wrong with that." (nod, nod, wink, wink). It's also the shrug and eye-roll that accompanies many whites' comments about Native Americans, with the apparent idea that they can imply the most outrageously racist things, and it doesn't count because they trail off towards the end. But their buddies all know what they meant, so they're covered either way.
I can almost hear the howls of outrage. ;-) You idiot, they say, he was married to LILY, the ultimate poster child for Muggle-borns. But...
How many friends did James Potter have who were not pureblood? I mean friends, as opposed to hangers-on or sycophants. We know he was married to Lily, obviously. Which means that he made an exception for his own behavior, not uncommon at all for bigots. And yes, he "befriended" Lupin the werewolf in school. But how much did he do after school, when Lupin was not a dorm-mate and, later, a prefect in a position to choose between admiring them or blowing the whistle on Sirius and him? Rowling said in her interviews post-DH that James was independently wealthy, which allowed James and Sirius not to worry about having jobs, so they could "work" for the Order full-time. Note that she does not include Lupin in James' largesse, which according to her extended to James' wife and Sirius, who just happened to be pure-blooded.
Re: Brilliant!
I do not think you can equate house prejudice with racism based on blood status. And I think that Rowling, et al, are taking the position that it's GOOD to be biased against Slytherin because that's where the anti-Muggleborn racists are. And that one can, in fact, choose not to be in Slytherin...just look at Harry.
The problem I have with that is that we see the *exact opposite* in Snape's story. He is welcomed by Slytherin House when he sorts there, by prefect Lucius Malfoy, no less. BTW, in Chapter 4 ("Eileen Prince's Son") of 1981, we specifically address Severus' first year in Hogwarts and a discussion he has with Lucius and Narcissa Black on just how Slytherin House treats half-bloods. Please forgive the plug. ;-)
Anyway, it is the Gryffindors, specifically Sirius Black and James Potter, who object to Severus' very *existence* and James Potter who offers the justification for what, looking back, would appear to be a racially motivated attack if we are going to follow Rowling's equation of blood prejudice with racial hatred. And yet it appears she would have us hold Slytherin responsible. Down the rabbit hole....
Re: Brilliant!
I do see that you might find that "iffy", but I get the strong impression that you can. You see, I keep coming back to that statement of Dumbledore's "it is our choices, more than our abilities, that show what we truly are". And then there are a couple of Rowling's own statements - the recent one where she was trying to blame all of Harry's bad temper in OOTP (oddly, the thing that made me think he was finally growing up and caused me to emphathize with him!) on the fragment of Tom Riddle within him, for example. And then the very strange one about how the drop of Harry's blood within Riddle would give him the chance to repent, "but, of course, he wouldn't". She really does come across as a Calvinist. And, in her universe, if you are sorted into Slytherin, you are damned (apparently) and it is *right* for all the Gryffindors to be prejudiced against you. How this apparent message sorts with an anti-prejudice message is beyond me. I'm also, of course, very bothered by the anti-Muggle sentiment in these books, which Lily and James seem to share with everyone else in the Wizarding World, and which leads quite naturally - indeed, I'd say inevitably - to anti-Muggleborn racism.
Maybe the real problem here is that the books are just incoherent.
Re: Brilliant!
But first get some people to agree that it's morally objectionable to be prejudiced against the entire house of Slytherin... *sigh*
Re: Brilliant!
There really is a strong implication in the books that Slytherins are born evil. And I truly hate that attitude, and tend to want to argue violently against it. But I think you understand that!
Re: Brilliant!
Same here. I think we are on exactly the same page, as far as what we want to do: emphasize the seriousness of ALL of the forms of prejudice in the Potterverse. (And in real life--I mean, was Matthew Shepard's torture and execution any less serious for being motivated by sexual orientation rather than race?) We just have differing approaches to accomplishing that same end. You're saying, These prejudices are serious too, so let's call them "racism" because people take racism seriously and that will hit the point home. I am saying, These prejudices are serious too, so let's broaden the discussion past "racism" to encompass all other forms of prejudice and see that they are equally serious. I don't think we should have to call it "racism" to get people to take it seriously.
So, yeah, we both agree on the problem and the desired goal. We're just taking different approaches to it.
(And, on a side note, I'm not sure everyone agrees that racism is a serious problem, otherwise we wouldn't see people refusing to vote for Obama "because he's black.")
Re: Brilliant!
And that right there is part of my problem with increasing punishment based on the idea that it's a "hate crime". What happened to Shepard was incredibly heinous and should be punished most severly no matter *what* the motive was. They could have just picked a random person for no reason at all, and should get the maximum possible punishment for what they did. Similarly, does it really matter *why* the Marauders were so nasty to Severus? The bottom line is their behavior is unacceptable, no matter what their motive was.
Re: Brilliant!
That reminds me, it's been a while since I last watched "What the Bleep Do We Know?" ;-) Which movie I generally enjoy, even if I take Ramtha with a 40-pound bag of rock salt--but even Ramtha makes more sense than JKR, overall.