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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.
No, I do not think for a minute that *Rowling* thought that James et al were racist or that the possibility ever entered her head. But the thing is: when she insists that her books are a "plea for tolerance" and explicitly invokes the Nazi example, there is no privilege that says she gets to stop half-way. Of course, I do not think we are bound by this interpretation (I refuse to use the phrase "interpretive gloss" for anything so heavy-handed), which I think is part of what bohemianspirit was arguing in her post. And in that discussion, I said that I really did not think we all wanted to go there.
But because of the insistence (and quite right it is, too), that Rowling intended us to go there, I thought we should see just where it takes us. And yes, it appears to me to lead us to the clear conclusion that the woman used a cheap, easy, and lazy shorthand with no thought for what she was portraying. And it infuriates me because she repeatedly states publicly that she intends her protagonists to be an example to children of how to behave.
So I come back in the end to the idea that Rowling's statements, including her delusion that she wrote a plea for tolerance, belong in the bin. And we can take the world she cobbled together from all the sources from which she "borrowed" and have fun with it in fanfic, etc., with our own interpretations.
Godwin's Law
Godwin has stated that he formulated the law in 1990 as an experiment in memetics.
Re: Godwin's Law
Does this mean Rowling loses because she brought up the Nazis? She certainly lost me the minute Snape and Yaxley gave that salute!
Re: Godwin's Law