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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.
Re: James, race, and class
And, of course, about Snape, who often shows the most honest care for Harry. But we are supposed to dislike him, and Harry HATES him, because he is not *nice* to Harry in how he speaks to him.
Similarly, we are supposed to conclude that James is superior to Severus based on two things: (1) he's a Gryffindor; and (2) he says he would never call Lily a Mudblood. We never actually see any evidence of James' superiority, and indeed when we do see him, he is acting as a bigoted, nasty bully and abuser.
Is it, in fact, possible that the Blacks and Malfoys are overcompensating nouveaux riches?
I thought it was well established that the Blacks really were an old family. But the Malfoys....it always seemed a bit like they were trying too hard. While at the same time, the Weasleys struck me as more the stereotypical old, established upper class (or, in the Wizarding World, an old</i> pureblood family). Not that JKR ever trafficked in stereotypes. ;-)
Re: James, race, and class
"On Aristocracy
Also, fanon tended to portray Snape as an aristocrat, and got a nasty shock when HBP showed us his real background. Many fanwriters still refuse to accept that he isn't some sort of darkly brooding nobleman. But it was obvious from the first that Snape was lower middle class at best. Real aristocrats don't swish about in elegant robes being all austere and reserved and speaking in purring, silky tones; they have hard carrying cut-glass voices which can slay at thirty paces and wear old clothes covered in dog drool and get into fights in pubs, because they have an absolute cast-iron certainty that whatever they do must be the right thing to do because it's them that's doing it.
Dumbledore, with his eccentricity and his lurid clothes and his game-playing and his illiterate, goat-shagging brother is an aristocrat. Snape is a working class boy who tries too hard.
By the same token, it's obvious that the Weasleys are far older and posher than the Malfoys, and Lucius knows it and resents it. There's a saying about the British class system that "The people who matter don't mind, and the people who mind don't matter." Lucius is far too touchy about how much class he has to actually have any. "
http://members.madasafish.com/~cj_white
Re: James, race, and class
Time and again, we see anti-Slytherin prejudice in the HP books, the Gryffindors getting the upper hand and humiliating them. It's the natural order. Slytherin House is the locus of Eveel, even to the end of the story, when Harry gives his terrified son an "out" of Slytherin, because who would want to be one of them if they didn't have to be?
And yet, Slytherin House generates the Nazis, or so we are told. Nobody asks why... they were born that way! Let the separation of the Houses continue!
Contradictions upon contradictions. It all makes me wonder why Peter Pettigrew became a Death Eater, although I think the answer is supposed to be cowardice.