Snapedom

It isn't just about quibbling about small details. Calling prejudice to Muggle-borns as racism makes it impossible to ask what is it about acceptance of Muggle-borns that makes some purebloods want it to stop. It is racism, therefore it is wrong therefore it has to just stop. When Rowling wants readers to make the equation she is asking us to assume the reasons purebloods want to stop the acceptance of Muggle-borns are the same as the reasons white-supremacists want to stop integration of races in western societies and the only correct solution is the continued admittance and integration of Muggle-borns. And we are only invited to look at it as the equivalent of white-supremacism and the like - ie a privileged group scrambling to maintain its status. Why isn't it the equivalent of, say, a tribe in the Amazon that knows that exposure to the outside world and integration of outsiders will soon bring an end to its culture and way of life? (Thanks smallpotato/marionros for this analogy.) Or maybe it is neither - we can't know without looking at the facts.

Regretably the facts appear contradictory, the population dynamics weren't worked out consistently by Rowling and we have to fill in gaps. We do not know how many Muggle-borns enter Hogwarts each year, though as Rowling keeps changing her mind it seems the number is less than we were led to think originally. We do not know how many students in total are in a typical Hogwarts year, though we have one year where the number was 40 and another where it was over 100. Right now I am inclined to think that Harry's year had no more than 5-6 Muggleborns (Hermione in Gryffindor, 1 in Ravenclaw, Justin and 2-3 others in Hufflepuff - Terri convinced me elsewhere that Muggle society teaches Hufflepuff values and students that spent several years in Muggle schools are more likely to Sort into that House than any other). If we assume Harry's year (and Ginny's, and the one following) were unusually small because of the war we can have a magical society of some 10,000 where Muggle-borns are about 5% in total. How well are Muggle-borns doing in Wizardng Britain? We don't really know. It can be argued any odd way. We do not know how many Ministry employees are Muggle-born, but we do know that after the removal of those who were known as such from their positions the Ministry managed its business as usual. Is this because Ministry hiring practices discriminated against Muggle-borns or is it simply because there aren't that many Muggle-borns in the first place? We see Muggleborn refugees in the countryside and Diagon Alley, implying these people had no support, neither in the Wizarding World or outside it - but then those who did have such support would be invisible to us. So we don't really know if at peaceful times Muggle-borns face any hurdles in wizarding society beyond dirty looks from a handful of people and not being familiar with wizarding fairy-tales and other elements of wizarding home life.

With all the assumption that Muggle-borns are entitled an entry to wizarding society simply for being magical and anything else would be racist we cannot examine the question if Hogwarts education and entry into magical society is what best serves the needs of Muggle-born children and whether they would have chosen that life for themselves had they known all the facts in time. Nor can we argue if this is best for the wizarding world, or even the Muggle world - because we are supposedly excusing racism. And even if one might be able to understand that the unqualified integration of Muggle-borns may have negative consequences to some, if we just use the term racism we can't allow any other approach.