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deathtocapslock* Jeans and a t-shirt seems like quite a scruffy combination for a hearing, even if they are freshly laundered. Doesn’t Harry have a suit or something he could wear?
* So why is it again that moving Harry to No. 12 required a small battalion of witches and wizards to keep him safe, but taking him to the Ministry requires just one middle-aged guy?
* Kudos to Mr. Weasley for getting excited about automatic ticket machines, instead of just assuming that they’re an inferior substitute for magic like everyone else does. Still, it does make one wonder why he hasn’t learnt more about Muggle technology.
* To enter the Ministry, type 62442. This is where the letters MAGIC are on a numberpad. Just thought I’d point that out.
* Nothing triumphalist about that Statue of Magical Harmony at all, is there? Still, it does make the pureblood supremacists look a bit less bad. Wizards clearly think that they’re better than sapient magical creatures; all Mr. Malfoy et al. want to do is add sapient non-magical creatures to the statue.
* So does St. Mungo’s rely on charity to keep itself afloat, then? ’Cause you’d have thought that the WW would be able to fund at least one hospital, especially if it’s literally the only hospital available to them. But then, why get people to donate to it at all, if you can just fund it out of general taxation? And why would people put coins in the well? After all, you never hear people saying “I think the NHS is such a good thing, I’m going to voluntary pay more tax to help fund it.”
* And do we ever see the Department for Experimental Breeding investigate Hagrid?
* An “Official Gobstones Club” just sounds silly to me. Yes, let’s have all these senior governmental officials using public office space to play a game which squirts foul-smelling liquid into your face! I mean, I get that the HP books have a lot of whimsy in them, but the series is supposed to be growing up at this point. Official Gobstones Clubs just don’t fit with the serious atmosphere JKR’s trying to create.
* Does a society as small as the WW really need such a big government? Or are they all just so stupid that they need two bureaucrats to every normal citizen to constantly tell them what to do?
* The fact that the Goblin Liaison Office is part of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magic Creatures should tell you all you need to know about the wizarding world’s mindset when it comes to other sentient beings.
* If it’s any consolation, though, the Goblins do control the WW’s only bank. I bet they laugh about the wizards whilst secretly holding the Minister to ransom by threatening to use their power to take down the entire wizarding economy.
* A bit like Jews in anti-Semitic literature, now that I come to think of it. Normally, I’d just brush this off as a coincidence, and say that anyone trying to compare Goblins and Jews is reading too much into the text. In light of the fact that Rowling constantly bludgeons us over the head with her heavy-handed Nazi analogies, though…
* Oh, and now they have a “Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee” as part of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. Once again, “Muggle” is being used as a term of abuse, despite the fact that it’s the Wizarding World, not the Muggle, which is a corrupt, authoritarian, nepotistic dictatorship which breeds Dark Lords like a rotting log breeds toadstools.
* Once again, though, it makes the Pureblood Supremacists look a bit better. After all, if you were brought up to believe that Muggles were inherently stupid, wouldn’t you want to keep their (no doubt equally stupid) offspring at arm’s length?
* In fact, sod it – the Supremacists are actually better than mainstream society. At least their sense of superiority is consistent with their society’s views on Muggles – none of that hypocritical “Oh, Muggles are stupid and inferior – but whatever you do, don’t say so!” crap.
* And now I’m going to shut up on the topic for the rest of this chapter, lest my blood pressure climbs to unhealthy levels.
* Percy appears to have walked out of the photograph. So does this mean that magical photographs are able to know and react to events around them? But how would Photo!Percy have known about the argument? And isn’t there a scene later in the book when Moody shows Harry a picture of the Order of the Phoenix, and Harry thinks something along the lines of “They had no idea that they’d shortly be killed”? Probably Arthur’s removed his son himself.
* So why was the hearing time changed? Was it just to discredit Harry by making him look too arrogant to show up to his own hearing? But then, surely it would emerge that he was meant to turn up several hours later, thereby defeating the purpose of the change?
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Date: 2011-03-19 10:42 pm (UTC)Quite obviously, the two of us live in very different worlds. What you can easily shrug off as a “satire”, to me is everyday reality of prejudice and intolerance. There's no such thing as “my white privilege” for me. And my apologies if I missed the tongue-in-cheek in your comments, but it sounded to me like you took the blog pretty seriously and considered it generally true yourself.
I believe the main purpose of the entry is to highlight the hypocrisy of people who talk about how important diversity and multiculturalism are yet do not live out those values in their daily lives. </ i>
I hope so. But the way it is done just screams the “false multiculturalism” where not all races, cultures etc. are considered equal, but where literally everything is better than to be white, and the only way to stay clear of being accused of racism is to constantly apologize for the offensively white color of your skin and penitently take everything the self-appointed arbiters of "tolerance and multiculturalism" decide to throw at you...
no subject
Date: 2011-03-19 11:42 pm (UTC)I don't deny that there might be white people this humor applies to. As in, with humor there tends to be elements of truth in it for the joke to be funny...but really I just don't see how some of it applies to me.
Apparently by this list I'm very bad at being a white person. Or my white-ness is on a totaly different level. I'm wondering what part of the country the author/blogger is from, that might explain a lot to me if I know his state or coast of origin.
Some of it comes across as more being what I would call fake people. As in people who pretend to be something they are not or like things they really don't. And I don't think thats exclusive to pale skinned people.
There was a post on the blog about the world cup, and I'll quote this sentance "Though you may be waiting on bated breath for your favorite sport on a global scale, white people like the World Cup because it allows them to pretend they are European for a few weeks, and more importantly, it allows them to get drunk at odd hours."
Now, don't get me wrong, I get that the world cup is popular. But honestly, I don't give a crap and I would not be so 'fake' to pretend to like something I don't give a crap about. I would be understanding if someone was excited and really like it, but I'd honestly rather not be involved. I barely have time for the stuff I do like, why do I want to go around being fake and involved with stuff I don't like?
I would not act like I need to like something to get drunk either. I have noticed that most people don't really need a reason to get drunk.
So, the site is sort of obnoxious humor and my assumption is it is meant to be funny to the those folks who get the humor but so far the stuff I read I kinda have to ask; who the hell are these white people?
no subject
Date: 2011-03-20 12:32 am (UTC)Some of it comes across as more being what I would call fake people. .... And I don't think thats exclusive to pale skinned people. This! (I have no idea if the author says “white people” and means some special sort of people, that is not so much distinguished by their colour as by their ignorance and delusions, it might be the case, but it really comes across like he means “white people” as in all Caucasians. And then I can't but feel offended.)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-20 04:22 am (UTC)Yes, because some of the blog posts and comments just make reference to it being exclusive to white people - or there is the 90% of white people or even with the comment I posted about the world cup made it out like American's were waiting specially for the world cup so they can act Eurpoean.
I mean seriously, are people this bored that they gotta pretend to like a sport they don't really like? WTH?
But, I hope mostly supposed to be a obnoxiously humor driven blog, maybe something to make you think a little, laugh, a little sarcasm mixed in with some wit.
Then again a lot of what I see on the list, or at least the reasons for the things being on the list are kinda, well frankly dumb. They don't seem to apply to me as a pale skinned person.
It's sort of like the joke starts out funny but the punchline doesn't make much sense.
And it could be that it's just over my head and I gotta be in that group of 'white' people to really get the humor. Thats why it almost feels like it's also partly regionally driven, like wherever the author lives and grew up is key to the humor of it.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-20 08:13 pm (UTC)Most of the ones I've encountered are white, which is more down to historical contingency than anything, but it can be relevant in that they will use the cry of "reverse racism!" any time anyone points out that hey, maybe being white means they've been treated differently their whole lives and so don't understand Issue X as well as they think - as if the person is just saying "you're white and so bad," instead of "you probably haven't had this experience because of how other people treat you vs. this guy, which is not your fault, but you might want to listen instead of assuming you're the expert." And they'll have the most appalling double standards - when some poor kid or black kid makes a mistake, it's a Bad Choice, but when some middle class white kid does, it's a Learning Experience, and any disadvantaged kid who can't handle working twice as hard for half the reward of the middle class kids is "lazy" or has a "victim mentality" - even if they know their own kids couldn't handle it either, and that all that means is that they aren't Superkids, like most people, and so don't judge them harshly for it. And then they'll talk about how awful it is that there's so much prejudice in the world. It's Dumbledorian, or at least Arthur Weasley-ish.
Gah. Sorry for the rant, but it's so frustrating when you have to deal with this all the time!
no subject
Date: 2011-03-20 12:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-20 01:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-20 02:41 am (UTC)And I don't honestly care if the *intent* is not to offend. Not all whites acting out of privilege intend to offend, but the hurt is still there. Why should that stop mattering when the one with pale skin is the offended party? There's a genuine and important difference between pointing out individual examples of hypocrisy and privilege, or discussing patterns of such behavior on the part of *some* white people, and making negative generalizations about all white people. But it seems to me that too often all white people are expected to put up with such generalizing and apologize for their race regardless of their own behavior; it's acceptable to treat them in ways it's not for people of other races and to apply the worst motivations to their every action. Which to me is, frankly, wrong. I thought the idea was to move towards seeing and treating people of all races equally, not turn the tables on who is victim and who is aggressor.
(Not ranting at you personally, just being frank. I hope I have not offended.)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-21 01:14 am (UTC)Yes! Thank you! I came across this site a few weeks ago when I was looking for a definition of the word "whitesplaining," and I definitely got the impression I was supposed to feel guilty about being white, and feel personally responsible for the white privilege built into our society centuries before I was born.
What you wrote is a lot of what I was getting at on the Dumbledore discussion, when I said I was tired of this attitude some minority fans of HP have towards Lily. That is, because the text wants us to regard her as a minority, and certain nonwhite fans have decided to adopt her as a minority role model, white fans are not allowed to criticize her even though she is white and lives in both a country and a subculture that are over 90% white. If a white person criticizes her, they're accused of being racist and/or misogynist (even if they're a woman). No other character gets this privileged treatment. In fact, her privileged position is the antithesis of racist oppression.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-21 06:30 am (UTC)JKR cheated so badly with her "minorities" actually being not minorities even in their fictional context that it's kind of offensive. Way to minimize all the actual prejudice in the world, Jo!
no subject
Date: 2011-03-20 04:34 am (UTC)You have a unicorn as your avi photo - that gives you free pass.
And it's just a dumb website, you didn't make it. It was probably made by some guy who had a hard time getting a girlfriend, so he needed to come up with something catchy to sell so he could get a woman.