On racism in the Potterverse-

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

This quote was in our advent bulletin, and it struck me very strongly.
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.

That, of course, is C.S. Lewis. I believe the quote is taken from Mere Christianity. Once upon a time, when the Potter books were becoming enormously popular, Rowling gave an interview - I think in Time magazine. In this interview, she took some pains to distinguish herself from C.S. Lewis. One thing I remember her saying is that her books were different from his because, in hers, the children would be allowed to grow up. One can ask whether, in the end, the trio did grow up. I rather think not. But that's not the major difference I see in the two authors' works.

If you read the Narnia books attentively, you can see that Lewis really believed the extraordinary statement he made above. Yes, from a modern pov, one can read him as racist and sexist. But NO ONE in the Narnia books is condemned because of their birth, social status, or genetic heritage. Everyone has free will and everyone, in the end, can choose to come to Aslan's country. It's up to them whether they will so choose or not.

In the Potter books, there is a sort of Venn diagram of specialness. The vast majority of people are Muggles. They cannot even see Hogwarts, and the special people treat them, at best, with condescension. Inside this large circle is a tiny one, of all the Witches and Wizards. They are the real human beings, the people who matter. Inside this tiny circle, again, is another circle, consisting of perhaps 1/4 of the magical people. These are the Gryffindors, and they are the elect.*

Nobody can choose to be magical, as Calormenes like Emeth and Aravis, Dwarves like Poggin and Trumpkin, beasts like Reepicheep and Puzzle, and ordinary humans like the Pevensie parents can choose to love Aslan. If Muggles could choose magic, Petunia would surely have accompanied Lily to Hogwarts. She didn't. You are either born a Wizard, or you're nothing.

Nor, some fans to the contrary, do you get to choose whether you're a Gryffindor. We've all beaten this dead horse repeatedly, I know, but it's worth repeating. Dumbledore does not tell Harry that our choices make us what we are. He says our choices show what we are. If we choose to be in Gryffindor, that is because we are predestined to be among the elect. If we choose to be in Slytherin, then there is probably no help for us - at least, not as far as I can see.

Against this background of extreme privilege, Rowling attempts to tell a story in which racism is the primary evil. The fact that every Witch and Wizard we see is racist against Muggles simply doesn't matter - because Muggles don't matter. And there is no analysis, in the books, of how anti-Muggle racism leads naturally to anti-Muggleborn racism. It's perfectly okay to mock and torment the Dursleys. But it's not okay to mock and torment Hermione, who is a Witch. It's especially not okay to mock Harry, the hero.

Contrast this, again, with Lewis. He says, ...it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit–immortal horrors or everlasting splendours...Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.

Quite a contrast, isn't it? Whatever you think of Lewis, ask yourself this: what sort of boy would Harry have become if he had realized, even for one moment, that Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were immortals?

Just a thought.

Comments

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Whatever you think of Lewis, ask yourself this: what sort of boy would Harry have become if he had realized, even for one moment, that Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were immortals?

Oh, very good question. As you probably know, I agree with you so much about why Rowling's supposed Christian allegory falls horribly flat (and worse), and this is a major part of it. Also, the point that anti-Muggle prejudice leads to anti-Muggleborn prejudice, yes, I totally agree. (One of the most shudder-worthy analyses of the books I read was one that pointed out that Harry was Just Like Jesus because, among other reasons, they both had two natures: human/divine and Muggle/wizard. Ick ick ick.)

I do disagree slightly with the use of 'race' as the term, however. Not because anti-Muggle/born prejudice is 'not as bad' as our-world racism (of course it's just as bad), but because of the way that it fails to take the particular situation of Muggleborns into account. It ends up collapsing race, talent and abledness together in a very icky way, due to how the HP books are written and how magical inheritance works in them (raisingal has a good essay on this). So I guess I'd prefer 'blood prejudice' or 'anti-Muggle/born prejudice,' although those are not perfect either since they perhaps do not really have the same immediate sense of "-ism = prejudice + power" that racism, sexism, etc. have. But at least they avoid the ickiness around abledness and talent.

Which is not to say that any of your points are wrong - they're not, you hit the nail on the head. Even the most 'enlightened' characters are rather...icky. Arthur, for example, or Dumbledore. But at least it helps explain (sadly) how Hermione can end up feeling the right to mind-wipe her parents as if they had no right to have a say in the matter.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And I understand your problem with the word "race"; anti-Muggleborn prejudice seems to me much more like the prejudice of the Inquisition against Jewish and Muslim Conversos in Spain. I've said so before, and shouldn't really have used the word "racism", which is inaccurate here.

I would love to know who wrote that shudder-worthy analysis. So wizards are divine, are they? That is indeed icky!

Glad you liked the essay!

[granatapfelrot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's just so weird and rather disgusting.
Hermione and Lily both are the daughters of the equivalent of shaved apes in the value system of the WW, to say it bluntly, so it's only logical, that wizards would be suspicious of them at the very least.
Everything else doesn't make a lick of sense!
In GoF Harry actually defends Hermione with the words 'she's a witch'. I don't remember the specifics, it was a scene with Malfoy at the Quidditch World Cup, I think.
And there is Ron's remark, that inbreeding might ruin/kill magical people or something like that. Is there some brainwashing going on in the WW to make Muggles and Muggleborns attractive as breeding stock? No wonder, that the traditional Purebloods are appalled over Dumbledore and his ideas...
Or maybe the Purebloods see Muggles as animals and Dumbledore's side sees them as people who are somewhat disabled and pitiful?

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's what gets to me. Given what we see in the Wizarding World, the Death Eaters' beliefs are more logical than anyone else's. To make things worse, in an interview, Rowling asserted that all "Muggleborns" actually had some wizarding ancestry - making the Death Eaters even more right. Sionna_Raven cited that interview. She was shocked. I am, too.

And I do think we're supposed to believe that the "good guys" see Muggleborns as disabled, while the "bad guys" see them as animals. Don't get me started on how everyone treats animals in this series!

[sunnyskywalker]

What I want to know is, where did the first wizard come from, then? Interbreeding with magical species? (And where did they come from? Are all non-magical species today the result of some ancient ancestor losing the magic genes passed down from the first, magical organism, while a few species held onto them?) Are wizards literally not entirely human?

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

----To make things worse, in an interview, Rowling asserted that all "Muggleborns" actually had some wizarding ancestry - making the Death Eaters even more right. Sionna_Raven cited that interview. She was shocked. I am, too. She says the same thing in a footnote on page 83 of Beedle.

While the "rogue" ability to perform magic sometimes appears in in those of apparent non-magical descent (though several later studies have suggested there will have been a witch or wizard somewhere on the family tree), Muggles cannot perform magic.

Since magical ability appears to be an inherited trait, this does make some sense. But I think the genetics of magical ability could be complicated enough for it to be possible for two parents without any full-fledged wizarding ancestors to produce a wizarding child. I prefer to believe that magical ability lies on a spectrum rather than being a dichotomous trait, meaning that most people are at least a little magical.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

Or another possibility is that everyone has a witch or wizard somewhere on their family tree, sort of like how everyone has royalty on their family tree if you go back far enough.

[sunnyskywalker]

Maybe that first-ever cell back in the primordial soup was magical, but most species eventually lost or had the magic genes disabled, and human wizards and witches are the equivalent of those occasional people who have tails or fur due to some ancient gene accidentally being switched back on? Not that I'm clear enough on how this would work to spin a plausible theory... It's times like these I'm especially sorry my biology teacher was about as competent as Trelawney.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Wow... does anybody else really feel the urge to smack JKR upside the head the next time she claims to be writing about racism and prejudice? In a different era this woman could have been the spokesperson for the eugenics movement.

*shudders*

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Actually, if she had followed through and shown us that Dumbledore was a creep and imperfectly repentant, that Snape was a hero, and that the Wizarding World as a whole stood in need of reform, I'd think these books were pretty brilliant. They ended up a mess, IMHO, because she was too kind to Harry and, for whatever reason, couldn't show Dumbledore to be the only-partially-reformed villain that he was.*

Flannery O'Connor famously said that there are two sins against art: pornography and sentimentality. Rowling's sin is sentimentality towards Harry and the Gryffindors, IMHO. If this makes sense?

*Of course, we can spot these things. We all have! But I just get such a strong feeling that Rowling didn't intend them. I would love to ask her what she did intend. I really would.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

I agree. She seemed to be heading in that direction, but just couldn't do it for some reason. The worst part is that she seems to be so in love with some of her characters that she refuses to see any of their faults as being so. For example, if she had intentionally written Harry as a bratty, self-centered jock, then that would be one thing, but apparently she is completely unaware that there is anything wrong with him.

I would love to ask her about it, though I am afraid that I might have a difficult time keeping it civil. She has been spoiled enough by her fans that I have a hard time being sympathetic.

[sunnyskywalker]

She has all the setup and goes nowhere with it. It's so sad. And frustrating.

I wonder if the series really did go off the rails for good when she chickened out of killing Arthur. I mean, the series had some problems already at that point, but maybe that's where her sentimentality really took over and she started backpedaling on making a lot of her favorite characters' flaws bite them without actually removing the flaws. Exhibit A: Dumbledore and His Dodgy Backstory. She couldn't help putting in the nifty stuff she'd thought up for him, but wouldn't follow through with it either.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

"Given what we see in the Wizarding World, the Death Eaters' beliefs are more logical than anyone else's."

Absolutely, their views are just so obviously the logical result of their society's values, it's hard to criticise them for holding them. It's like raising somebody in a society where everybody is convinced that the Jews are part of an international conspiracy to take over the world, and then acting all shocked when they grow up to be an anti-Semite.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Yes, that's what gets to me. Given what we see in the Wizarding World, the Death Eaters' beliefs are more logical than anyone else's.

Well, but logic is for us, inferior Muggles. Good wizards don't need logic.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Aha! Now I understand. All Death Eaters are Vulcans! Bwahahahaha...

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Well, Snape and Spock....

[sunnyskywalker]

Voldemort did want to live long and prosper... though after he shredded his soul he lost his logic XD

Speaking of Snape and Spock: Halfbloods

I bet AOS!Spock and Snape would have an excellently logical gripefest about being stuck teaching dunderheads (though I bet Spock has fewer dunderheads, teaching at a more advanced level - we know he has at least one brilliant student - but I'm sure he still has plenty of instances of inadequate and illogical student behavior to complain about).

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Voldemort did want to live long and prosper... though after he shredded his soul he lost his logic XD

I laughed aloud at that line. It's true!