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Rowling Offends Native Americans

I don't know if anyone on here heard about it, but Rowling is writing a new series of sorts called the History of Magic in America.

Not only does she seem to have done barely any research at all on American history (if there are any Americans on here, check it out and have a laugh!), but she also seems to have caused a bit of controversy as many Native Americans have found her portrayal of them to be backwards and offensive.

Can't say I'm surprised, I've always felt that in Potter fans could reread the books without their nostalgia goggles on they'd find the series has a lot of unfortunate implications and overall nastiness. Without the protective shield of nostalgia, it seems that people are starting to see the many of the faults of Rowling's writing that this community has been pointing out for years.

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She also added insult to injury by even refusing to respond to people's concerns.

From "Deathly Hollows," I gathered that Rowling is not particularly strong in the social sciences, so this story doesn't really surprise me.

There's an excellent interview with Dr. Adrienne Keene, courtesy CBC radio (http://www.cbc.ca/news/adrienne-keene-calls-j-k-rowling-s-new-series-a-slap-in-the-face-1.3487332).

Actually, I’d be curious to know how the Native American issue in regards to how a fantasy world relates to American history could be addressed. What would be less problematic? Would it be if the fantasy setting was heavily inspired by the U.S. but was fictional (i.e. how Arendelle in “Frozen” is heavily inspired by Norway, but is not actually Norway), so that characters coded as Native Americans could coexist with characters coded as European without any genocide being an elephant in the room? Or if the setting is supposed to be the U.S., maybe an alternate version of history where the genocides never happened? Or, to go along the lines of what JKR seems to be suggesting, if Native American wizards (or shamans, if that is a more accurate term) retreated to the hidden magical world before the Europeans came and thus were not affected by real-world history (similar to how British wizards did not intervene in WWII)?

Well, I'm not Native American so I can't speak for them, but I can think of one show that is (at least, in my experience) pretty much unanimously held up as an example of good representation in a fantasy franchise; Avatar: The Last Airbender.

The Avatar series is set in a fictional universe which is inspired by many different Asian and Native American cultures. Water Tribe of the Avatar world is pretty explicitly coded as Inuit in the show. There is, however, no European equivalent in the Avatar world; although the Water Tribe does face oppression from another culture; the Fire Nation (which is coded as East Asian).

Rowling is admittedly in a tricky situation since her Wizarding World is supposed to be set in the very world we live in today. (I think an AU would've worked best for the Potter-verse personally).
The main suggestions I'd have for Rowling is that she does proper and thorough research of American history, including Native American history and culture. The major things that people seem to be angered by were her reliance of outdated stereotypes, treating all Native tribes like a monolith culture, and disrespecting their religious practices. Most of these pitfalls, I think, can be avoided through proper research.

Yes, "Avatar the Last Airbender" is a great example. I think that what I was wondering about, though, is how to handle this issue in a modern, urban fantasy-like setting.

/(I think an AU would've worked best for the Potter-verse personally)/

By AU, do you mean if the Muggle world in the HP books was radically different from our world because of the existence of wizards? Or do you mean if the wizarding world was completely separate from the Muggle world and Harry spent all of his time in the wizarding world?

Like you said, JKR is in a bit of a bind because the Potterverse takes place in modern-day and the wizarding world, as isolated as it is, is still sometimes affected by real-world events. Many wizards, through being half-bloods or Muggle-borns, come from the Muggle world.

So, since the Muggle world in the Potter-verse is supposed to be the same as our world, sans the fact that wizards exist, then what would be the best way to explain why the genocides of the Native Americans still happened? Would it be that the Native American wizards had the same mindset as British wizards, i.e. "It's Muggle business, it's nothing to do with us, we don't want to get involved"? Would it be that the Native American wizards were far outnumbered by European Muggles (either because they also were not immune to diseases carried over by Europeans or wizards are naturally as much as a minority in the Americas as they are in Britain) and retreated to their hidden magical worlds for safety? Or would it be that Native American wizards were completely cut off from Muggles to begin with and existed in their own parallel worlds?

Edited 2016-03-21 16:06 (UTC)

Yes, I meant the former; that the existence of magic and the Wizarding World changed our world's history in certain ways. Like for example, in the Alternate Universe with Magic WWII never happened, but the Internet was never invented either. Stuff like that.

Well, before this series came out, I had my own head-canons about American wizards. I thought that the Native American wizards still lived openly among their people (much like the European wizards pre-secrecy). When the European wizards came to America they were shocked to find the Native wizards breaking secrecy and from then on were constantly trying to "convert" and "correct" their ways (leading to a lot of hostility between the two groups). In short, I figured that the white Wizards probably acted about the same as their non-magical counterparts, although, for different reasons.
The white "No-Majs" try to wipe out the Native Americans for the same reasons they did in reality (white supremacy, religious bigotry, manifest destiny); the white wizards refuse to intervene because they won't break secrecy, which enrages the Native wizards. The white wizards offer the Native wizards to live in secrecy with them and abandon their people, which the Native wizards refuse and just creates even more hostility.
Contrary to Rowling's vision, I'd imagine the wizards of America have just as many problems with racism as
the rest of their culture. I even thought, since in the Potterverse the WW is based on "old-fashioned" Britain; that the wizards of America are probably also "old-fashioned" and thus more racist then modern society is today.
(Also on a lighter note; since British wizards dress in robes and medieval style clothes, does that mean American wizards dress as Pilgrims?)

I can't imagine that there would have been much of a gulf between their opinions and their muggle neighbors' views, no. After all, they weren't officially separate from the muggle world for the first few decades of English colonization, and we see how close the communities are even after centuries of separation. A few individuals might feel differently, as in real life, because people are variable, but the group average? I'm not seeing the universal respect and friendship happening so easily... At least, not without a lot more serious worldbuilding to explain how things ended up so divergent.

And this initially porous muggle/magical boundary with increasing separation over the decades could have had all sorts of interesting consequences, especially when you factor in the supposedly longer lifespans of wizards. Maybe some families are still feuding about who sided with Britain and who with the rebels during the Revolutionary War. Heck, maybe there's still an enclave of Loyalists ruled by Britain within the geographical boundaries of the muggle USA! Or maybe the competing magical governments aren't separated by geography at all, since it matters so much less when you can teleport, and one wizarding family might be MACUSA citizens while their next-door neighbors are magical British citizens.

Or maybe something completely different happened. But pretty much anything would have been more interesting than what we got. Even what we got could have been more interesting if JKR had just done some research and created more solid foundations (and, you know, not relied on stereotypes and mashing hundreds of different cultures together and declaring that a particular religious tradition is just wrong according to her fake world's rules).

LOLing over the idea of wizards in Pilgrim hats. Someone who can draw needs to bring that to life.

Maybe your pro-Brit US wizards were the impetus behind the 'special friendship' between the US and the UK in the beginning. We'd had two wars with them, then, friends.

There are plenty of real-life historical and cultural reasons for that. We don't need wizards to explain it.

I know, but playing in an AU, could this be (at least one) reason?

Just wanted to share a link to a fanfic which, to my mind, beautifully illustrates that what was wrong in Rowling's latest installment was assuming that everybody everywhere shares the same basic conception of magic - Rowling's is very Eurocentric, and her lack of sensitivity and research does not only hurt the people affected, but the very world she is trying to build. What worked in the context of contemporary Britain started to fall apart already as she introduced other nations in GoF: there is enough cultural blindness and stereotyping going on there, too. But at least those are somewhat similar cultures...

Anyway, here's the link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6201754

Thanks for a link! I liked the fanfic's take on things!

I like that the Americas have many different schools.
I absolutely hated the fact that there's 3 schools in Europe while America, Asia and Africa only get one EACH!

Indeed. And let's spare a thought for Australia and Oceania who got zero schools :) Though considering the quality of the latest Pottermore offerings, maybe they got lucky.

For a few viewpoints on this, some links reposted from Jim Hines's blog:

http://nativeappropriations.com/2016/03/magic-in-north-america-part-1-ugh.html

https://walkerwrackspurt.wordpress.com/2016/03/09/magic-marginalization-et-tu-jk/

http://nkjemisin.com/2016/03/it-couldve-been-great/ *this one is especially interesting!!)

https://storify.com/CyborgN8VMari/why-it-burns-me

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/03/09/j-k-rowling-borrowed-a-navajo-legend-for-her-new-story-can-she-do-that/

And Twitter! https://twitter.com/hashtag/magicinnorthamerica?f=tweets&vertical=news&src=hash

Errm, I just posted a bunch of links that I thought this discussion might find interesting, but LJ tells me my post has been marked as spam.

Assuming this means it will soon be erased, try Jim Hines's LJ: http://jimhines.livejournal.com/832185.html

N. K. Jemison's is especially interesting!

I tried to mark it as not spam; hopefully it will show up now! :)

I have written a big long post (http://anticleaelegans.livejournal.com/51085.html) of rambling since this started. It's of value (or interest, at least), because I've curated a pretty exhaustive collection of pertinent links.

Edited 2016-03-24 07:48 (UTC)

I like to pretend that there is an unusually large number of wizards living in Great Britain, and that magic did not really evolve in other places outside a few interrelated ethnic groups. Magic is a freak occurrence that emerged largely among some small pockets of people near the Mediterranean sea who mostly immigrated to France, Middle-Europe and Britain. Shamanism does exist, but there exists no culture of witchcraft, sorcery and spell craft, it's something weaker and more intuitive that remains in the domain of sacred rites and is not something used for concrete purposes.

I know this is a very Eurocentric way of thinking, but to me it eliminates inconvenient questions like: "why did Native Americans not use magic to fight against foreign invaders", or, "why wasn't magic documented and discovered by colonialists in Africa and India".

Also because she is dealing with real people it becomes hard to notice the lack of depth.

JKR world building reminds me of the song "Razzle Dazzle" from Chicago.

She said:

Various modes of magical travel – brooms and Apparition among them – not to mention visions and premonitions, meant that even far-flung wizarding communities were in contact with each other from the Middle Ages onwards.

That isn't thought through is it? For Apparition requires knowing exactly where you are going. Brooms to cross the Atlantic Ocean (the shorter trip than crossing the Pacific). How fast can you go on a broom? How long can you stay up? Can you image going at the speed of an airplane on nothing more than a broom stick? Completely open and exposed to the wind? Or if it is a longer trip how do you bring supplies? How do you sleep? Would the broom just hover as you rest above the ocean?

Visions and premonitions are veiled in symbolism and open to interpretation. Even the early explorers didn't really understand where they had travel. The name Indians reflects the belief the land they had discovered was connected to India.

How has JKR described real people in Fantastic Beasts and not real people in HP proper? HP proper is based on traditions in English folklore and Fantastic Beasts partly on Native American folklore. Neither kind of magic is real, even if somebody believes in them. I found the views expressed on CBC radio show incoherent. I am rather disappointed in the apparent lack of Native American characters, because that would be an interesting direction to go in (which I personally haven't seen before) but I understand that an Englishwoman would write a Eurocentric story.

And if you mention Avatar: The Last Airbender, I hope you're referring to the TV series and not the film, because the film is super racist (I'm Indian, and it's disappointing coming from M. Night Shyamalan, who's of Indian origin).

Yeah, I was I talking about the show.

I try to bleach the existence of the live-action movie from my memory! :)

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