[HPforGrownups] Re: That "racist" Harry Potter

[Margaret Dean]

No: HPFGUIDX 31521

jorgealcontreras wrote:
> 
> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "coriolan_cmc2001" <coriolan at w...> wrote:
> > Just so you know that all the anti-Harry nut cases aren't limited
> > to the Christian fundamentalists, here's an oped from the Sydney
> > morning Herald decrying both JKR - and that malefactor Tolkien -
> > as racist screeds (not to mention pro-globolization).
> >
> > http://www.smh.com.au/news/0112/13/opinion/opinion3.html
> >
> > BTW, a Google search of "Tolkein" and "White supremacist" turned up
> > only 58 hits.
> >
> >   - CMC
> 
> Ive heard something before about Tolkien, and well, we must
> understand his work from his context: he was born in South Africa at
> the end of Victorian age, the british imperialism was at its
> summit and he is talking about a northern mythology, so is not
> surprise to see that all Tolkien heroes were white, blonde and blue-
> eyed, 

They are NOT.  "White" I'll grant you (i.e. generally
fair-skinned), but in fact Tolkien's favorite coloring for noble
hero types (e.g. Aragorn, Arwen, Elrond, most of the Noldor) is
the dark hair / grey eyes combination.  (Like his wife's, ahem.) 
Hobbits are almost universally brown-haired and brown-eyed. 
There are some blonds in there, e.g. Galadriel (though not, in
the books, Legolas), but the only specifically blue-eyed
character I can remember is Tom Bombadil. 

> and live in the WESTERN side of Middle Earth, altough the men from 
> the east and south: asiatic, semithic and negroes,(kingdom of Harad)
> accepted the influence from Morgoth at first, in Silmarillion and from
> Sauron in the Lord of the Rings and Fought under his flag.
> 
> I think he was a little racist, but I think that this was
> unintentional from his part, he only reproduced the view of the world
> in wich he grown up and lived.

Tolkien, alluding to his birth in South Africa (where he only
lived till he was three, mind):  "The hatred of =apartheid= is in
my bones."  (N.B.:  In context it is clear that it is the
=apartheid= he hates, not that =it= is "in his bones.") 
 
> In the case of Harry Potter, I dont see the racism, at last some
> black boys and girls are mentioned, and a secondary character and
> couple of Harry in the Christmas Party: Parvati Patil is from India,
> and his platonic love: Cho Chang is chinese.

There I certainly agree with you.  You must pardon me:  I was a
rabid Tolkien fan WAY before I discovered HP.  Speaking of things
that are, by now, in one's bones . . .


--Margaret Dean
  <margdean at erols.com>