[HPforGrownups] Re: Blacks in HP (was: Dean again - Bill's living - JKR's activities)

[Ebony Elizabeth Thomas]

No: HPFGUIDX 21153

Haggridd wrote:

>I don't recall any references to Dean's race.  The only persons
>described as black are both friends of the twins:  Lee Jordan, and
>Angelina, who went to the Yule Ball with Gred--or was it Forge?  I
>hope I haven't restated the obvious.


Lee's never mentioned as being black... it just states that he has 
dreadlocks.  Anyone with a certain type of hair can twist it into dreads.  
So the probability of him being of another ethnicity is there, because I 
went to school with a Jewish guy who wore dreads.

Dean's mentioned as black in the American edition of PS (SS 122).  If he's 
not black in the UK, then the obvious conclusion is that Scholastic did some 
tampering with the MS for profit's sake.  A great selling point for modern 
kidlit is "multiculturalism"--fellow American teachers, how many 
inservices/workshops/conferences have you attended on this theme?  The 
United States has a significantly greater "ethnic" population than the 
United Kingdom does... bet you anything Scholastic would've put a Hispanic 
character somewhere in Hogwarts if they could have gotten away with it.  :-D

In a couple of weeks, I'll be in the UK attending summer classes at Corpus 
Christi.  One of my two electives is a comparative US/UK education course... 
the research paper I plan to do is a comparison/contrast of literate 
practices between majority/minority children in the schools I'll survey.  I 
wonder if the UK has the same problems educating children who are not "the 
norm" that our country does.

Of course, we know Hogwarts doesn't have that problem.  :-)

--Ebony

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Ebony AKA AngieJ
ebonyink at hotmail.com

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