Ethnicity in HP: an Utopian depiction?

[cityhawk1]

No: HPFGUIDX 33913

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "charisjulia" <pollux46 at h...> wrote:
>But because the pupils there seem to consider themselves 
> firstly wizards and then English or Irish or Indian (so during the 
> panic at the Quidditch World Cup the Beauxbatons girl who was 
looking 
> for Madame Maxime when she realizes H, R and H can't help her, 
turns 
> away saying "`Ogwarts", while Hermione mutters "Beauxbatons": They 
> identify each other as different not by they're nationality but by 
> the magical school they attend.), ethnicity and the differences of 
it 
> between people do not present an issue.

Sorry if this has been said before, as I haven't followed this 
thread all the way back to the beginning, but one of the things that 
I love about HP is the way that bigotry is satirized by removing it 
from being about ethnicity and placing it on wizarding blood. The 
Malfoys and those who think like they do are the wizarding world's 
metaphor of racism/ethnocentrism/bigotry-against-anything. This way, 
Rowling can make a statement without pitting real-world ethnicities 
against each other. We're made to indentify with the "mudbloods" 
(since, after all, we all come from muggle families) in ways that we 
can't if the bigotry were targeted toward the black/asian/Indian 
students (unless we happen to be one of those ethnicities). Also, 
it's more subtle and allows her to be more satirical about it 
without offending people in the real world (it would be too close to 
home for many).

Karl