[HPforGrownups] Dean Thomas - nitpicks on West Ham

[Catherine Coleman]

No: HPFGUIDX 40659

In message <afq2d4+kt3i at eGroups.com>, darrin_burnett <bard7696 at aol.com> 
writes
>Locations are hardly the most reliable clues to a person's race. So,
>to assume that we should have known from the West Ham reference is a
>bit too much to ask.

I'm not going to address any of the many points floating around about 
the rights and wrongs of the change to the US edition - it really 
doesn't bother me either way.  The decision was made somewhere along the 
line that Dean Thomas is black, and if JKR made that decision, it's fine 
by me.

However, I am interested in the fact that when I initially read PS 
(English edition) I didn't automatically think that Dean Thomas was 
black, purely because of his support for West Ham, and I've yet to 
understand why others assumed this, and why they seem to think that 
others should as well.  I certainly wouldn't ever try to guess someone's 
ethnicity based on which football team they support.  I fail to 
understand why this is an indication.   West Ham in particular for the 
London teams is very diverse in terms of both ethnicity of fans, and 
geographical location of the same.  I live in South East London - most 
of my step daughter's in laws, who live dotted around South London and 
Kent,  are West Ham supporters - have been for generations - they are 
basically white suburbanites.  There is even a West Ham store in 
Bluewater, Kent, (a large shopping mall) which is very popular.  That 
area is predominantly white, and it is quite rare to see non-white 
people in there.

As Darrin says, location is an unreliable clue as to a person's race. 
I'd go further and say that we have never been given any indication that 
Dean Thomas does live in West Ham, as support of the team isn't 
conclusive on this point.   Therefore, until the American edition stated 
unequivocally that he was black, I would have thought that the only 
thing we could safely assume about Dean Thomas is that he is (probably!) 
Muggle born.  For me, that is as much as you can glean.

I am therefore interested in why people assumed this.  Or was it a case 
of knowing Dean's ethnicity from either the American edition or the film 
and working backwards?

Catherine, who by the way uses the word bloody as a mild expletive quite 
regularly, and doesn't consider herself to be either a Sloane or 
old-fashioned.