Diversity in Literature & Media (WAS book differences)

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 40700

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "cindysphynx" <cindysphynx at c...> wrote:

> Aw, come on.  There's no reason to be annoyed.  I am simply 
> uninformed about the racial diversity of Scotland, and am willing to 
> admit my ignorance so that Rosie and others will understand the 
> foundation of some of the things I've discussed.  

Cindy, would it make you feel better if I joined you in admitting that 
I had no idea Scotland was a racially diverse place? I mean... I 
understand the irate Scots on the list. I sometimes have much the same 
 feeling when someone assumes my home city is racially homogenous b/c 
it's in Canada and they haven't visited it, but it's not a moral 
failing of them not to know. They're not saying, "Oh cool! Canada is 
all white! Boy, I wish I lived there!" but entertaining a false 
impression of immigration patterns. :-)

> Besides, this thread and others like it have helped educate me.  So 
> my prior erroneous belief that boarding schools in the UK and 
> Scotland are racially homogenous can be removed from the tottering 
> heap of Things Cindy Doesn't Know.  One down, thousands to go.  ;-)

Amen!

> But your remarks clarifying the racial diversity in Scotland really 
> don't undermine the central point that I was trying to make, which 
> is this:  many, many Americans in the target audience for this book 
> have *no clue* about the racial diversity of boarding schools in the 
> U.K., and they might not pick up on it from reading the book if the 
> book isn't explicit about it.

For myself, I saw Hogwarts as ethnically diverse, but with the ethnic 
diversity I was brought up with. I went to a posh private school in 
the British tradition at one point and the kids tended to be Chinese, 
Korean, Indian, or Middle Eastern in their ethnic background, with a 
large splattering of ex-pat Brits and Irish, and us white Canadians 
very much in the minority. But, it's a fact that there aren't many 
black people in my part of the world, and so I thoughtlessly didn't 
imagine them when I imagined Hogwarts. Angelina Johnson was a 
revelation to me (as a Canadian, I didn't read about Dean Thomas's 
race), and it made me realize that I had been assuming something 
about Britain that I even knew to be factually incorrect. As Cindy 
pointed out, Angelina tells you a lot about race in the wizarding 
world. So unless someone can come up with evidence that JKR was 
imagining something very different, I do think it's making a mountain 
out of a molehill.

Eileen