[HPforGrownups] Re: Diversity in Literature & Media (WAS book differences)

[Bernadette M. Crumb]

No: HPFGUIDX 40488


----- Original Message -----
From: "cindysphynx" <cindysphynx at comcast.net>

> It seems to me that JKR intended there to be some depiction of
> racial diversity in the wizarding world.  I am quite unclear on
how
> that equates with special privileges for minorities, any more
than
> inclusion of white wizards equates with special privileges for
> whites?  What have I missed there?
>
> Cindy

Cindy, what is at issue here is that ONLY the U.S. editions of
HPPS/SS have been changed to emphasize the point that Dean Thomas
was black.  The original Brit versions just mentioned him by
name, not putting in any reference to his skin color.  It really
has nothing to do with what JKR originally intended the books to
describe as far as racial and ethnic diversity goes.

Many people are bothered by the change that Scholastic did when
they published the books in the U.S. because they deem it as the
company toadying to the people who want everything, including
children's literature to be "politically correct" in that you
must show that there are (token) members of various ethnic/racial
groups, sexual preference groups, genders, etc., even if the
story doesn't necessarily rely on whether a person has dark,
light or even purple skin.  In my head, even before I read that
Dean Thomas was a black boy, I had already envisioned a mix of
racial types in Diagon Alley, simply because it reminded me of
crowded Covent Garden back in the 1980s when I lived in London,
which was a fabulous place to see all the varieties of human
kind.  I would have envisioned them as mixed racial types even if
I'd gotten to read the original Brit versions that had not had
the phrase about Dean being black in it.

Some people are so tired of the PC people using social pressure
to force these kinds of changes that they seem (IMO) to feel
threatened that these pressures will in turn become reverse
discrimination.  I think that is what has affected how some
people on this list see this thread and how they are
communicating about it.

As this is getting dangerously OT, I'll stop now!

Bernadette/RowanRhys

"Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved."
- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, 1862