Not Slytherin, not Slytherin

[joywitch_m_curmudgeon <joym999@aol.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51363

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, jazmyn <jazmyn at p...> wrote:
> There is no canon to support the idea that all Slytherins are 
purebreds.
> Tom Riddle was not a pureblood and the sorting hat wanted to put 
Harry
> in Slytherin and he is not pureblood either.

I agree that there's no canon to support that all Slytherins are 
purebloods, but I also think that very few wizards really are 
purebloods. I've always assumed that the whole pureblood thing was 
an allusion to "people" like Hitler, who claimed that the "Aryan 
race" was superior but who wasn't Aryan himself. In fact, the whole 
Aryan thing, as well as most definitions of "race", is fairly vague 
and hard to define. 

Most people can't possibly know if their ancestors are "pure" black, 
white, Irish, Chinese, Jewish, French, Eskimo, or anything else. In 
reality, the whole idea of a "pure" race of any sort is ridiculous, 
which is one of the many reasons why racial prejudice is ridiculous.

Anyway, I think that the whole "pureblood" wizard thing is supposed 
to be as absurd and undefinable as the muggle sort, hence the 
constant questions about what, exactly, constitutes a "pureblood."

--Joywitch