The wizarding world and empire (was Democracy and prejudice)

[Ebony <selah_1977@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 50727

I was with you, agreeing in some points, disagreeing with others, but 
pretty much following your theory up until the very end, where you 
said:

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "manawydan" <manawydan at n...> 
wrote:

> Whereas in WW, there does not seem to be any concept of a "3rd 
World", of
> the legacy of Empire, or of any sort of racial dimension.
> 
> Or indeed any sort of religious one either.


Oh, definitely not.

I beg to differ strongly with you here.

If the wizarding world did not mirror the Muggle one in any way...

...then why are Dean Thomas and Angelina Johnson named thusly?  

If, indeed, as you state the wizarding population of sub-Saharan 
Africa had been left intact in this particular magical world, I doubt 
*very seriously* that those two characters would have names like 
those.  Sure, explain it away all you wish, but the reason why so 
many of the African-descended have European first, last, and middle 
names is because of the legacy of slavery.  

My own last name is not my blood-ancestor's name... it's the name of 
the plantation owner who bought my great-great-grandfather in 
Mississippi.  Millions and millions of people worldwide have that in 
common with me, and I am willing to wager that Dean and Angelina do 
as well.  Now, I do understand that there are quite a number of 
African immigrants who live in Britain.  However, their names are 
somewhat different from those of West Indian heritage... who *were* 
descended from slaves.

It is certain that many Africans, American Natives, Asians, etc. have 
European names today.  Yet it is Dean and Angelina's *last* names... 
their family names... that flag to me that there was indeed something 
like the Middle Passage in the wizarding world.  There had to have 
been.  Sure, you can rationalize this by saying that both Dean *and* 
Angelina had ethnically British fathers (in which case they are not 
simply black, but biracial--and JKR is misnaming them).  There are 
other explanations you could give.  I say just give the easiest one.

I also think it's significant that the other nonwhite characters that 
we see being educated at Hogwarts represent nations that England 
either conquered completely (Ireland, India, etc.) or had some sort 
of favored nation status with (China--although Hong Kong was under 
British control for a long time, yet? Don't know the history 
completely there.) If there was no empire in the history of JKR's 
wizarding world, then why are they being educated in Britain?  
Because Hogwarts is the best school in the world?  If so, then *why* 
is Hogwarts the best, and not another place where magic likely has 
been practiced far longer (China, Egypt, etc.) than in either Britain 
or Europe?

Let's be real for a moment here.

The simplest path between two points is a straight line, and this 
textual evidence cannot be explained away so handily.

I do not think that the wizarding world is utopian as far as racial 
and religious differences are concerned.  Rather, I think they're 
different... and although I concede that magical national boundaries 
are often not contiguous with Muggle ones, I really think you're 
oversimplifying the rest of the wizarding world.

And judging from what we know about Voldemort (and the mentions of 
Grindelwald), I would say that indeed the wizarding world knows about 
conquest and empire.  Perhaps not in terms of the racialized or 
religious Other... but magic has its Othered groups as well.

Now, perhaps JKR intended for her world to be completely colorblind 
and free of any traces of imperialism.  Yet as Edward Said so 
famously stated in Culture and Imperialism, "Without empire, there is 
no modern European novel as we know it."  Even though she does a 
noble job "teaching tolerance", as it were, in her novels, there 
still are vestiges of the pernicious legacy of empire in her work... 
and this is textual evidence that absolutely cannot be refuted.

--Ebony AKA AngieJ (bothering HP4GU re: the legacy of race, 
colonialism, and empire in the Harry Potter novels since c. 2000)