The wizarding world and empire (was Democracy and prejudice)

[bluesqueak <pipdowns@etchells0.demon.co.uk>]

No: HPFGUIDX 50828

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Ebony <selah_1977 at y...>" 
<selah_1977 at y...> wrote:

<Snip>
> 
> If the wizarding world did not mirror the Muggle one in any way...
> 
> ...then why are Dean Thomas and Angelina Johnson named thusly?  
> 

<Snip>
> 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).  

I disagree slightly with you and Eloise. First names of some African 
first generation immigrants I know include Jennifer, Cynthia, Adabi, 
Henry, Kene, Edward and Sandra. Surnames include Ococ, Adaobi, 
Gibbs, Afoakwah, Okafor, and Barber. The combination can be 
completely African, a British sounding first name with an African 
surname, or a name that sounds completely British: not through 
slavery, simply through a British ancestor or by marriage.

I also think you may be making a U.S. culture specific assumption 
here, Ebony. Many, many black people in the UK have mixed ethnic 
backgrounds. Interracial marriage is very common in the modern UK. 
It was also pretty common in the old British Empire; it was simply 
that the British whites hardly ever *talked* about it. It doesn't 
appear much in the history books, either.

JKR would not be 'misnaming' Dean as 'black' if he had an ethnically 
white wizarding British father and an ethnically black muggle 
Carribbean mother. Dean would very probably describe *himself* 
as 'black British'.

And Angelina Johnson could have got that name through either muggle 
slavery, or the muggle Empire. She could be the muggle born child of 
West Indian immigrants. Or she could also be the descendant of, say, 
a white British Civil Engineer who went to work in Africa and 
married a local girl, who turned out to be a witch. And then his 
wizarding son Chuekma Johnson decided to use his British connections 
to immigrate with his wife to the UK. Pick one; because you could 
find equivalents to both those family histories in Britain.

I personally think JKR is avoiding using modern prejudices. Instead 
of risking readers bringing their own prejudices to the reading, 
she's using the muggle/wizard divide as a metaphor for 
racial/religious prejudice. 

Petunia Dursley's attitude to her sister's marriage is very similar 
to the way that interracial marriages were treated by the white 
middle class in Britain (until very recently). The 'offending' 
relative was referred to as seldom as possible and the family would 
go to great lengths to make sure the spouse's colour was never 
mentioned. 

Harry is the wizarding son of a muggle born mother and a wizarding 
father. The Dursley's treat him with much the same distaste for his 
very existence that a bigoted white UK family might display for 
their black nephew (who is the son of a white mother and a black 
father).

Lucius Malfoy displays the same kind of prejudice towards 
the 'muggle borns' that too many Brits display towards immigrants 
(or 'asylum seekers'). Is 'muggle born' a metaphor for 'immigrant 
into the Wizarding World'? Interesting thought.

Ebony:
> If there was no empire in the history of JKR's 
> wizarding world, then why are they being educated in Britain? 

Because they live in Britain!

JKR appears to be trying to reflect the ethnic makeup of modern 
muggle Britain. That ethnic makeup is largely a result of the old 
muggle British Empire. It says nothing about whether there was an 
equivalent Wizarding British Empire. The non white characters at 
Hogwarts are representative of the kids I would expect to find at a 
modern British school.

Hogwarts has approximately 25% muggle borns. Large numbers of UK 
witches and wizards are half bloods. There have been people of 
African, Chinese or Indian subcontinental descent in Britain for two 
or three centuries now (though immigration in *large* numbers only 
started in the 1950's). It would be much more surprising if the 
British Wizarding World was 100% white.

The ethnic makeup of Hogwarts does not say anything about an 
historical Wizarding Colonial Office, or, say, the attitude of the 
British WW to Egyptian magic. It just says that, hide away as it 
may, the WW is being affected by the muggle world.


> 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.

I think that this is because modern Britain is still affected by the 
legacy of its Empire. If JKR wants to reflect modern Britain, then 
she is going to reflect the legacy of Empire, like it or not. I 
would be much more worried that JKR was showing *the pernicious 
legacy of empire* if her Hogwarts was entirely white and 
middle/upper class. [The main beneficiaries of the Empire].

It isn't. Class wise, the muggle intake ranges from milkman's sons 
up; the wizarding intake includes werewolves and half giants. I 
think we can safely assume that Hagrid and possibly Lupin are close 
to the bottom of the Wizarding class structure.

I'm not terribly concerned that the Trio is entirely white and 
middle class; JKR is from that background and is probably sticking 
to the rule of 'write what you know about' for her major characters.

Pip!Squeak