[HPforGrownups] More about the wizarding world and empire...

[Pen Robinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 50865


On Tuesday, Jan 28, 2003, at 05:17 Europe/London, Ebony 
<selah_1977 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I did forget to type in my last post that Dean is indeed Muggleborn.

Or at any rate, brought up by Muggles.  Do we know for certain he is 
actually Muggle-born?

> But Christian, this is like saying that we cannot reach any
> conclusions about the true nature of house-elves because thus far in
> canon, we have only met two.  No other aspect of canon is placed
> under such ridiculous constraints.  These are only two black
> characters that we know of, and they both have European names.  My
> question still hasn't been answered.

Um.

My own (admittedly very limited) acquaintance with non-white members of 
British society leads me to *expect* European names.

Let me amplify.

Angelina Johnson: this name 'maps' directly onto that of a schoolmate, 
whose first name was Dolores, and whose surname was either Carr or 
Kerr, I can't remember which, but either is a perfectly standard 
British surname.  (As Dolores was a tall, athletic, black girl, she is 
my mental model for Angelina.)   For me, the ever-so-slightly-exotic 
first name - Dolores, Angelina - combined with the ordinary surname - 
Johnson, Carr - is exactly right for a black Briton of West Indian 
descent.

I would (tentatively) expect a black Briton of straightforwardly 
African descent to have a more 'exotic' surname, and/or quite possibly 
a more obviously ethnic forename.  But I think - and I haven't checked 
any statistics here - that blacks of West Indian origin are more common 
here than blacks from Africa.  The latter are at any rate more likely 
to be relative newcomers.

Dean Thomas 'maps' for me onto the son of a friend of mine who had 
straightforwardly 'British' names.  There's no way of knowing from 
Dean's name that he is black, but it is in no way jarring to think of 
him as such.  (I must say, if it was always JKR's intention that Dean 
be black, I wish she had mentioned it in passing in the original 
edition of PS - or else somewhere in one of the later books.  A word or 
two of physical description helps me to get a mental picture of a 
character.  However, her secrecy on the subject of Dean makes me think 
that unless he is a completely irrelevant 'scenery' character, she must 
be hiding something!  But never mind that now.)

Same, incidentally, with Lee Jordan.  The name works perfectly well for 
a white boy or a black one.  The dreadlocks, for me at least, are 
enough of a clue, and I picture him as being of West Indian origin.

Now, the Patil sisters are also properly representative, in that I 
expect people who are ethnically from the Indian sub-continent to have 
more distinctive names.  My daughter occasionally refers to people in 
her class who must be from this group, because their names are 
definably different.  It would never have occurred to me to think of 
Parvati Patil as anything other than Indian/Pakistani.   Same applies 
to Cho Chang - the surname is a distinctive marker for a Far Eastern 
background.

> And if they are both Muggle-born, then either intentionally or
> subconsciously the author has thus relegated two of the characters
> who are racially Other to the Othered group in the wizarding world--
> that of the Muggleborn.  So even if their status at It would have
> been much more groundbreaking and interesting if at least Angelina
> *were* from a pureblooded family.  I thought of a definite way that
> she could indeed be, but it's far too long to post here.

I suggest that having an appropriate-to-Britain surname is neither here 
nor there when it comes to figuring out whether a witch or wizard is 
Muggle-born or not.  'Dumbledore' is certainly an exotic surname, 
explicitly from the wizarding world.  'Weasley', however, would fit 
right in at school with my own children just as easily as it fits in at 
Hogwarts.  So would Fletcher, or Longbottom.  And we know that the 
Weasleys and the Longbottoms are purebloods.  Is there any reason to 
suppose that the Patils and the Johnsons, are not also purebloods?  I 
submit that we have no way of knowing - except, possibly, that we are 
never *told* about Malfoy harrassing Parvati!

> "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?"

I don't see how the wizarding world could have had a parallel existence 
*without* a British Empire and still been in the same timeline as the 
world today.  And the wizarding world is *supposed* to exist alongside 
our own real world, isn't it?  I mean, that is the point, yes?

I don't think it is actually

"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"

if by 'significant' you mean to infer some kind of prejudice against 
anyone not in those groups.

It is simply a fact that our society has absorbed people from, yes, 
countries that were part of the British Empire at some time in the past 
- and which therefore have some cultural link with this country.  Why 
would so many people from the West Indies have chosen to move to 
Britain rather than to the USA?  In part, at least, because they had 
something culturally in common with this country.

If you went to Paris, you would see a lot of black people speaking 
fluent French - I remember that when I went to Paris for the first 
time, at seventeen, I was taken aback, because I was accustomed to 
seeing black people speaking English!  It hadn't occurred to me then 
that the French colonised rather a lot of Africa too.  Why did those 
black Africans choose to move to France rather than the UK?  Because 
they had something culturally in common with French society, that's 
why.  (Wonder if there were any black students in the Beauxbatons 
group?)

> Pippin said:

> "World-builders must sometime make compromises. If Rowling
> had used African surnames when most native-born black British
> subjects have anglic names, that would have labelled the black
> characters as exotic, when she obviously doesn't want them
> perceived that way."

Ebony said:
> Hmm.  I would think that JKR wouldn't think that the use of
> traditional names as being exotic... why not Anglicized first names,
> and African last names?  The fact that canon has a Parvati and Padma
> Patil, as well as a Cho Chang, tells me that this author doesn't have
> a problem using ethnic and non-Anglicized names.

I hope I have answered this, above.  Different ethnic groups.

> Recapitulating my original points:
>
> 1)  There is evidence that the conception of JKR's wizarding world
> was not unaffected by empire.  One such evidence is the fact that the
> only two black characters have European and not African names.
> Another is that the minorities found in the stories happen to be
> children from various groups that were from the periphery of the
> original empire.

Again, I hope I have answered this above.  I think JKR's wizarding 
world was 'affected by empire' to no greater or lesser extent than 
modern-day British society.  This pattern of immigration, absorption, 
whatever we can call it, may seem peculiar and partial to those whose 
experience of immigration/absorption is different.  But from my English 
perspective it simply looks as though JKR has reflected the world 
around me in her books.
>

> 2)  I do not think that the wizarding world in these books is a
> utopia from racial or religious prejudices.  I did not say wizards
> were prejudiced.  I do think that the wizarding community seems to be
> tolerant of Muggle differences such as race and religion (and perhaps
> even sexual orientation).  However, as the author herself is a
> product of post-imperial Britain, the work is not completely free of
> the legacy of empire.

Well, no.  Of course.  She is a product of present-day British society, 
which is a product of the British society of the past...

Somehow, what you're saying comes across as criticism, and I find it 
difficult to understand why 'the legacy of empire' should be so 
reprehensible.

> Consider the continued primacy of Britain in
> this wizarding world.  Consider the wizarding world orientation that
> GoF gives us.  Consider the presentation of the indigenous Africans
> that were mentioned at the QWC.

The indigenous Africans should be, um, wearing jeans, T-shirts and 
baseball caps?  What is the problem with them?

> It is interesting for me to read the books, especially GoF, through
> the same theoretical lens that I use while doing my critical work on
> 19th and 20th century Britain (that of postcolonial theory and
> criticism), and to figure out exactly how JKR is condemning evil and
> teaching tolerance in her stories.  I agree wholeheartedly that most
> of her work is done through normal fantastic means, through the
> instances of the house-elves, werewolves and giants, and the
> continued persecution of the Muggle-born.  This is all well and
> good.  But one critique that several prominent children's lit
> scholars, including the *very* influential Jack Zipes, have leveled
> against the Potter books is that they are indeed racist, sexist, and
> like much post-1945 British fantasy presents a neocolonial
> orientation of the world that reveals disturbing trends in children's
> fiction.  Zipes, while he is to be admired, is absolutely *wrong* in
> this case... as is bell hooks, as are several other prominent
> scholars who do not love Harry the same way as you and I do.... but
> the critiques that I am making are the ones that they make.

Gulp... okay.  So why is Zipes wrong?

Pen
<interested, not hostile>