Pureblood attitudes and the word "racism" (Was: James the Berk?)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 106601

Alla wrote:
Carol, I decided to reply to your post, but I have no idea whether my 
reply will be to your liking or not. I am going to reply anyways, 
Sorry! I want to make a very small introduction before I hopefully go 
on topic. realise that you don't like "duel-like" responses. Well, I 
love them. I don't mind quiet discussion of the issues. Sometimes it 
is interesting, but I like "debate like " responses more.

Carol responds:
I think you misunderstood my objection to onlist "dueling." It isn't
the format (a point-by-point debate) that I was objecting to in the
post in question, it was the tone of the challenge: Come on, sharpen
your wand and match wits with me! The point of posting, for me, is not
to show how clever we are or even to prove that we're right but to
present plausible interpretations of events, objects, and (especially)
characters and try to support those hypotheses with canonical
evidence. (BTW, I've noticed that some posters lately are confusing
proof with evidence. Anything we can actually *prove*, for example,
that Sirius is an animagus or that Snape is Harry's least favorite
teacher, is not worth discussing. Or rather, once we have the proof we
need regarding the truth or falsity of a particular speculation or
theory, as in the Mark Evans case, it's time to end the discussion.)
Anyway, as I have a rather low tolerance for flashy rhetoric
masquerading as reason, or a confusion of opinion or feelings with
fact, I thought it was best not to answer that particular
post--especially since I have my own opinions and feelings and
prejudices (and am capable of an occasional rhetorical flourish), and
I didn't want to fall into the same trap.

<part of your post and my intended responses snipped because the post
was getting too long and OT>

I don't want to "attack" anyone's arguments or "bash" any characters,
even those whose actions or values I disapprove of, including James
and Sirius in the Pensieve scene and Sirius (I'm not sure about James)
in the Prank. What I want to do is *understand* the characters and
their motives and actions--even Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy and
Bellatrix, all of whom (unlike the enigmatic Snape) are indisputably
evil. (Or should I say, there's no canon evidence that they're
anything but evil in the books so far, presumably by their own choice
and not by nature, given JKR's views on the nature of evil.)

But at least we both agree that James' and Sirius' actions (as opposed
to James and Sirius themselves--who, like Severus in the same scene,
are fifteen-year-old boys and should be understood as such) are less
than admirable. Whew! (Pauses for breath.)

So. Civility. Objectivity. Canon. Keeping our own personalities and
real-world political views and emotional reactions to the characters
out of the discussion. Exploring possibilities, clearing up
misunderstandings, *not* "proving" we're right or "attacking" other
people's arguments. That's what I think posting should be about even
though, being human, I don't always succeed in meeting my own
expectations. I'll try to keep that kind of emotionally based thinking
out of this response, partly to act on my own convictions and partly
because it's pointless to attempt to persuade anyone based on my own
"feeling" that I'm right. I might as well insist that licorice is
delicious because *I* like it and assume that my tastes will persuade
someone who hates it to change her mind.

Now to the topic itself, with apologies for the long preliminaries!
 
Alla wrote:
 
> At the risk of sounding snippy, NO, I don't think that we are making 
> more than we ought to out of "mudblood." Let's separate Muggles from
Muggleborns, OK? Wizards' attitude towards Muggles is indeed
patronising . What DE and future DE think about Muggleborns is a very
different story, IMO.
 
> "It's about the most insulting thing he could think of,"
> gasped Ron, coming back up. "Mudblood's a really foul name for
someone who is Muggle-born – you know, non-magic parents. There are
some wizards– like Malfoy's family who think they are better than
everyone else because they're what people call pure-blood" <snip>

> I think the prejudice IS against the blood. I will not pretend to be 
> an expert on racism in the United States, because ...well, I am not, 
> even though I am trying my best to learn as much as I can, but I
know pretty well, as I wrote  earlier, about the treatment of jews in
the former Soviet Union and you know, sometimes I am wondering,
whether JKR had some kind of similar prejudice in mind, even more than
race related prejudice.

Carol responds:

I understand your position and I probably won't be able to persuade
you to think otherwise. All I'm asking is for you to look at my
arguments and consider them objectively. Certainly JKR has some real
world examples of genocide in mind with relation to VWI and I agree
that she's connecting the pureblood prejudice in itself with the
consequences of taking it too far, but that's not what I'm talking
about here.

I'm only objecting to the term "racism,"  which I think has been
applied rather hastily and inaccurately to the pureblood prejudice
against Muggleborns and particularly to the word "mudblood," which
some posters appear to be equating with the term "n****r" and other
equally offensive racial epithets. IMO, the application of an
emotionally charged term like "racism" to the "purebloods are
superior" attitude of the Slytherins prevents us from looking at them
objectively and understanding why they think as they do. (I'm not
saying that we should *agree* with them or that such attitudes, taken
to extremes can't be harmful. Obviously they can be, both in the RW
and the WW. Nor am I defending the DEs' Mugglebaiting or Tom Riddle's
attacks on Muggleborns in CoS, which are of course reprehensible. I'm
only saying that words like "racism" (which is *not* used within the
WW itself) push people's buttons and consequently should be avoided if
we want to understand what makes the Slytherin purebloods think,
speak, and act as they do. Assumptions such as "racism is evil: the
Slytherins are racist; therefore Slytherin House is evil" are facile
and counterproductive. We can't impose our own assumptions on them no
matter how right we believe ourselves to be, but if we continue to
apply the term "racism" to their actions and values, that's exactly
what we'll do. We'll prejudge them as they prejudge the Muggleborns. 

A question of semantics? Semantics is important. Just ask Dumbledore.
What we're seeing in the WW is prejudice, yes, but it isn't racism
because it doesn't involve races.

Racism per se is remarkably absent from the Potterverse. No one at
Hogwarts even considers the race or nationality of the students. Ginny
thinks nothing of dating Dean, for example, even though that would be
a big deal even now in certain parts of the United States because he's
black and she's white. The closest we come to that sort of racism is
Pansy Parkinson's remark in (I think) OoP about Angelina's hairstyle.
Overall, though, the non-white characters are regarded in exactly the
same way as the white ones. In fact, we wouldn't even know that Dean
Thomas, Lee Jordan, and Kingsley Shacklebolt are black if JKR hadn't
told us. It's a nonissue.

But we do see what might better be termed "prejudice" among people who
are all of the same race (Harry and Draco, Lily and Snape, Diary!Tom
and his petrified or murdered victims, the real Tom and his own
family). How can it possibly be racism if they're all of the same
race, including the Muggles as well as the Muggleborns? And if it
isn't based on race, what, exactly, is it based on?

To return to your argument, Alla, I *don't* think we can separate the
prejudice against Muggles from the prejudice against Muggleborns. It's
the fact that Muggleborns are the children of nonmagical parents that
causes the pureblood antagonism against them in the first place, as
your quote from Ron indicates.

Yes, the prejudice is against the "blood," but it's not against the
"race." The purebloods fear contamination from "dirty blood" if a
pureblood marries a Muggleborn, the child of two Muggles. Why? I can't
prove this, but surely it must be a fear of having nonmagical
children. Marrying a Muggleborn, in the view of the WW at large, is
like marrying a Muggle--as indicated by the application of the term
"half blood" to Harry by everyone from Dumbledore to Voldemort.
Dumbledore doesn't share the prejudice, but he, too, makes no
distinction between a Muggle and a Muggleborn in determining blood
purity. Voldemort, whose prejudice takes the extreme form of murder,
makes no distinction between Harry's "blood" status and his own.
They're both "half-bloods," a term he applies to Harry both in GoF and
(as Diary!Tom) in Cos. In the graveyard scene in GoF, he  compares
Harry's Muggleborn mother to his own Muggle father, and his contempt
for both of them is unmistakable:

"[My father was]a Muggle and a fool. Very like your dear mother" (Am.
ed. 646).

Voldemort is completely unwilling to concede Lily's power as a witch
or the importance of her self-sacrifice because to him she's just a
Muggle who has no business in the WW. And of course we know about
young Tom's and Diary!Tom's attempts to rid Hogwarts of contamination
by Muggleborns via the basilisk. Riddle/Voldemort's hatred is
intensied by the Muggle blood in his own veins, and both his hatred of
"dirty blood" and his contempt for Muggleborns extend to the Muggles
who are the source of that blood, particularly the father and
grandparents he murdered. (Possibly he also hates his mother, who
dared to sully her "pure" blood and her descent from the great Salazar
Slytherin by marrying a Muggle, though oddly we've seen no evidence of
that so far.)

Whether it manifests as hatred or contempt or both, none of this
prejudice has anything to do with race. It boils down to one thing
only: the ability or inability to do magic and the perceived
superiority of those who can (wizards and especially pureblood
wizards) over those who can't (Muggles and probably Squibs--note
Diary!Tom's snide reference to "the Squib's cat" in CoS). The
prejudice extends beyond Muggles to their descendants, whose blood is
"muddy" *because* it's Muggle blood. (Del's point that Muggleborns
come to Hogwarts with a "handicap" because they have no experience
with magic is well-taken; Draco, who can already cast a Serpensortia
at age twelve, would certainly have laughed in his sleeve during his
first Charms class at the Muggleborns learning to "swish and flick,"
but the houses are separated in that particular class so we don't see
him doing it. But I think the ineptitude of the new Muggleborns is not
the root cause of the prejudice: it merely reinforces the existing
assumption that Muggle blood makes the Muggleborns inferior. the
incompetence of most incoming Muggleborns would appear to the
Slytherin purebloods to be solid evidence that they're correct in
viewing themselves as superior.)

Alla wrote:
 
> Sorry, Carol, my perspective of intolerance does not include 
> tolerance of the values, which when expressed out loud could 
> eventually lead to hatred and killings. I gave you my RL examples of 
> such "name-calling"  and usually it implies that the person is 
> already full of hatred to somebody who is different than he/she is.

Carol responds:
I, too, have no tolerance for values that lead to abuse or killing,
either, whether its genocide or female infanticide, but there's a huge
difference between name-calling and murder. That's like saying that
calling Snape "Snivellus" leads to a desire to murder him. But my
point was that we should not let our own views on what is tolerable
prevent us from examining the purebloods' culture and values and
motives objectively, just as we should examine the culture and values
of the ancient Greeks and Romans and the ante-bellum Southern
plantation owners without judging these people for not thinking as we
do. It's important, in fact essential, to our interpretation of HP
canon to understand their perspective as best we can even though we
don't share it. We have to consider that these people have been
indoctrinated from childhood with values that are anathema to us and
that we have been taught values that would seem ridiculous to them. If
you had been born in the eighteenth or nineteenth century, would you
hold the values you hold today through an innate knowledge that
they're inherently "right"? Probably not. If Severus Snape had been
raised by a Hufflepuff mother and a Ravenclaw father, would he hold
the views he does as a fifteen-year-old and perhaps an adult? Probably
not.

Alla wrote: 
> If we knew that Severus only said this word once in his life under 
> the stress, I would not condemn him, but we KNOW that he acted on it 
> by joining Voldemort, so yes, I 'd say that his actions are 
> reprehensible.

Carol responds:
I don't think we can compare his angry response at being helped by a
girl he's been taught to regard as inferior (and may even
subconsciously resent for not living down to his expectations) to his
later decision to join Voldemort. We have no evidence that at fifteen
he was interested in doing well on his exams (at least the DADA one)
and feuding with James on a personal level. (I think his hatred of
Sirius dates from the Prank, which comes slightly later.)

I don't excuse his joining the Death Eaters at, say, eighteen (surely
not fifteen), but it's hardly surprising that he did so given his
background and the fact that most if not all of his friends had joined
before him (there's evidence that most of the Slytherin "gang" were
older than he was). Personal antagonism to James and Sirius may have
played a role, but I think he wanted his gifts to be recognized--as
they had been when he was admitted as a junior member of the Slytherin
gang. He would have felt that he *belonged* on that side, just as he
*belonged* in Slytherin. It's possible, however, that like Regulus
Black, he didn't know what he was getting into. What matters is that
(thanks to luck and cleverness and possibly an early mastery of
occlumency), he was able, unlike Regulus, to change sides without
being detected and murdered--*before* Voldemort was vaporized. That
took great courage and a strangely unSlytherin sense of integrity
which could not have been expected given his upbringing. It was his
choice to join the Death Eaters, but it was also his choice to leave
them and join Dumbledore. And I think we should remember that when we
judge him.

Alla wrote: 
> I am not saying that he could not change, I would be delighted to 
> learn that he does not hold such views anymore, but for now I find 
> what he did to be inexcusable.

Carol responds:
Well, I hold what Sirius did in the Prank to be inexcusable, but I
don't judge him solely on that one incident. He was rash and reckless
and inconsiderate of other's feelings, but he didn't deserve twelve
years in Azkaban or confinement in the unhealthy environment of
Grimmauld Place. And I dislike the young James for his arrogance and
bullying, but there's no question in my mind that he redeemed himself
and would have been an admirable man and loving father had he lived.
Neither should be judged solely by his words or actions as a boy--and
neither should Snape.

As for the adult Snape changing his views that purebloods are superior
to Muggleborns, I'm not sure we can expect that. Certainly he knows
that Muggleborns can be powerful (like Lily) or intelligent (like
Hermione), and he probably resents that. But, just as Quirrell said in
SS/PS about Snape and Harry--he dislikes him but he doesn't want him
dead. And the same, I'm pretty sure, applies to his attitude toward
Muggleborns.
>
Alla wrote:
>  who does not know whether her responce was calm or rational enough 
> for Carol's taste. :o)

Carol responds:
Close. You did try, and I appreciate that. I just don't think you
should let what Severus said at fifteen, or the beliefs he was taught
from childhood, color your judgment of the adult Snape, who for all
his faults appears to have extraordinary courage and to be loyal to
Dumbledore. And how can we condemn him for not holding views that he
was never taught? That isn't rational. Neither is refusing to forgive
a fictional character for acting within the context of his own world.  

If he turns out to have used his pureblood prejudices as an excuse to
kill and torture Muggleborns, an act which *does* violate the ethical
and moral standards of the WW as a whole and which he would have
*known* to be wrong, I'll understand your unwillingness to forgive
him--as long as you don't try to "prove" that the action is
unforgiveable using our own outside standards. The term "Unforgiveable
Curses" is sufficient, I think, to indicate that the WW and JKR
herself would share your view.

I also still think we should avoid the word "racism" in connection
with pureblood attitudes, but I have no objection to the more accurate
and less emotionally loaded "prejudice." I hope you understand why I
think as I do even if you still don't agree. Also, since I've said all
I have to say on the matter and am behind on posting, I probably won't
be responding to this thread again unless someone raises a really good
point that I can respond to intelligently.

Carol, who reserves the right to vent her emotions in an outraged,
irrational post if Snape turns out to be as reprehensible as certain
posters think he is ;-)