Prejudice in the WW (was why the founders retained Slytherin)

[Hannah]

No: HPFGUIDX 117854


> Pippin wrote :
> " And what comes from the mouths of Gryffindor-educated children is
> hardly better than Draco's spouting, though indeed they'd never 
dream of saying things like that about Muggleborns. 
> 
> Hermione: "Don't trust him, he's a werewolf!"
> Ron: "Get away from me, werewolf!"
> Hermione: " I've never really liked horses." (referring to 
Firenze)"
> 
> Alla wrote :
> " Oh, Pippin, Hermione deserves some credit though, does not she? 
> After all she covered for Remus ever since she learned that he is 
> werewolf. I think that even though she should not have said that,  
she could be excused because of fear for their lives."
> 
> Del replied :
> But why did she cover for Lupin ? Did she do it because she was
> personally convinced of his trustworthiness, or did she do it 
because DD obviously trusted him ?
> I personally think that it was a mixture of "innocent until proven
> guilty" (but it took much less to make him guilty than it takes, 
say, Snape), and trust in DD's choices.
> 
> Alla wrote :
> "Yes, "I never liked horses" is very bad remark, very bad. :)"
> 
> Del replies : 
> I never understood that one ! It doesn't make any sense to me. 
Unless
> maybe JKR was precisely trying to show us that fighting racism
> necessitates a major change of mindset ? Hermione is patronising 
the 
> House-Elves because she sees them as small, oppressed and 
defenseless,
> and yet she has no problem despising the Centaurs because they 
don't
> seem to need help. She's not truly fighting racism, she's not 
trying
> to truly change the feelings behind the attitudes. She only wants 
to
> change *one* attitude, without even trying to understand where it
> comes from or how it is perceived by most people on both sides.

Hannah: Doesn't Hermione make the 'I don't like horses' comment when 
Lavender/Parvati is in raptures over Firenze's attractiveness?  I'm 
not saying that makes it right, but I think in this context it's a 
dig at Parvati/Lavender for being shallow and silly, rather than a 
deliberately racist remark.  I don't think she'd have come out with 
it if they'd simply been discussing Firenze as a teacher in a 
disspassionate way.  

It could be one of those times when you say something, and it comes 
out sounding as though you had a very different meaning to the one 
you intended.  And we've all done that, I'm sure, not necessarily in 
a racist context, but in any conversation.  It happens on this list, 
when people write things that are misconstrued as being offensive, 
when the poster possibly never even considered that the comment 
could be taken as being rude.

It's the same with the werewolf comment that she makes.  In addition 
to being under stress at that moment, that comment could be taken to 
mean; 'don't trust him because he's not what he seems and has 
already been lying by omission as he's a secret werewolf,' rather 
than 'don't trust him because he's a werewolf and they're all 
untrustworthy.'  The fact that Hermione did cover for Lupin suggests 
that she wasn't affected by prejudice towards werewolves.  I doubt 
Ron could have done it had he been in the position, no matter how 
much trust DD seemed to have in Lupin.

Hannah
Fanfic at www.schnoogle.com/authorLinks/Hannah_Marder/