[HPforGrownups] Re: Bigotry or NOT?

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 157612

> Mike:
> And I continue to be amazed that people equate Hagrid calling Filch
> a "sneakin' Squib" to someone using the bigoted slur "dirty Jew".
> Furthermore, calling someone a "Jew" is not equal to calling
> someone "Jewish". But calling someone a "Squib" is the same as
> calling someone a "Squib". Do you get it now?

Magpie:
I've gotten that from the beginning, as I have that Filch and Arabella call
themselves Squibs.  I've actually said I understand that more than once, not
even touching on the rather derogatory suggestion that the word Squib has in
terms of how it obviously comes to refer to these kinds of people.

However, as I and others have explained, if you use someone's minority 
status as an insult (and I have heard Jewish people use the word "Jew" to 
refer to themselves in a neutral way, and of groups sometimes use actual 
slurs among themselves with a different meaning than it has if leveled at 
them by an outsider) I think you are...using their minority status as an 
insult.  Bringing it into a conversation that has nothing to do with their 
status because you are angry and need something to call them just seems to 
imply their minority group is inferior, especially when their society makes 
that clear already.  Especially since "Squib" is also something Wizards call 
other wizards as
well, often as an insult.

I could understand feeling I had some personal problem with Hagrid if Hagrid 
just happened
to use the word Squib as in, "Filch can't do magic, he's a Squib" and I was 
claiming this line was in any way bigoted because he used the word Squib.
But it's not the use of the word in a vacuum that I reacted to, it's the 
word's use in a scene where he's naming Filch as a sneakin' Squib to insult 
him.  There is some incredulity there, I admit.  It's not like I think 
everybody needs to be angry about it or even that emotional, it just 
genuinely surprises me.

> Mike:
> So it's a done deal as far as you are concerned. It's bigotry and
> there is no two ways about it. All of the evidence that I have put
> forward matters not, because you have pronounced the scene as
> bigoted and that's that.

Magpie:
I would hope I'm open to having my mind changed if I'm wrong.  But so far 
these arguments just seem to explain the scene exactly the same way I 
already understand it. Like if someone said, "That remark couldn't be 
bigoted. Hagrid's just putting Filch in his place by reminding him the group 
of people one belongs to based on common circumstances of birth accounts for 
differences in human character and that Filch's particular group is 
suspect."

Mike:
Thank you, no, I understand it. I *have* asked
> you to explain how you justify your claim that the term "Squib" is
> bigoted in the face of the canon evidence to the contrary. You have
> declined. Referencing one's minority status is all you need to
> proclaim bigotry and you see no need to explain yourself further.

Magpie:
Oh, I see.  The problem seems to be that we're arguing at cross-purposes. 
Proving that Squib can be used in a perfectly non-insulting way doesn't 
speak to my problems because I know that Squib can be used that way.  Like I 
said above, if Hagrid just happened to say, "Filch is a Squib" for any 
number of reasons I wouldn't think it was prejudiced.  Nor do I think that 
referencing someone's ethnic group in any context whatsoever is prejudiced. 
In this context yes, I think
it's prejudiced.  If I had a child and heard him do that to another child in 
an argument I would tell him to apologize and probably sit down and ask him
why he felt the need to bring up the person's minority status at that 
moment.  If I did it in an argument I think I would feel I'd made a bigoted 
remark and would hopefully regret it.

Now perhaps if I knew the details of Hagrid and Filch's relationship it 
wouldn't sound the same; I'd understand some history between them that would 
give me a different understanding of the context.  But reading the scene 
fresh it just struck me as two people who didn't like each other and didn't 
really have much relationship, and Hagrid shuts Filch up with "sneakin' 
Squib."

Betsy Hp:
But I think that rather than saying Hagrid is a bigot who hates Squibs, most 
people are pointing out that the prejudice against Squibs is endemic to the 
WW.

Magpie:
Yes, perhaps that's why the issue seems so non-hot-button to me.  I don't 
feel like this is a big thing about Hagrid alone out of all characters.  I 
just recognize this particular insult and what it means in this world given 
the background we've been given.

-m