[HPforGrownups] Re: Snape - a werewolf bigot?? Was: Say it isn't so Lupin!!!

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 170219

> Magpie:

> 
> If Snape no longer has those beliefs then he has changed--even if 
> it's just a case of him no longer choosing to use the words for the 
> effects he wants. It didn't just melt on and melt away, no more than 
> Snape just fell in and out of the Death Eaters. He chose to go in 
> and chose to get out. There may be teenagers who experimented with 
> this kind of rhetoric once or twice and really didn't have an issue 
> with it, but Snape doesn't seem to be one of them, as he became a DE.

wynnleaf
I wasn't really sure what I wanted to use as a quote from you Magpie,
so I just chose this one. I generally agree with your posts, but I
don't agree on this post. Yes, a person of 15 or 16 should be quite
aware that "mudblood" is a very offensive word and is often used by
those with a pureblood ethic. 

But adolescents, and even adults, very, very often call people things
which they don't actually think that they are, simply in order to hurt
them. The more they want to hurt, the worse word or insult they may
use. I have teenagers in and out of my house and occasionally when
one gets quite upset, he/she will call a good friend and even a
sibling something quite offensive. However I am quite confident that
they don't actually believe the things they are saying. They don't
use those words or insults because they *believe* them, but because
they want to cause a verbal injury.

Magpie:
Oh, I know people can say things just to hurt others. I really have two
things, though, that I think about it. First is that even if they are only
using it to get a rise out of someone, they're still choosing to do that
through racism. I can't imagine a person called a racial epithet by a kid
who's just trying to be offensive wouldn't, I assume, feel like they were
experiencing racism. Saying the person's only a bigot if *they* feel they
are because they really believe it takes even more power away from the
minority group--it doesn't matter what the dominant group does to you, they
still define whether it's racist or not. The dominant person is able to use
racist language to hurt the person because racism exists.

That's why I think it's kind of a red herring to search for whether the
character is "really" a bigot or not. Yes, there are some people for whom
racism informs their view of the world all the time, and others who might
just see an opportunity to say something horrible. But both people are
taking advantage of the same situation. Everyone faces lots of choices
every day where we might choose to say or do something bigoted. A teenager
could use the word Mudblood in an extreme situation once and feel badly
about it, for instance. It's not always about revealing the person as a
dyed-in-the-wool bigot. But I don't think it's possible to completely
separate the two from each other. Racism is what makes using a racial
epithet because it's hurtful possible. It's not always about saying that
you think the other person is inherently inferior. It can also just be
about saying: "I have this power that you don't." The person using the
remark might be able to say "but I didn't mean it," but the other person
can't. Racism is bigger than whether an individual person means it or not. 

In Snape's case, I think we also have to remember he was a DE. I don't yet
see any evidence that he was a DE because he was *primarily* motivated by
Pureblood superiority beliefs. But I certainly took his use of the word as
a marker on his dark journey into the DEs. Snape meant it enough that he
was willing to be part of Voldemort's elite DEs. Maybe he was just
declaring that he was one of them. Maybe he never stopped being motivated
by just wanting to do whatever would most hurt others, so he never really
meant it beyond that, and if that's true it would be good to understand
that about his character for accuracy, but he's okay with working for the
destruction of Muggle-borns to further his own causes. Would a Muggleborn
dead at Voldemort's hands looking at Snape the DE think the distinction was
significant?

wynnleaf:

I can't even begin to think of the number of times as a teenager I
might have called an intelligent person "stupid," never at all
thinking that they were stupid in the slightest. And that's just a
mild printable example. I once -- and only once -- called a person of
another race a very offensive name. I had *nothing* against that
person's race at all. It was a person close to me, and I wanted to
hurt their feelings and I knew that would get the job done faster than
anything I could think of. I was an adolescent using a meanspirited
comment to hurt, not because I had any disdain for that person's race.And,
by the way, the victim of my verbal nastiness knew exactly what
I was doing and told me off to the point that I will always remember
it. But it had nothing to do with my thinking racist thoughts, any
more than my calling someone "stupid" has to do with my thinking
they're beneath me intellectually.

Magpie:
Yes, but the reason you knew that word would be hurtful was because it was
racist--it used racism that exists against him/her. That's what Snape is
quite possibly doing to Lily. He is choosing in that moment to use that
insult rather than another one. More importantly for Snape, he wound up
joining the DEs. Maybe he never "really" had any disdain for the
Muggle-borns, but the group gave him what he wanted and he was okay with
that. At that point the fact that you do or don't really have disdain for
the groups doesn't really seem to matter much. 

I mean, what are "racist thoughts?" There's honestly thinking the other
person is inferior because of their race, obviously. But I think there's
also just the thing that children learn very young, which is that there is
a power imbalance that one group has over the other. In using an epithet
you are using that against the other person. Snape was putting one group
down to build himself up by being a DE.

Magpie
> As I said, I know that different people can say things for different 
> reasons, but I don't understand the explaining away of clear bigoted 
> rhetoric as anything but bigoted rhetoric. Whatever the reason, the 
> person is doing it. 

wynnleaf
Yes, the *rhetoric* can be characterized as such, but one can not
therefore say that the speaker is necessarily bigoted in order to use
it -- no more than a person who calls someone "stupid" is an
intellectual elitist, or a person who uses a French curse is
necessarily French.

Magpie:
It is possible that a teenager or child could be experimenting with the
power the word has because of the racism that exists in society. In Snape's
case, though, does become a DE. He's on his way to an organization that
puts these beliefs into some serious action, and even if that's not the big
draw of it for Snape, he has to be okay with it. Using the rhetoric could
be a start to that.

Perhaps more importantly, Snape's fictional, and being characterized
efficiently. Not that I don't think JKR could write a story where someone
used the word Mudblood in a different context, like to show them being
ashamed of it later or whatever. But given Snape's history and the fact
that we don't get anything else, it seems like we're just seeing him start
to get comfortable with the DE stuff. It does seem like a strong choice,
after all.We have one scene of Snape as a teen and he uses the word
Mudblood. How he truly related to the word doesn't really seem to change
things in that context. If our choices show who we truly are, Snape chose
to be that in the one scene we have for him as a teen. Perhaps later he
changed and became a different person, but whatever was on the inside back
then, he chose to be a bigot for a while there.

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