Snape and the Mudbloods. Was: Snape - werewolf bigot??

[leslie41]

No: HPFGUIDX 170295

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" <justcarol67 at ...> 
wrote:
> Carol:

> I see nothing indicating a pureblood ideology that would lead him to
> join the Death Eaters, particularly since he was a Half-blood 
> himself.

Leslie41:

This is an interesting question, and one that complicates Snape 
considerably.

I think the difficulty with your reasoning here about Snape is that 
you are thinking far too rationally.  It makes perfect sense, of 
course, that if one is a Jew, for example, that one would not be anti-
semetic.  Likewise that someone with a Muggle father would not become 
a DE.  

However, I can attest to the fact that the very most anti-semetic 
utterances I have ever heard have come out of the mouths of Jews.  
The term "self-hating Jew" is something anyone raised Jewish often 
comes to know intimately.

Snape, I think, is a self-hating half-blood. And that's a self-hatred 
that was born from his loathesome relationship with his father.  
Psychologically, joining the DEs proves not that Snape hates Muggles, 
but that Snape hated his father, and that part and parcel of that is 
his hatred for himself as his father's son.  The desire for "purity" 
exhibited by the DEs is something Snape wanted, because he wished to 
purify himself of his father's influence, his father's blood, etc.

The racism of many people can be explained by circumstances such as 
these, but in the end, I think, it doesn't matter.  We judge people 
by what they say.  It's extremely possible for a Jew to be an anti-
semite. What we say when we are under duress, or drunk, is actually I 
think what defines us.  

Does Michael Richards go around burning crosses?  No.  But his 
attempt to stress that he's "not a racist" after spewing forth a 
racist diatribe is ludicrous.

So, to my mind, Snape at least WAS a racist because he obviously made 
a racist statement, and then threw in his lot with a bunch of 
racists.  Rowling has likened the DEs to Nazis.  

Whether he is now, or whether or not he has gained some insight into 
why he joined the DEs, remains unclear.  The end question for me, 
though, is, is it possible for him to be a racist and still do the 
right thing for the right people?  Yeah.