[HPforGrownups] Uncle Tom?

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 166903

From: Marion Ros <mros at xs4all.nl>
> Also, I must admit that the whole 'you are a great wizard 
> Harry because it's all in your Blood' idea gets a bit on my 
> nerve since we've had sanctimonuously hammered home by the 
> whole of fandom that the 'blood-purists' in the WW and their 
> ideas that 'breeding outside of the talented genepool weakens 
> the talent' is Wrong, Racist and whoever utters it would be 
> just short of being the lovechild of Adolf Hitler and Satan. 
> To suddenly suggest that Harry and Lily owe their powers to 
> some blood-connection to Voldemort (it's all down to breeding, 
> it's In His Blood, etc, etc) would suggest that the bloodpurists 
> might have a point after all <grin>

Bart:
JKR really stacked the deck, here. I recall some interesting cryptogenetics going on here to try to figure out exactly how magic powers are inherited (so that wizards can appear, rarely, among muggles, squibs appear, rarely, among wizards, and one wizarding parent is sufficient for the child to have powers). The point is, however, that wizarding IS in the genes (if not literally in the blood), and is directly connected to wizarding. What is commonly called "race" (a concept which, by the way, did not even exist until about the 16th century in Europe; before that, and in other countries, bigotry was based on nationality, not what is called "race") is highly superficial, with the genes related to it being only a small portion of our whole genetic makeup and almost entirely disconnected from non-superficial characteristics. It has been said that there is as much genetic variation among the dwellers of the Kalahari desert as there is in the U.N. 

The point is that, while bigotry against Muggles and Squibs (and intelligent non-humans) is being depicted as wrong, it is because they are intelligent (and presumably ensouled) life forms, not because of magical power. Remember, eugenics failed not because you can't selectively breed for certain characteristics, but because life is sufficiently complex that one cannot determine what a desirable or undesirable characteristic IS. 

Bart