Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows question

Just because she sometimes described the colour of one of a character doesn't mean that every single character she didn't specify had to be white. She only brought it up when it seemed pertinent. She didn't introduce every single caucasian character by describing them with light skin.

It's the same has having thought for herself that Dumbledore was homosexual but never bringing it up in the scope of the novels. These details are unimportant as we're never met with any racism (or homophobia for that matter) as a theme. (aside from Michele's point about the whole allegory of racism and acceptance - I meant no specific incidences happened where someone was judged for their race.)

How about this theory: She just wrote a book. With people in it. A family of redheads. A boy with glasses. A half giant. A pair of twins. She got ideas and wrote them down. The result: a collection of unique and interesting characters. If you were to start writing a book right now, would you take the time to look up ethnicity percentages and create ratios given the amount of people that appear in your story?
You could start this discussion on any book. There are always issues of political correctness if you look hard enough. But nobody would comment on your discussion-because nobody cares. Lots of books don't have politically correct cast of characters. The only black protagonists I've ever seen are in historical fiction or Rick Riordan's books. And if the secondary characters are black, they're always described as having "light cocoa skin" or something like that.
And what about disabilities? Hardly any other protagonists have glasses. I've seen two books with blind protagonists (The Million Dollar Putt and Girl, Stolen), two more with blind best friends (Things Not Seen and Maximum Ride), one deaf (Hurt Go Happy), and only one where the main characters is in a wheelchair (Out of My Mind).
Harry Potter is meant to be enjoyed for the magic and adventure. Take your stupid Muggle concerns somewhere else.

Considering approximately 90% of England and Great Britain is Caucasian, I'm not seeing how there's a problem with the percentage of ethnic characters in the HP series. In fact, out of hundreds of students, and the fact we only meet a technical handful of them, a large percentage of different ethnicities are represented and very nicely, in my opinion.

I didn't know you could learn the color of someone's skin from a person's name? I think like with many books it is left to the reader to determine the color of someone's skin unless it is described by the author. I think you are confusing a casting directors selection with a writer's intent.

When JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books she had been working for a long time with refugee people seeking asylum from regimes where they feared death and in many cases had suffered torture.

http://refugemediaproject.org/blog/20...

..“I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

It is my understanding that JK Rowling took the wizarding culture and people and used the differences between them and Muggles to illustrate how people become racist and intolerant to each other and how they then treat people as a result.

The entire series is about racism. As she already had Wizards and Muggles to illustrate her points in that regard - it may have confused the clear message she was trying to send if she had also used 'real' racial characteristics to make a point as well. It may have made an otherwise subtle but effective message turn into a heavy handed preachy type of story.

I am convinced that JK Rowling is one of the least racist persons on the planet.

Her books is about a wizarding world and not about the world in which we live in and so there are not exact mirrors.

"I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London. There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes…"

Thanks to the Harry Potter books there are millions of children and adults who find it harder to condemn another person simply for being different. That is something we can all be grateful for.

What about Parvati and her sister?

Perhaps Rowling was basing it on her own experience of percentages of ethnicities - I know where I live, and in the surrounding counties, where my parents live and where I gre up there are few places that don't have a large white majority. Step into London or the other big cities and it's a different story - but England has a lot more of the 'in between' places than big cities. If hogwarts pupils were coming from all over the country, then the ratio seems about right to me...others may disagree. I'm talking as someone who's lived in country villages and small towns (but I do spend a lot of time in London).

I don't think that she specifically identified people's ethnicities with the exception of the Patil twins and Cho Chang, Seamus and a few others. Many of the choices of people's ethnicities were up to the directors, I mean the girl who was cast as Cho was clearly Scottish(she has that great accent) and it never said Cho was Scottish in the books. There is a certain artistic licence in casting.
Plus I find it interesting that you are only pointing out the people of ethnicity who happen to be black and not counting any of the ones who were Asian or East Asian.

It's all based on what you thought. Maybe Rowling imagined more of her characters as POC but they weren't portayed by POC in the movies. Some people think some characters are black, aisan or any other culture, but that character will still be themselves.

If they appear to be from a different culture shouldn't matter to you, it's the character's personality that counts, not their appearance. The character's looks should not be this important.

No, she did the book beautifully w/ atleast SOME variety.

You're also forgetting Gwenog Jones, Beater for the Holyhead Harpies. She was described as dark-skinned.

I think it was implied somewhere in the books, GoF, I think, during the world cup by Harry's shock at seeing wizards of various nationalities and shapes...maybe J.K.R wanted to concentrate on that one school in Scotland (which along with Wales and Ireland) incidentally has less concentration of Asians/other ethnic groups compared to England. Remember, the other two European schools don't quite figure in any other book except for a couple of student-characters who appear in subsequent books...It's likely that the magical folk preferred to live closer home, among their own. When an Asian or African author writes a fantasy, he/she may base it totally in their world with only ethnic characters even though Caucasians have often settled in these regions from the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans and even earlier.
Authors write what they are familiar with, drawing inspiration from their surroundings and attitudes even in science fiction. But, yes, wish for more coloured character, and that immigrants would try a hand at these genres.

and anthony goldstein, who is (probably) jewish.

Considering the fact that one of the main themes of Rowling's series is about tolerance and how no matter how different people are in their genealogy they are all equal, even if what you're saying is true with the lack of people from a different ethnicity, I doubt she was being malicious about it. Plus, there were so many people in that book she didn't describe every one of them and what about the 4th book? At the world cup there were a ton of people there from different countries.

Maybe there are less people of magic of other ethnicities in England and that's why the population of Hogwarts is predominantly white. Since it's fictional, though, we won't know for sure.

I think everyone make mistake no one is perfect, I think what writer are trying to show us to learn to see to understand even the writer well read over the work and why did I wrote that and the character feel more real thought the lessen we see some we think we see is not was the case what is really there thought .

Let's not forget the Patil twins!!

There is also a concept whereby individuals read characters to be who they most associate with. There was lots of discussion about this when the movie version of the Hunger Games was released and some people were surprised to learn Rue was not white.

I wonder if you would feel the same way if there weren't movies made. Perhaps someone might imagine Hermione as not white, or even Harry? Ron, probably not due his read hair... :)

I guess maybe in UK there are not that many POC in the 1990s. OTOH, I think Feven's criticism can be applied to the YA books in the US as American YA writers definitely do not have any excuse to neglect 28% of their population. I just skimmed through the YA page in Goodreads, on which I believe over half of the books are written by Americans, & I don't think I can find one POC on book cover. Personally I don't mind if a certain author happen to decide to cast his or her main characters as white but I do think POC are so underrepresented in YA fiction that the American YA publishing industry today as a whole might have some racial bias.

DON'T QUESTION J. K. ROWLING AGAIN OR I WILL MURDER YOU!