dig race&sex in Harry Potter

There are varied different races in the Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling had made it very clear - but are different races and sexes really matters that much in the series? Kayhan Nejad, a PhD student who studies the dissertation on Russo-Iranian relations in the nineteenth-century Caucasus at Yale, has mentioned in his article, “Literal and Metaphorical: Racial Themes in Harry Potter” said that “In appearance, the world of Harry Potter is “color-blind,” and race is neither acknowledged nor relevant. The result is a supposed “racial Utopia,” one free from constrictive ethnic identity (Lyubansky 2). The magical school of Hogwarts, to some extent, fits this description; the school includes multiple minorities, and race appears to play no role in determining student relationships or abilities.”

There is another question, “Which Harry Potter characters’ races were canonically stated?” There is some controversies about the casting of a Black actor to play the part of Hermione, which has led, among other things, to questions such as “Was JK Rowling involved with Noma Dumezweni’s casting as Hermione Granger in Cursed Child?” and “What is Hermione Granger’s ethnicity?”

Given that supposedly Rowling never definitively stated Hermione was Caucasian in the books, people would think, for which characters she DID explicitly state a skin tone or race. And there are few answers I found out:

  1. “Thomas, Dean,” a Black boy even taller than Ron, joined Harry at the Gryffindor table.
  2. Angelina Johnson (black)
  3. Kingsley Shacklebolt (black)

But why most of characters in HP that have been defined race are black people? There are some more questions we need to ask and think about in the “race and sex” field in Harry Potter.

References:

2010-11 Winner: “Literal and Metaphorical: Racial Themes in Harry Potter” by Kayhan Nejad e.g. online. (n.d.). Retrieved September 19, 2016, from https://depts.washington.edu/egonline/2012/03/2010-11-winner-literal-and-metaphorical-racial-themes-in-harry-potter-by-kayhan-nejad/

Yale University. (n.d.). Retrieved September 19, 2016, from http://history.yale.edu/people/kayhan-nejad

Written on September 19, 2016 by Meiqi Zhao