Where's the bigotry

[sistermagpie]

I feel like I haven't posted in forever. I was away for a while for my brother's wedding, which was really fun. Although he's not too much like the character as a type, if I were to describe how my family feels about my brother, I think it's probably something like the way Neville fans feel about Neville...and his new wife's family and friends seem to feel the same way about her, so it was a pretty happy wedding.

Also, got an OUTSTANDING on the Level 3 WOMBAT--woo-hoo! I got O's on the second two and EE on the first one which was supposed to be the easiest. This is just like in high school when we'd get assigned summer reading and I'd get really into it and then get a bad grade when we were tested because they'd ask questions about ridiculous minutia in the story that I never remembered. The second two WOMBATs were about things I actually thought about. Anyway it’s pathetic how validated I feel about a pretend grade. But then, I was just as eager to find out Harry's OWL results and those were somebody else's pretend grades.

I'd wanted to post something before I left on this conversation I was reading on a list...I'm having trouble making it coherent, but figured I ought to throw it out before DH if I was going to throw it out at all. Especially after jlh posted about the anniversary of The Loving Decision, which ruled that a state (in that case, Virginia) could not nullify a marriage on the basis of race. I recommend the post. In it she also brought up the more fandom-related point of how difficult it seems it is to talk about race in fandom, and this other conversation was also about race in HP as related to real life racism. Specifically, this was about



Snape's Worst Memory.

In this scene Snape calls Lily Potter a Mudblood, and there was disagreement over whether this made him a racist or not at that time in his life. Iow, it wasn't a disagreement over whether Snape could have by now changed his views in canon and no longer have the beliefs he did then when he used the word, but whether his using that word showed he was an actual racist in the moment--or was he only angry and so saying the worst thing he could think of to hurt Lily. Iow, he didn’t "really believe" in Pure-blood supremacy. His being a Half-blood and identifying himself as such, in fact, made any claims that Snape was ever really racist suspicious. He couldn't really believe in the inferiority of those with Muggle-blood, and people offered their own experiences with times when they or someone they knew used a racist term for that reason but not because they really felt anything negative about the other person’s.

This view kind of surprised me, and I realized it came down to having fundamentally different ways of understanding bigotry. My own interpretation of that scene in canon is that Snape was a kid who got into a racist organization and however he privately understood blood distinctions in the WW, at a point in his life racist rhetoric gave him something he wanted and he supported it. This scene, in terms of the story, is showing us that Snape is moving down that road, the one we know will eventually end in his being a DE. His use of the term Mudblood is a big signpost—only three students I can think of ever use it: Snape, Tom Riddle, and Draco Malfoy.

Here’s where I think there’s a difference in understanding racism. If Snape isn't really a bigot because he doesn't really believe, bigotry is therefore judged by what a person believes deep down—not his actions or words. If Snape calls someone a Mudblood that doesn't make him a bigot unless "deep down" he believes that Purebloods are superior. The Malfoys, otoh, are real bigots because they are Purebloods who say they believe in the superiority of Purebloods and it’s believed that they do, deep down, see Muggle-borns as inferior.

But defining racism that way, I think, and by focusing on whether a person really is or isn’t a racist, can be misleading. It also handily discounts the experience of the person on the receiving end of the offensive behavior. It essentially says that I, as a white person, can use racial slurs and yet not be a racist. The racism is not defined by my actions or the other person’s experience, but by what I am deep down. Essentially, my action of calling someone a slur doesn’t matter because it’s just superficial, it’s not the way I really feel. I am only racist when I say I am by declaring that I really believe the other person is inferior. The other person can’t judge me accurately because they only have their actions. All the power lies with me, the racism is there when I, a member of the dominant group, say it is and not when a member of the other group says it is.

And yet it's in the superficial world, the one where people act—not the world deep down inside ourselves—where racism manifests itself. It's really only of limited importance to others what I personally believe--what matters more when it comes to making a society more equal for everyone is what I do or say to support or inequality, right? If I can do things that support or seem to support racial inequality without it being racism, how do we talk about racism at all?

This actually brings up another Slytherin character in HP that's debated as being bigoted or not--Slughorn. In his first scene Slughorn has this exchange with Harry:

"Your mother was Muggle-born, of course. Couldn't believe it when I found out. Thought she must have been pure-blood, she was so good."

"One of my best friends is Muggle-born," said Harry, "and she's the best in our year."

"Funny how that sometimes happens, isn't it?" said Slughorn.

"Not really," said Harry coldly.

Slughorn looked down at him in surprise. "You mustn't think I'm prejudiced!" he said. "No, no, no! Haven't I just said your mother was one of my all-time favorite students? And there was Dirk Cresswell in the year after her too - now Head of the Goblin Liaison Office, of course - another Muggle-born, a very gifted student, and still gives me excellent inside information on the goings-on at Gringotts!"

He bounced up and down a little, smiling in a self-satisfied way, and pointed at the many glittering photograph frames on the dresser, each peopled with tiny moving occupants.

Now, to me what Slughorn is doing here is very recognizable from our own world. He's stating flat-out that everyone knows Muggle-borns are a bit challenged, though he has a list of exceptional Muggle-borns that he's placed in positions that show how not prejudiced he is. Not that these people in any way disprove that Muggle-borns are inferior--they just show how it's "funny how that sometimes happens." He still knows everyone's lineage by heart.

To me, Slughorn's pretty sinister. He's teaching the kids at what seems to be the one school in the country, and he blatantly favors some students over others, those he thinks have a chance of bringing him glory. Sure if you're a Muggle-born star who catches his attention he'll put you in the club too--as a credit to your race. But the average Muggle-born would be more likely than the average Pureblood (who is assumed from the start to have more potential) of being neglected and discouraged by his teacher. A teacher who takes pride in having a hand in putting people into positions of power. Hasn't this attitude caused a lot of damage in the real world?

Whether or not Slughorn believes "deep down" that Muggle-borns are inferior, he certainly seems to have better expectations for Pure-bloods--it's not exactly a surprise that he seems to have mentored most of the Death Eaters we know. (And I'd be surprised if this sort of thing wasn't ever discussed at Slug Club meetings.) Not that Slughorn's beliefs really seem to be in question at all--he says flat-out that he believes Purebloods are superior, and yet I rarely hear him linked to characters in canon widely considered to be bigots. In fact, I've far more often heard the idea that Slughorn could be prejudiced described as a myth since he puts Hermione and Lily in his club. (Which is exactly his own defense of himself—only I thought JKR was there parodying the "I have [insert minority group] friends!" attitude.)

This seems to again go back to a view of racism based on motivation, with that motivation needing to be strictly logical as well: if Snape is a Half-blood he can not be a bigot because his father is a Muggle and that would make him inferior. If Slughorn puts Muggle-born Hermione in his Club he can not be a bigot because a bigot must shun all Muggle-borns. Yet in the real world both these things happen all the time--one can be behave in racist ways and still have blood ties to the group you despise. One can behave in racist ways and still like individuals of that race.

On the level of just what the author meant by having Snape use the word, I think if she has a character use language marked as Pure-blood supremacists in the text, she's telling us that character supports certain attitudes we've seen. When Blaise Zabini's calls Ginny a "blood traitor," for instance, I think she's showing the same thing. (And yes, I have heard Blaise's blood-traitor, too, interpreted as not really showing us that he "really believes" any of the things Malfoy does.) My point here isn't to prove that Blaise is a big bigot, just to show that same attitude about racism, that what matters is the characters specific motivation behind the language he's using, and not the fact that he's using the language.

But the question is—why does motivation matter, if it does? Obviously it matters in understanding the character, which is always good. But in understanding bigotry, how different is it for a character who's considered not to be a bigot to use a slur (like Hagrid calling Filch a "sneakin' Squib") from a bigoted character (say, Malfoy calling Hermione a "Mudblood.")

That's where I think the analogy to the real world gets important, because the same idea applied there. "I just used the word to hurt the other person—I didn't really believe it." I just wonder if that distinction isn't a whole lot more important for the person using the slur than the one hearing it. I mean, I'm sure that anyone in a minority group makes distinctions in dealing with people who are in the majority--Bob said something stupid the other day, but he just doesn't get why it was stupid vs. Joe's a member of a white supremacist group and I stay far away from him.

But if we only make that distinction, I think we avoid what connects Bob and Joe. Rather than racism being something that someone is or isn't all the time, it seems to me it's more like something that's just there for a person in the dominant group to choose to use or benefit from it or not, if that makes sense. Becoming aware of power imbalances amongst people in a society is a part of growing up. And while I suspect members of minorities may become aware and more sophisticated about these things sooner, children of the majority also go through their own understanding of it—and sometimes that means testing out that power they have. I think that testing and understanding is part of what racism is.

For instance, when someone says they used a word when they were a teenager because they knew it would hurt the other person and not because they were racist it begs the question: why did you know that word would be so hurtful? Because, obviously, it comes with a whole history of power imbalance behind it. It's not just like saying you don't like blonds to a person with blond hair. (JKR plays with this, imo, with things like Pansy's remark about Angelina's hair and Blaise being black—she’s removed the racial divisions we know from her story at the level at which the characters operate, but of course not on the level at which the reader operates.)

I think that distinction gets made a lot in the HP-verse because the universe is so based around power. This is why I think the twins giving Dudley a ton-tongue toffee is Muggle-baiting whether or not they did it "because he's a Muggle." By using magic on him they're using the inequality against him, just as one does if they call a minority a slur. It's just curious that there too it's the same disagreement over how the thing is defined: is it the motivation of the twins that makes it bad, or their actions in the context of the society? I think it's the latter, and I think that's also true of Snape in his early life.

Comments

This is going to be incoherent

[ex-leianora730.livejournal.com]

To me, the entire idea of racism is just... irrational. It makes no sense, and in an ideal world, it wouldn't even exist. That's a cliche, but the very idea of looking for motivations behind why people use the words or benefits of race or scorn them never made much sense to me. Even when kids at school called me names for being half American and half Korean, it didn't really matter to me, because it was simply a fact. It was the truth, so I didn't really let their words hurt me, because they were true. I've experienced the disadvantages of being refused a thing because of my blindness, and that's a form of descrimination which is a subspecies of racism, of sorts, and that does hurt, but it also forces me to work harder at a thing, or examine my priorities. Is it really worth it for me to succeed at this thing? Do I really want to be involved in a group or an activity where people are so caught up in the fact that I can't see that they're reluctant to let me in to begin with? If I do want to work for it, how can I better my chances? It's a character building exercise; albeit a painful one.

Re: This is going to be incoherent

[anehan]

I'm curious here. Do you, in fact, see the discrimination you suffer as a good thing on some level?

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to think -- what exactly is it we're reacting to when we're indignant about someone's racist behavior. And I was thinking that in my own reactions, I'm inclined to judge someone like Snape very harshly, for acting with deliberate, calculated cruelty. On the other hand, I find myself willing to make excuses for Slughorn, who may have passively acquired prejudiced habits of mind, because he seems to act without malice. And I may find him ignorant or embarassing, but because he seems open to revising his prejudices based on his experience of people, I'm reluctant to say his badness goes as deep as Snape's.

I wonder if I'd feel differently about that if I personally had had the experience of being on the receiving end of racist abuse. It might make me much less patient with Slughorn, more insistent that he really ought to have done more work on his attitudes by now, more willing to judge him harshly for his "unconscious" slights. But I think even then, I'd give credit for the difference between active malice and self-indulgent laziness.

I'm a little queasy, too, about judging people based on attributed internal states such as "being prejudiced" or "being right-minded" -- because people internally are such a mess. I guess I do think there are certain master traits that a person can properly be judged for -- what executive approach do they take to regulating their internal mental multitudes? Do they embrace their nastiness or wrestle with it? I do think they get points for effort, for introspection, for openness to other people, for a willingness to second-guess themselves. But there still has to be a minimum standard, here-- people can be work-in-progress as long as they are making progress, I guess. Complacency, even without malice, seems culpable. And when prejudices curdle into a defensive shell (as you so wonderfully described with regard to Draco), or get honed as an aggressive weapon, then I would be more inclined to call those people hateful.

Young Snape is an interesting case because the first thought is -- he can't possibly believe in pure-bloodism because of his own background. But as you say, maybe he does, a little -- maybe there's some self-loathing there, among other things. I'm also thinking that the context where he uses that word against Lily is important. We can't know, obviously, whether Lily felt any sense of self-doubt about belonging to the WW, or felt inherently vulnerable to the M-word; but the fact that Snape uses the word in front of James and Sirius may have the subtext of deliberately trying to embarass Lily in front of them, of emphasizing the difference between her and these two popular boys. So it's complicated: it's partly self-loathing, partly probing for a generic weak spot in Lily, partly the most context-specific way he can try to put her down.

Given all of that, I end up thinking that it's almost too simplistic to wonder "what are Snape's thoughts on yaoi purebloods, really?" It's like -- what are his thoughts on European Union? Maybe the abstract belief, expressible in essay form, really isn't the point. It's more important, in making a moral judgment about a whole person, to ask what use the person is making of racist concepts, both internally, for his own psyche, and externally, as a weapon or act of cruelty.

[anehan]

If we're talking about a character's personal motivations, I think it might be possible to make the argument that someone could call someone else a Mudblood (or any other derogatory word) merely to hurt or use societal bigotry to advance their goals without themselves believing in the inferiority of the group. But that implies a degree of deliberation and dispassionateness, and really, does being willing to coldly use bigotry to further one's own goals reflect better on the character than being a bigot themselves?

Anyway, how non-racist can someone who has grown up in a racist society be? Snape, although a half-blood, has grown up surrounded by negative attitudes against Muggles, etc., so I don't think it a stretch at all to assume that he has internalized them.

Actually, IMO the portrayal of bigotry against Muggles, Muggleborns, Squibs and so on is one of the stronger areas in HP. It'd be nice to see how in practice the anti-Muggleborn prejudice affects the lives of the Muggleborn, true, but in general JKR does rather well. Even her "good guys" are prejudiced against Muggles and Squibs even if they accept Muggleborns into their society. (Interestingly enough, doesn't Harry pick up these prejudices as the series progresses?) Moreover, the Muggleborn undoubtedly bring their own, distinct, prejudices into the WW; Hermione dismissing Firenze as a horse demonstrates that.

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. JKR is exploring status and power through these books, and racism is one very obvious aspect of status and power.

I think we Americans (and by "we," I mean "me") have difficulty dealing with the concept of status because we try to pretend it doesn't exist. Just like we try to pretend that racism was something that happened long, long ago in the prehistorical times known as the fifties.

But that's all over now, right?

Not quite. I just heard a "This American Life" story in which a successful American-American businessman (graduate of Harvard) took a job as a busboy for two weeks at a country club because he knew he'd never get a membership and wanted to know what the place was like from the inside.

He heard many horrendously racist statements that the members had no trouble saying in front of the colored man waiting on their tables. He was expected to sleep in the "Monkeyhouse" so named because, before American-Americans stopped applying for jobs and the Mexican workers filled in, blacks were the main occupants of the dorms.

I was also shocked a couple months ago when BBC World Have Your Say broadcast from a restauant in Harlem to hear how genuinely angry African-Americans are at the state of the country. Many of them said that they felt like they were living in Apartheid--especially since so many young black men are hassled by the police, picked up for trivial offenses, and given maximum prison sentences.

So, racism is alive and well in the U.S.

The confusing part is that it's no longer--forgive me for saying this--"black and white." That well-educated African-American man walked away from the busboy job after getting his first paycheck, and went right back to his successful career. It's not that a black man is limited to the bus boy jobs any more. Blackness just made a handy marker for those snobbish women sipping their gin-and-tonics at the country club. Because the bus boy is a different color, they could easily identify him as inferior. But it isn't the skin color that makes him inferior, it's the being a bus boy part. It's just easier if he's a different color, too. Makes it obvious that he's not related to anyone they know and therefore there's no danger that they'd be embarrassed by having to someday treat him with respect.

I'm not sure if JKR chose to set her exploration of power in a school because schools are so rife with status exchanges, or if the exploration grew as a natural function of having a school setting. But kids instinctively understand the relationship of status and power because that's how schools work. Kids are always in competition with each other for a very limited commodity--the teacher's approval and attention. Every student either wants to be a teacher's pet--or defines him or herself as rejecting the teacher's power by being disruptive. So, the theme of status and ranking--which begets racism--is going to run through her school boy story.

So, is Snape being racist when he calls Lily a Mudblood? Of course he is. Does that mean that he's a racist?

... I'm having trouble answering that question. I think that's because I have a problem with saying what a person is as opposed to what a person does. Because when you start to say a person is, it's starts being about condemnation. He's a racist. It's as stupid as calling someone a terrorist. And almost as stupid as calling them a Mudblood. (For Mudblood, insert the racial epithet of your choice.)

It's not the word "racist," I have so much trouble with. It's the motivation behind the word that bugs me. It just becomes, like skin color, a handy way of separating that person from myself. So, I don't have to worry about his (fictional) feelings or treat him with respect.

Oh dear. The more I go on, the less coherent I get. It all comes back to something I heard someone say when I was a kid and that stuck with me. "The question isn't whether or not you're a racist. The question is, 'what are you going to do about it?'"

Re: This is going to be incoherent

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think that's part of what's tricky about looking for a sort of logical defense of racism. As if in order for someone to be acting in a racist way the racism has to be logical when it's not. When it comes down to it there simply isn't any real difference between races genetically, or people of different sexual orientations, or people with an ability to do magic or see compare to those who don't. There's the difference itself (one person can see and the other can't) but this doesn't lead to more fundamental differences (the person who can't see is also incompetent or whatever). I think what more often happens it people see the superficial difference and add more important differences to it.

But that also makes it much harder to find a really logical thought process behind the racism, because I don't think there always is one. It can just be a feeling.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That's interesting about Slughorn because I think I have the opposite reaction. With Snape it seems like while he had more malice, he went through a period where he was out there as openly malicious, and then he seems to have changed. He still did some damage--it's like with the prophecy. His passing it on got Harry targeted, but then he (allegedly) tried to do something to undo that, and he is now actively working for the other side. But he doesn't honestly seem to struggle with prejudice against Muggle-borns now.

With Slughorn the lack of malice (or at least conscious malice) makes it harder for anyone to call him on what he's doing. He's convinced he's being just fine. Unfortunately, he's not just like somebody grandfather who just will never stop using calling people "colored" and is always going to consider them inferior but also probably isn't going to do much more than say embarassing things at home. Slughorn is a teacher--one who takes an active role in shaping his society because he's got a lot of power. So at times I feel like he's the more sinister--not only is he subtly putting down more Muggle-borns as they come into his class, but I'll bet it would be harder to complain about him.

I guess a better way of explaining it is to say that while Slughorn isn't as bad a person as Snape is and was, he seems to represent a much more powerful force of bigotry. Sixteen years after Voldemort's first defeat Snape shows signs of having actually changed, while Slughorn never sees a problem. He's more slippery.:-)

So it's complicated: it's partly self-loathing, partly probing for a generic weak spot in Lily, partly the most context-specific way he can try to put her down.

Yes, exactly--and I think that given the history of the word in that world (different from a racial slur in ours) its use seems to almost always be directed not at the Muggle-born but at the Pure-bloods with them who understand what it means and feel it more keenly. Whatever it does mean, Snape seems to have grasped the right way to use it in ways I don't think I do yet. Fandom tends to, for instance, assume that Pure-bloods have to hate Half-bloods too, but they don't seem to. (I think part of that is wanting Snape to be more one of the victims, too, the Malfoys make it easy by being Pure-blood). (This is another reason I LOVE in Maya's fic where Draco thinks he wouldn't want children with Katie for one reason that makes him sympathetic, and another that's believably racist.)

It's more important, in making a moral judgment about a whole person, to ask what use the person is making of racist concepts, both internally, for his own psyche, and externally, as a weapon or act of cruelty.

Yes--and I think that's often the way it works in the real world too. If you just make it about some vague idea if someone "really" thinks a group is inferior in every way, you'd probably be searching a long time. The appeal of racism isn't always that it seems logical.

[anehan]

I'm inclined to judge someone like Snape very harshly, for acting with deliberate, calculated cruelty

Are you connecting Snape's cruelty with his prejudice against Muggle-borns? I agree that he is deliberately and calculatedly cruel ("I see no difference", etc.), but I can't see that in the Pensieve scene. Rather, Snape's using the word "Mudblood" in that scene seems to me like an emotional response in a very humiliating situation.

but because he seems open to revising his prejudices based on his experience of people, I'm reluctant to say his badness goes as deep as Snape's

I'm not sure I agree. Slughorn seems to think talented Muggle-borns are exceptions to the rule that purebloods are better, and that requires only that he doesn't believe all Muggle-borns are worthless. I see no proof that he has revised his prejudices at all. Or was there some indication that previously he did believe that no Muggle-born could be talented and then revised that opinion?

Snape, OTOH, joined the Death Eaters and then left them. Granted, it doesn't mean that he has revised his prejudices (he could have left for other reasons), but IMO, circumstantial though it is, it's more evidence than Slughorn's cheerfully going on to believe that talented Muggle-borns are the exceptions that prove the rule. (Unless you believe in ESE!Snape, which would shoot the above to hell.)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

But that implies a degree of deliberation and dispassionateness, and really, does being willing to coldly use bigotry to further one's own goals reflect better on the character than being a bigot themselves?

Exactly. Racism as a problem isn't just about people not believing in the inferiority of one group. It's a power imbalance and what gets done with it. And I do think it's tricky because there's a whole grey area of people doing a sort of meta-commentary about racist attitudes too, where they're making it into a joke (like Sara Silverman), but as a woman, for instance, I don't think I'd be okay with some guy calling me a cunt just because he said, "Oh, I don't really think of you in a sexist way, it's just when I get angry at you I call you that because it's hurtful."

It'd be nice to see how in practice the anti-Muggleborn prejudice affects the lives of the Muggleborn, true, but in general JKR does rather well.

I agree-it's especially kind of nice the way that characters put down the prejudice of others but make excuses for their own...just like people everywhere do.

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

His being a Half-blood and identifying himself as such, in fact, made any claims that Snape was ever really racist suspicious.

That kind of reasoning is bizarre, IMO, because he calls himself "The Half-blood Prince" showing that it's the wizard part of his family he identifies with. And following this logic, doesn't that mean Voldemort can't be racist, too? They both talk about being "half-bloods" but it seems more like they're obsessing over exactly how much "wizarding inheritance" they have. I have no problem thinking his using of the Mudblood slur comes more out of a desire to hurt Lily than anything (but than again, isn't it the same thing with Draco the first time he throws it at Hermione? She's insulted him, so he wants to insult her back and calls her the worst thing he can think of. Only unlike Lily, Hermione didn't know what it meant at the time, so it doesn't get the desired effect.)

That whole exchange with Slughorn rigns very true for me, too, it seems to be the equivalent with people who go "I'm not a racist, but..." and then finish it with something that makes you wonder if they really aren't. He clearly believes his favourite Muggle-borns are the exceptions of the rule, rather than proof that blood doesn't matter.

But the average Muggle-born would be more likely than the average Pureblood (who is assumed from the start to have more potential) of being neglected and discouraged by his teacher.

Especially since many of his selected students seems to be hand-picked for their family-connections, rather than talents or things they have done. And also, aren't the Muggle-borns he favours rather well-integrated in WW? (Not that we've ever seen any examples of Muggle-borns who aren't, to be fair.)

That's where I think the analogy to the real world gets important, because the same idea applied there. "I just used the word to hurt the other person—I didn't really believe it." I just wonder if that distinction isn't a whole lot more important for the person using the slur than the one hearing it.

I'm reminded of a time when I was in the waiting hall of a train station, when a woman (probably influenced by alcohol or some other drug) was arguing heatedly with the man in the store, and very loudly and aggressively called him "jävla svartskalle" (Swedish slur for people of foreign descent), making quite a few people in the waiting hall, including an older foreign couple, jump in their seats, because she was so clearly aggressive. She then approached the foreign man, apologising for having used that word, and trying to explain to him that "she didn't mean him," only that "other bastard" in the store. He didn't care about her explanations and was all "get away from me! Leave me alone!" clearly still afraid of her. I think that shows that the motivation doesn't matter much; what you hear is hateful speech, and if it's a stranger, of course you're going to be afraid, even if they said it to someone else.

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

I can tell I'm going to go crazy and be totally obnoxious in this particular discussion, because, for some reason, I do find this one of the most interesting aspects of the series.

I think you're right that it would be very easy for Snape to internalize the anti-Muggleborn prejudice into self-hatred. After all, the stereotypes of self-race-hating people are common enough to have their own labels: Self-hating Jew, Uncle Tom, House N*****, Oreo, etc.

I think I would have no problem at all in using this metaphor for Snape, if it weren't for the eternal contradiction in Snape. Because, although we see him calling Lily a Mudblood in the most offensive terms, we also have his "Half-Blood Prince" title. Like everything about Snape, it doesn't do to ignore the contradictory evidence.

It doesn't make sense for a racist to give himself a mocking title like that. It doesn't make sense for a blood traitor to be calling the attractive, well-intentioned Prefect who is rescuing him a Mudblood. So, like everything about Snape, a simplistic interpretation won't work.

Maybe the abstract belief, expressible in essay form, really isn't the point. It's more important, in making a moral judgment about a whole person, to ask what use the person is making of racist concepts, both internally, for his own psyche, and externally, as a weapon or act of cruelty.

I agree with you. Which is one of the reasons, I'm seeing, that people like me are feeling a compulsion to express themselves in fanfic. I've been writing a fanfic backstory for Snape. And I feel stupid because I keep mentioning it all the time--but it's because the ideas I have about what makes Snape tick just don't fit in a few paragraphs any more.

Even the one question about why the same person would call himself the "Half-Blood Prince" and someone else a Mudblood has turned into a story that's up to 23 chapters now. So far, I've come up with three separate meanings for Snape's title. I might have more before I'm done. Who knows at this point?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Snape, OTOH, joined the Death Eaters and then left them. Granted, it doesn't mean that he has revised his prejudices (he could have left for other reasons), but IMO, circumstantial though it is, it's more evidence than Slughorn's cheerfully going on to believe that talented Muggle-borns are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Yes, that's what I mean too. Racism always allows for "the good ones." I wouldn't be surprised if Slughorn's attitude now was much the same as it was years before--I'm sure he's evolved somewhat with the times in terms of just how these things are spoken about, which is why now he says, "Oh, you mustn't think I'm prejudice" rather than what he would have said years ago which was probably, "We've got a little Muggle in the club this year. Quite talent without being uppity."

[elanor-x.livejournal.com]

If Snape isn't really a bigot because he doesn't really believe, bigotry is therefore judged by what a person believes deep down—not his actions or words.
When I started reading your post, I was closer to that pov, but now I am somewhere between them.
The dictionary definitions I found are approximately:
racist - a person with a prejudiced belief that one race is superior [sometimes "and therefore treats them unfairly" is added].
The definitions stress what the person believes in, not actions, but we can't read minds & hearts, therefore we are forced to judge other people only by their actions and words. Besides, I think our actions and words aren't only influenced by our believes, but influence them as well. One can start using slurs as a good weapon and incrementally, (sub)consciously really absorb the believes as well. The process is quite easy when one has cultural support and the believes are ego-gratifying. It's pleasant to view yourself as superior after all.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. The more I go on, the less coherent I get. It all comes back to something I heard someone say when I was a kid and that stuck with me. "The question isn't whether or not you're a racist. The question is, 'what are you going to do about it?'"

Awesome.:-) And I totally agree with that use of the term--it's not really a label for a person because people change. It's not like if you're not a racist your behavior must be good and if you are a racist it must be bad. We make decisions every day and sometimes we make the right ones and sometimes the wrong ones. Someone's attitudes can change. And even though plenty of people can say insensitive or bigoted things for forgivable reasons, the thing they said or did should still be judged in that context. Sometimes it's complicated and it's hard to pin down what side of the line something falls on, but it can't be decided by just whether or not the person is or isn't a racist...err...that is, not always. If someone has a history of bigotry, for instance, that's going to effect how their remarks are understood, for instance.

I was actually reading something recently, actually, that talked about some really unbelievably racist shit some young kids were getting up to and it was almost like because they were born after this stuff was being publicly dealt with a particular way they didn't get it. Showing, essentially, that it's an ongoing battle.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That kind of reasoning is bizarre, IMO, because he calls himself "The Half-blood Prince" showing that it's the wizard part of his family he identifies with.

That's the way I understood it. He was a Prince, but he was the Half-Blood and who knows what that meant to him? Also since he's a teenager he could be dealing with his identity in different ways. And yes, I think Draco's a good example because in CoS it seems like JKR sets up his first slur to Hermione as coming out of his own frustrations especially at her for the way she's used against him by Lucius...but that doesn't make it not racism. On the contrary, it kind of shows how racism gives him something he needs.

Especially since many of his selected students seems to be hand-picked for their family-connections, rather than talents or things they have done.

Yes--and oddly, he's often praised for passing over DE kids as if he's rejecting their bigotry when he explicitly isn't. He doesn't want connections to DEs, but Draco and Lucius could be the exact same people and he'd welcome them for their bloodline. Draco doesn't seem to be lying when he says that his father and grandfather were favorites.

She then approached the foreign man, apologising for having used that word, and trying to explain to him that "she didn't mean him," only that "other bastard" in the store. He didn't care about her explanations and was all "get away from me! Leave me alone!"

Yeesh! I'd feel the same way!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I guess we should also bring in the idea of institutionalized racism, which can do so much damage. An individual believing one race is inferior or bad is a slightly different thing than a society that makes it more difficult for one race than the others.

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

Slughorn!

I can't really explain why he drives me up the wall so much, but he does. Especially the idea that he represents the "good" Slytherin.

Partly it's the that pervy professor vibe from him . The idea of him plucking out pretty, socially disadvantaged young girls for his Slub Club makes my skin crawl. Not that I think he'd try anything. But I get the idea he likes thinking about it. But, you know. That's just my prejudice showing.

And yep. He mentored the kids who went on to become Death Eaters with tacit acceptance of their militant racism with his kinder, gentler version. Doesn't Dumbledore even say something about LV wanting to use Slughorn to recruit?

I agree that that Slughorn's variety of racism is subtler, more pervasive, and harder to deal with than the upfront, aggressive form that Snape and Draco show. And, while Snape appears to have changed his attitude (at least in terms of pureblood supremacy), and Draco has the potential to change, Slughorn is the truly complacent one, indulging in his racism like a mildly bad habit--like eating too much crystalized pineapple.

Stop? Oh come, just another little nibble can't hurt, can it? And it tastes so yummy!

Re: This is going to be incoherent

[ex-leianora730.livejournal.com]

Not always, no, but I do see it as a chance to educate the person or people who are descriminating against me for whatever reason. If they choose not to learn how to deal with me or anything new about blind people in general, it's their loss, and I simply try my best to refuse to be hurt by their stupidity. By being hurt by their idiocy, I'm giving them the power to hurt me and continue to use that power to hurt others. People who see that their words and or deeds have no power to hurt those whom they are intending to hurt mostly tend to stop doing what they're doing. Of course, they then switch to trying something else, but that particular bit of discussion is best left for another time, I think. :-)

[anehan]

because he calls himself "The Half-blood Prince"

Hey, good catch.

Anyway, the bigotry in the WW doesn't seem to be all that clear-cut. On the one hand, there's bigotry against those who can't do magic (Muggles and Squibs); on the other hand, there's bigotry against those who grew up without knowledge of magic (Muggles and Muggle-borns). Half-bloods seem to be considered full and trustworthy members of the WW, so it doesn't surprise me at all that a half-blood would join a pureblood supremacist organization.

It's interesting the way there are these differing attitudes towards those three groups (Muggles, Muggle-borns, Squibs). The most common attitude in the WW seems to be the disdain (and in some cases, fear) against those who can't do magic: even the "good guys" are dismissive of Muggles and laugh at Squibs. The "good guys" want to protect Muggles (they aren't afraid of Muggles?) whereas the "bad guys" want to kill them (they are afraid Muggles?). Squibs, though, aren't apparently considered a threat, so everyone just laughs at them.

The attitude towards Muggle-borns, though, places people on the "goodness" scale. The "good guys" accept them (although it does have a bit of a "at least they aren't Muggles" vibe to it), the "neutral" guys don't actively wish them harm (Slughorn) and the baddies want to kill them.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

With Snape it seems like while he had more malice, he went through a period where he was out there as openly malicious, and then he seems to have changed.

Well, I should clarify that I'm talking about Young Snape in the Penseive scene -- I certainly agree that adult Snape is much harder to generalize about. I'm not even sure how to extend the racism argument to adult!Snape because I think his issues now are very different -- and his personal development is so uneven. On the one hand, he's gained the kind of self-awareness about his big moral choices that Slughorn will never come close to achieving; on the other hand his character is shot through will all kinds of infantilism and, as you point out, he's still pretty cruel to Hermione. So I think he's still an instinctively nasty man, making an effort to do the right thing on the big things. But he's pretty much gotten past racism -- his issues and hot buttons are obviously much more personal and idiosyncratic now.

Slughorn is a teacher--one who takes an active role in shaping his society because he's got a lot of power. So at times I feel like he's the more sinister--not only is he subtly putting down more Muggle-borns as they come into his class, but I'll bet it would be harder to complain about him.

I'd have to go back and re-read again to answer this properly. My impression, though, is just the opposite -- that as a teacher Slughorn makes the effort to be scrupulously fair to his students, as he was to Lily. Some of the things he says in Harry's presence may be "just among us purebloods," so to speak -- is there evidence that he actually treats non-purebloods badly or works to keep them down? I know the whole Slug Club thing is snobbish, but to be honest it doesn't bother me a lot -- it seems in keeping with Hogwarts' general policy of not necessarily immunizing kids against disagreeable social facts -- here the inequality of "interesting" people rather than necessarily an inequality of "blood." And I'm not sure Slughorn is so much shaping that prejudice as trying to anticipate which students are likely to develop into people who will be interesting future connections for him. And the whole thing seems to be taken by the students as kind of an anachronistic farce, anyway.

while Slughorn isn't as bad a person as Snape is and was, he seems to represent a much more powerful force of bigotry

I don't want to mis-represent this as a pillar of your argument here, but I'd single this out as problematic -- is it fair to judge a person in terms of whether he "represents" a "powerful force of bigotry?" What does "representing" mean in this case except that he's insufficiently critical of his own upbringing? Is he culpable for failing to examine his prejudices? Yes, definitely, but maybe not as much as someone who gets a conscious charge out of the feelings of contempt and hatred implicit in those prejudices. Is he part of the system of perpetuating those prejudices, helping to bind them on other people? That would support your point if it were true that Slughorn used his teaching position to do that, but again, I'm not sure that he really does. When he's in a position of responsibility, his decency to individuals like Lily (or his all-purpose disdain for Death Eaters, no matter how pure-blooded) seems to have the upper hand over his received ideas. And when he's just at his leisure, pleasing himself, like in the Slug Club, he doesn't seem to be doing any positive harm. I realize it's easy to read all kinds of analogies here to insidious social discrimination in the real world, "soft" bigotry, quietly closed doors that limit the lives of disfavored groups. And maybe we're meant to make that leap as we read, here. But in this specific case, I wouldn't buy it without seeing more concrete examples of people who are somehow held back because Slughorn is prejudiced against them.

[continued . . .]

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

[. . . continued]

I guess my own bottom line on Slughorn -- and I could be totally wrong -- is that he's a kind of misleader or distractor as we sort through JKR's moral puzzles. There's a temptation to dislike him for the prejudices he pays lip-service to, and to overlook his practical decency. At the same time, there's an interesting twist because I think we're still meant to see the inadequacy of "mere decency" to the evil of Death Eaters -- he misses the threat presented by Tom Riddle (though in fairness, Dumbledore did, too) and you get the sense that his aversion to DE's is mainly about finding them vulgar and creepy. I don't mean to make a moral hero of him, but if he's a villain it's a very subtle concept of villainy, and maybe more about his weaknesses than his prejudices.

I think that given the history of the word in that world (different from a racial slur in ours) its use seems to almost always be directed not at the Muggle-born but at the Pure-bloods with them who understand what it means and feel it more keenly

This makes me wonder, now if what Snape said to Lily wasn't also a way of saying "you're not all that -- you're no better than me, and these Purebloods know it!" Or is that over-reading?

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Are you connecting Snape's cruelty with his prejudice against Muggle-borns?

Well, I'm not reducing one to the other. As you say, Snape remains cruel (to Hermione) even long after he's seen through pureblood prejudice. So his cruelty is a freestanding vice! I guess I think his prejudice becomes evil rather than just ignorant and annoying precisely because of the way it interacts with his cruelty.

So does that mean I'm not taking prejudice seriously enough, say, in the case of Slughorn. Maybe. I have to think about that. I agree that Slughorn hasn't gotten past his prejudices. But he doesn't seem to act on them in any way that counts -- he respects Lily, he disapproves of DEs, etc. Like I said to Magpie above, he's an interesting moral puzzle, because which of those two facts do you take more seriously in judging him? And I don't think there's an easy answer.

Snape's using the word "Mudblood" in that scene seems to me like an emotional response in a very humiliating situation.

Yeah, I agree -- but it's also interesting that this, and not some other way, is how he chooses to respond to that humiliation.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

So, like everything about Snape, a simplistic interpretation won't work.

I can't improve on that! :) Self-loathing and defiant pride, deep nastiness and a hard-earned determination to do right on the big things -- it's all part of the mix. I really, really hope JKR takes Snape seriously in Book 7, and gives him a treatment worthy of all those contradictions.

Your Snape story sounds v. intriguing. Link?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

he calls himself "The Half-blood Prince" showing that it's the wizard part of his family he identifies with

Which linking up with montavilla's comment above on status and power, brings in another dimension to Snape's self-identification/loathing - the Muggle side of his family is "working-class northerner". He's damn well not going to get any credit for that in 1970 from a good proportion of Muggle-born students at Hogwarts. Maybe his dislike of Neville involves painful memories sparked by a familiar accent without the stigma that accent might have carried for young Snape ;-)

Re: This is going to be incoherent

[kerosinkanister.livejournal.com]

To me, the entire idea of racism is just... irrational. It makes no sense, and in an ideal world, it wouldn't even exist.

I think racism, or at least the potential for it, is a completely natural extension of evolution and a near-hard-wired part of our brains. If we look at the early history of humanity I believe there was a huge incentive for thinking in what amounts to an "us vs. them" way: being more sure of passing on genes. If one identifies strongly with one's tribe or other group, and acts to protect and defend the group, one creates a situation where the group has more resources and collectively has a better chance of passing on genes. It's logical, as well, because in a small tribe or other group one probably was related to most everyone, at least to a degree. Hard-wire that fierce protectiveness over millions of years and you the precursors to things like racism and nationalism.

The same intrinsic part of our nature that makes racism possible is exactly what politician prey on as well. Bush's "If you're not with us your against us" is an extremely powerful statement for that reason. It's the same attitude that gave rise to the Holocaust. There's a fundamental fear of being excluded from one's group because, in a hind-brain way, it means maybe not passing on genes.

/evolutionary pop!psychology

I tried to keep this brief. In no way am I justifying bad behavior, or worse, but I do think it's folly to ignore the less than noble parts of ourselves.