Basically everything about the house elves and the culturally norms around them is extremely problematic. No debate there.
But A) giving an Asian girl an anglicized Asian-ish name is not in itself racist. Chang is a common Chinese surname. Cho seems to be a fabrication and only vaguely Chinese sounding. She definitely could have picked a real name, but calling that racist seems like a stretch.
B) You’re calling Hermione “the black girl”, affirming a hard finality to her race that very notably was stated by Rowling to be open to interpretation. And of the many films, games, artwork, etc. depicting her, she’s depicted as white in the vast majority of cases. It is fine if you interpret the character as black, casting a black actress, etc., but it is silly to treat that as an objective filter when convenient just for criticisms sake.
I disagree, if Rowling wants Hermione’s ethnicity to be open to interpretation, I’m gonna interpret it how I want. She wants the benefits of virtue signalling a diverse cast, without being willing to risk actually writing diversity into her characters. That’s why the main characters are all straight white neurotypical English people. That’s why Dumbledore’s gayness was hidden in subtext. Rowling wanted to hedge her bets and then claim she was an ally all along. But if she’s gonna try to get the best of both worlds, well… I’m fed up enough with her bigotry that I’m gonna give her the worst of both worlds.
Also, Kingsley Shacklebolt? Might as well have called him MLK McSlavery. She is racist against black people too.
Racist?
They named the asian girl “cho chang” and the black girl gets mocked for being against slavery
Basically everything about the house elves and the culturally norms around them is extremely problematic. No debate there.
But A) giving an Asian girl an anglicized Asian-ish name is not in itself racist. Chang is a common Chinese surname. Cho seems to be a fabrication and only vaguely Chinese sounding. She definitely could have picked a real name, but calling that racist seems like a stretch.
B) You’re calling Hermione “the black girl”, affirming a hard finality to her race that very notably was stated by Rowling to be open to interpretation. And of the many films, games, artwork, etc. depicting her, she’s depicted as white in the vast majority of cases. It is fine if you interpret the character as black, casting a black actress, etc., but it is silly to treat that as an objective filter when convenient just for criticisms sake.
I disagree, if Rowling wants Hermione’s ethnicity to be open to interpretation, I’m gonna interpret it how I want. She wants the benefits of virtue signalling a diverse cast, without being willing to risk actually writing diversity into her characters. That’s why the main characters are all straight white neurotypical English people. That’s why Dumbledore’s gayness was hidden in subtext. Rowling wanted to hedge her bets and then claim she was an ally all along. But if she’s gonna try to get the best of both worlds, well… I’m fed up enough with her bigotry that I’m gonna give her the worst of both worlds.
Also, Kingsley Shacklebolt? Might as well have called him MLK McSlavery. She is racist against black people too.