"A Black Boy Even Taller Than Ron": Racial Dynamics in "Harry Potter"

A Critical Examination of J.K. Rowling's Treatment of Race in Harry Potter

At first glance, the Harry Potter universe seems to have little racial tension. There are a handful of non-White characters, including Gryffindors Lee Jordan, Dean Thomas, Angelina Johnson, and Parvati Patil, as well as Harry’s first romantic interest, Cho Chang.

Yet, despite providing the non-White characters with racial identifiers (e.g., Angelina Johnson is described as “a tall black girl with long, braided hair” [Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 224], and Dean Thomas as “a Black boy even taller than Ron” ([Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone 122]) [1], Rowling seems to deliberately give racial status about as much attention as she does hair color.

On the other hand, there is little doubt that she uses wizards, Muggles, and house-elves as symbolic racial categories and that Voldemort’s obsession with pureblood status is a very thinly veiled allegory for European and American obsession with racial purity during the first half of the 20th century.

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine Rowling’s literal and metaphorical treatment of race in order to understand the series’ underlying racial messages in the context of contemporary scholarship in this area. I will begin with the literal analysis.

Note: An earlier version of this paper written by Mikhail Lyubansky, Ph.D., was published by BenBella Books in The Psychology of Harry Potter under the title "Harry Potter and the Word that Shall Not Be Named."

The Racial Utopia?

It might seem peculiar that Rowling would go to the trouble to racially identify certain characters only to ignore their racial status for the remainder of the series, but this particular combination of behaviors is characteristic of contemporary neoconservative racial ideology (Omi & Winant).

According to this ideology, race is assumed to be socially constructed, and racial justice is pursued via a “color-blind” society in which everyone pursues the American/British dream by “lifting themselves up by the bootstraps” (i.e., a “just world” that rewards good choices and a strong work ethic).

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our [biological or God-given] abilities,” says Dumbledore (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets 333), who later reminds Fudge, the Minister of Magic, that what people grow to be is much more important than what they were when they were born (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire 708).

Accordingly, for neoconservatives, the belief that race (a biological or God-given characteristic) does not matter is typically grounded in one or both of two seemingly contradictory but actually compatible beliefs—that “we” are all the same (i.e., “humans” or “Americans” or “Muggles”) and that each one of us is a unique person.

Unmasking the Fallacies of Ignoring Race

The color-blind ideal is so eminently reasonable that it can seem almost objectionable even to question it. After all, who wouldn’t want to be perceived as a unique being? Yet, critics of a color-blind ideology (and there are many) reject it for several reasons.

To begin with, they point out that a color-blind ideal, at best, does nothing to curtail the institutional and interpersonal racism that are still experienced by people of color on a daily basis and, at worst, actually works to maintain the racial hierarchy by pretending and acting as though it didn’t exist (e.g., the Ministry of Magic during its denial of Voldemort’s return) [2].

In addition, critics of racial color-blindness argue that racial status is associated with cultural experiences (e.g., music preferences, experiences of discrimination) that shape a person’s identity or sense of self. This perspective is well-captured by Dr. Lisa Delpit, Executive Director of the Center for Urban Education & Innovation:

I don’t see color, I only see children.” What message does this statement send? That there is something wrong with black or brown, that it should not be noticed? I would like to suggest that if one does not see color, then one does not really see children. Children made “invisible” in this manner become hard-pressed to see themselves worthy of notice.

To be sure, there is no evidence in the books that any of the non-White characters suffer from poor self-esteem or any other negative state, but there is no evidence to the contrary either. One of the privileges of Whiteness is to deny the impact of race on people’s lives, and this privilege is readily apparent in the Harry Potter series.

The Subtle Impact of Color-Blindness on Character Perception

The truth is that because the stories are almost exclusively told by a White narrator (who notices race but doesn’t examine its impact), through the eyes of White characters (who don’t notice race), we really don’t (can’t!) know anything about the reality of the non-White characters. To see racism, critics of color-blindness argue, it is first necessary to see race [3].

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John Betjeman’s "Westgate-On-Sea"

The irony is that, their statements to the contrary notwithstanding, neoconservatives do, in fact, notice race. They just pretend (sometimes for legitimate reasons) not to. Rowling is no exception. Consider the precise words she uses to describe Dean Thomas: “A black boy even taller than Ron”. This seemingly innocent phrase communicates several important parts of our racial mythology.

First of all, it is generally assumed that what we choose to comment on says something about what we consider to be important. In that context, by describing Dean the way she does, Rowling is telling the readers that there are three things that are important about Dean Thomas’s appearance: that he is Black, that he is male, and that he is tall—in that order. Secondly, it is telling that Rowling chose to describe Dean as “black”, rather than saying that he has “dark skin". The latter term is objectively neutral, as well as accurate.

In contrast, as we all know, no one’s skin is really black (or white). In this context, these words only have meaning to us as racial categories. To use them is to signify implicit acceptance of racial categories. To use them, even in an attempt to demonstrate that there is no racism in the world, is to validate (and acknowledge) the existence of race.

The Unconscious Messaging of White-Centric Standards in the Wizarding World

And that’s not all. By describing Dean in this very short phrase as being “even taller than Ron,” Rowling (probably unconsciously) communicates that we can only understand “blackness” by somehow relating it to whiteness. In the past, it was commonplace for non-Whites to be judged based on mainstream (i.e., “white”) norms without any consideration for how institutional racism might influence Black behaviors and attitudes.

Thus, for example, Black soldiers were judged intellectually inferior when, during WWI, they scored lower than white soldiers on a standardized test of intelligence (the Army Alpha) that contained many culturally-loaded questions that Blacks educated in the Jim Crow South were much less likely to answer correctly. Rowling doesn’t do this, of course, but by describing Dean’s height as relative to Ron’s, she does endorse, rather than reject, the idea of a white-centric standard.

The skeptic will dismiss such a reading of “an innocent description,” but Rowling’s portrayal of race is problematic even within the neoconservative ideology that she stakes out. The problem is that, in a world that seems designed to parallel the demographics of contemporary England, non-White characters barely seem to exist and none occupy positions of authority.

This is evidenced by the fact that Cho Chang is the only non-White character who is developed to any degree, as well as by the fact that not a single important adult character in any of the books is a person of color—not even in the otherwise progressive Hogwarts (Kingsley Shacklebolt might be considered a "token" exception).

Their absence is conspicuous, especially given that Rowling has worked for Amnesty International and clearly intended to create a multicultural society in which cultural differences, while generally unnoticed, are celebrated when the occasion permits (e.g., Seamus Finnigan’s shamrock-covered tent and other decorations at the Quidditch World Cup).

No doubt, Rowling intended to comment on race by focusing on blood status and house-elf rights. Her treatment of these topics provides ample opportunity to examine both contemporary and historical race relations, and it is to these racial metaphors that I now turn.

The Color of Blood

The tendency of some wizards to place a premium on pure blood (that is, on pure breeding) and treat half-bloods and Muggles as second-class citizens is an obvious parallel to our own society’s history of oppression of Blacks and obsession with interracial sex and marriage.

A number of characters, including Draco and Lucius Malfoy, explicitly espouse the superiority of pure blood, but this racist [4] attitude is best personified by the portrait of Sirius’s mother (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 78):

Filth! Scum! By-products of dirt and vileness! Half-breeds, mutants, freaks, begone from this place! How dare you befoul the house of my fathers. . . . Yoooou!” she howled, her eyes popping at the sight of the man [Sirius]. Blood traitor, abomination, shame of my flesh.

The Allegory of Contamination in the Wizarding World

Contained in this epithet are a number of important ideas: 1.) that half-bloods (i.e., those of both Muggle and wizard parentage) are subhuman and undesirable, and that 2.) their very presence threatens the purity and cleanliness of both their surroundings and those that come into contact with them. Thus, her disgust extends to her son, who befriends and invites the half-blood members of the Order into his house and, by so doing, contaminates not only the house but himself.

This view is remarkably similar to the beliefs held by supporters of anti-miscegenation laws in the United States, who thought that interracial unions would contaminate and dilute the pure White blood and lead to moral degeneracy and, ultimately, the country’s downfall. While the last U.S. anti-miscegenation law was finally struck down in 1967 (Loving v. Virginia), interracial marriage continues to be controversial for many people [5].

It is certainly a sign of progress that the contemporary argument against such unions is more likely to be framed as an issue of compatibility than as blood contamination, but no doubt there are still more than a few people who, when it comes to Black-White marriage, have the same reaction as Sirius’s mother [6].

Pure-Blood Supremacy as the Root of Evil in the Wizarding World

Rowling makes a strong link between the evil of Voldemort and the Death Eaters and the belief in pure-blood superiority. Throughout her books, all examples of prejudice and discrimination against half-bloods or Muggles are perpetrated by either the Slytherins or Voldemort’s supporters, while each “good” character, without exception, not only explicitly denounces prejudice against half-bloods but behaves accordingly.

Thus, Dumbledore hires Hagrid to teach at Hogwarts, despite the fact that he is a half-giant, and when Rita Skeeter reveals his half-blood status, Dumbledore, along with Harry, Ron, and Hermione, convinces him that blood status is irrelevant. Similarly, the Weasleys, Sirius, and all members of the Order clearly reject the notion of half-blood inferiority—despite the scorn and disgust such a stance engenders from the pure-blood racists who surround them.

Rowling's treatment of eugenics and race-mixing is well executed. Not only are the specific details accurately rooted in real-world history, but the readers are clearly shown the harm that this extreme kind of racism can cause.

That said, taking a clear stance against extreme racism is neither progressive nor controversial these days. It is the more subtle racial messages that require a careful analysis. There are numerous such messages in the Harry Potter books and films, but I will focus on just one here: The stability of racism.

Can Racists Change Their Stripes?

For all the series' emphasis on choices, the tendency to be or not to be racist seems almost entirely impervious to change. Of the many characters in the series who espouse racist beliefs, only Draco may have become less racist as a function of his life experiences, and even that possible transformation is left to the reader’s imagination. Is the depiction of Draco's steadfast racism realistically drawn, especially in the face of consistent evidence against pure-blood superiority? Actually, it is.