So what if a character is originally imagined as white? That doesn't mean a character can't be RE-imagined, you know?? A character can be changed in certain ways and still be true to the essential core traits of that character! - So, I agree, but I think there’s a difference between fans reimagining a character and the author doing it. Fans who are engaged in transformative fanwork are often critiquing the original text and implicitly recognizing the lack of various kinds of representation in the source material. If a fan artists draws or a fic artist writes black Hermione, that’s corrective. That’s different than the author saying “Well, I might have meant it all along!” without talking about how that would have changed the story or without recognizing the lack of representation in the originals. Like gracerene said, "she is implying a purposeful thoughtfulness to that omission,” and one that kind of erases her own lack of awesomeness re: representation. So I think the author retconning her own characters and saying “there never was a problem, I did this on purpose” is a really different thing than fan interpretations that say “there is a problem and we want to fix it.”
Obvs, I agree that some parts of the book would be different if JKR had written Hermione as black, and I agree that the character would have the same potential but would she be the same? If two people start with the same capacities but one has access to stronger schools and receives more attention and support for teachers, which one is going to do better? Part of Hermione’s incredible academic success is that she has kick-ass study skills. She is the queen of planning and note-taking and scheduling her work in advance. That’s not an innate skill, that’s something that’s taught. In the U.S. it’s one source of racial education disparity. I haven’t been able to find anything conclusive about that in the UK, but there is data to suggest racial differences in educational outcome and experiences. (see here and here). We also know that the salience of race and the nature of racial stereotypes (and gender) changes academic performance. (here) So two things. (1) Knowing whether Hermione would have been affected would’ve required JKR to talk about Hermione’s blackness beyond skin color, as having been British, African, or Caribbean clearly makes a difference in educational outcomes, even by the end of primary school. (2) Would Hermione have seemed like essentially the same character, if she hadn’t known how to kick academic ass? I will absolutely concede that we’re pretty far down the rabbit hole at this point, that there have been a lot of conditional statements on the way here, and of course her raw potential wouldn’t be any different. But Hermione’s early characterization is so marked by both her ability to learn (and to structure her own learning so she takes things in quickly) and by her confidence in her intellect. Would she—in a racist world, with racist institutions—have made it to age 11 with that confidence and with those study skills if she was black?
About the explicitness of representation, totally see your point that Hermione as black is made explicit when she’s played by a black actress who we can see. That makes her blackness indisputable in a different way. But also agree that the lines are probably written to be colorblind. And that will still be different. And yes, shades of representation. My inner pragmatist agrees. But my inner idealist is unsatisfied. Even if the answer is “no, not at all” I want to know whether being a bi- or multiracial family affects the Weasley-Grangers and their children, I want to see the question addressed. I want to see black Hermione embraced and explored.
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Date: 2015-12-22 06:22 pm (UTC)So what if a character is originally imagined as white? That doesn't mean a character can't be RE-imagined, you know?? A character can be changed in certain ways and still be true to the essential core traits of that character! - So, I agree, but I think there’s a difference between fans reimagining a character and the author doing it. Fans who are engaged in transformative fanwork are often critiquing the original text and implicitly recognizing the lack of various kinds of representation in the source material. If a fan artists draws or a fic artist writes black Hermione, that’s corrective. That’s different than the author saying “Well, I might have meant it all along!” without talking about how that would have changed the story or without recognizing the lack of representation in the originals. Like
Obvs, I agree that some parts of the book would be different if JKR had written Hermione as black, and I agree that the character would have the same potential but would she be the same? If two people start with the same capacities but one has access to stronger schools and receives more attention and support for teachers, which one is going to do better? Part of Hermione’s incredible academic success is that she has kick-ass study skills. She is the queen of planning and note-taking and scheduling her work in advance. That’s not an innate skill, that’s something that’s taught. In the U.S. it’s one source of racial education disparity. I haven’t been able to find anything conclusive about that in the UK, but there is data to suggest racial differences in educational outcome and experiences. (see here and here). We also know that the salience of race and the nature of racial stereotypes (and gender) changes academic performance. (here) So two things. (1) Knowing whether Hermione would have been affected would’ve required JKR to talk about Hermione’s blackness beyond skin color, as having been British, African, or Caribbean clearly makes a difference in educational outcomes, even by the end of primary school. (2) Would Hermione have seemed like essentially the same character, if she hadn’t known how to kick academic ass? I will absolutely concede that we’re pretty far down the rabbit hole at this point, that there have been a lot of conditional statements on the way here, and of course her raw potential wouldn’t be any different. But Hermione’s early characterization is so marked by both her ability to learn (and to structure her own learning so she takes things in quickly) and by her confidence in her intellect. Would she—in a racist world, with racist institutions—have made it to age 11 with that confidence and with those study skills if she was black?
About the explicitness of representation, totally see your point that Hermione as black is made explicit when she’s played by a black actress who we can see. That makes her blackness indisputable in a different way. But also agree that the lines are probably written to be colorblind. And that will still be different. And yes, shades of representation. My inner pragmatist agrees. But my inner idealist is unsatisfied. Even if the answer is “no, not at all” I want to know whether being a bi- or multiracial family affects the Weasley-Grangers and their children, I want to see the question addressed. I want to see black Hermione embraced and explored.