It's definitely lengthy!!! Got a little out of hand with the thoughts there. Thanks for reading and responding, definitely thought provoking!!
Like I said in the notes, I'm from the US and I absolutely think that affects my perceptions and assumptions; how could it not? But I have been doing some research and it seems like at least some of the same general issues that apply in the US also apply in the UK (for instance, educational inequalities (links in another comment above), racial profiling, employmentdiscrimination, and problematic media depictions). Those issues will manifest differently, and I think you're very very right to point out that in most of the wold it's more complicated than talking about it as a black/white issue - I think partly the conversation has gone there because a black actress is playing Hermione and people, myself obviously included, fall back on that binary, which, not good, because it is more complicated.
About the idea that Hermione could fit in as a member of different minority groups in different countries, I'm less keen on that than you are, though I want to break it down more than that. Do I think that there are members of every group who could be like Hermione and have her intelligence and bravery and principles and integrity and loyalty and courage and dedication to justice? Absolutely, no question. Do I think that the character of Hermione as she was written could be a member of any of those groups? No, and I think that if we take the same character and say "she's a black British woman now" or a "she's a Turkish emigrant now" then we do a disservice to those groups by pretending that there isn't anything different about being black or being Turkish. This is where things have the potential to get dicey, because I don't mean to say that there are inherent differences between those groups. What I do mean to say is that different groups in different places face different obstacles or have different opportunities when it comes to accessing public goods and social opportunities. So Hermione's experience, at least in her first 11 years on earth (which, a pretty important and formative period of time!) would have been shaped by her race, nationality, migrant status, etc. If, instead of writing a character whose experiences include that, we take a character who was intended to be read as white and stick another label on her, we erase the real and important challenges and opportunities that come with belonging to a particular group or groups. If that makes sense? I hope? So even without knowing exactly how potential-Hermione would have been changed by having these different identities I think it's safe to say that there would have been some effect, and that responsible representation wouldn't gloss over that.
I do agree that tumblr is very US-centric. No question about it, and it's a bummer. For me, because I want to learn more about international politics, and while I make the attempt, most of my work is also US-focused so I don't know as much as I'd like and I wish there was more international info crossing my dash. For people who are not from the US because they don't get to see as much discourse about their own issues. And for everyone, because US-centrism is just...not good, in a lot of ways, and something that I think especially people in the US could do with moving away from. Wish I had a good answer to that one though.
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Like I said in the notes, I'm from the US and I absolutely think that affects my perceptions and assumptions; how could it not? But I have been doing some research and it seems like at least some of the same general issues that apply in the US also apply in the UK (for instance, educational inequalities (links in another comment above), racial profiling, employment discrimination, and problematic media depictions). Those issues will manifest differently, and I think you're very very right to point out that in most of the wold it's more complicated than talking about it as a black/white issue - I think partly the conversation has gone there because a black actress is playing Hermione and people, myself obviously included, fall back on that binary, which, not good, because it is more complicated.
About the idea that Hermione could fit in as a member of different minority groups in different countries, I'm less keen on that than you are, though I want to break it down more than that. Do I think that there are members of every group who could be like Hermione and have her intelligence and bravery and principles and integrity and loyalty and courage and dedication to justice? Absolutely, no question. Do I think that the character of Hermione as she was written could be a member of any of those groups? No, and I think that if we take the same character and say "she's a black British woman now" or a "she's a Turkish emigrant now" then we do a disservice to those groups by pretending that there isn't anything different about being black or being Turkish. This is where things have the potential to get dicey, because I don't mean to say that there are inherent differences between those groups. What I do mean to say is that different groups in different places face different obstacles or have different opportunities when it comes to accessing public goods and social opportunities. So Hermione's experience, at least in her first 11 years on earth (which, a pretty important and formative period of time!) would have been shaped by her race, nationality, migrant status, etc. If, instead of writing a character whose experiences include that, we take a character who was intended to be read as white and stick another label on her, we erase the real and important challenges and opportunities that come with belonging to a particular group or groups. If that makes sense? I hope? So even without knowing exactly how potential-Hermione would have been changed by having these different identities I think it's safe to say that there would have been some effect, and that responsible representation wouldn't gloss over that.
I do agree that tumblr is very US-centric. No question about it, and it's a bummer. For me, because I want to learn more about international politics, and while I make the attempt, most of my work is also US-focused so I don't know as much as I'd like and I wish there was more international info crossing my dash. For people who are not from the US because they don't get to see as much discourse about their own issues. And for everyone, because US-centrism is just...not good, in a lot of ways, and something that I think especially people in the US could do with moving away from. Wish I had a good answer to that one though.