Harry Potter and Human Rights
By 박채리
“No one asked your opinion, you filthy little mudblood!”
Above is a famous quote from Draco Malfoy of the Harry Potter series, which not only portrays a magical world full of fantasies and hope, but also holds other complicated context and values; it tells us about justice, the definition of good and evil, and most of all, human rights (well in this case, elfish rights also), which could be recognized when one reads it carefully enough. For readers who have not caught these details yet, I would like to point it out, and explain how it is directly related to the current society in the Status Quo.
Draco Malfoy, a proud member of “The Sacred 28”, is notorious for his reputation of being a snobby person who believes that he is the most superior one of Hogwarts because of his ‘blood-status’. The book states that he is a ‘pureblood’, or one with no parents or grandparents of muggleborn or muggle status. J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world seems to still hold prejudices against Halfbloods or muggleborns (to whom the purebloods call ‘mudblood’, a derogatory term for their birth status). This could be seen by numerous quotes in the book, such as “No one asked for your help, Mudblood” which is said by Severus Snape in his 5th year. In book 7, we could even see the purebloods, led by Voldemort rounding up muggleborns and blood-traitors (who aren’t of muggle heritage but aids them), and then killing them. They also seem to murder people who speak on the behalf of muggles: Voldemort kills Charity Burbage, who was a muggle studies professor who spoke on the behalf of muggles and muggleborns after torturing her and gives her to Nagini, his snake, for dinner. Even in school, a professor seems to favor purebloods: Professor Umbridge, she is. Her inquisitor squad is consisted almost only of people who are, or above the status of a Halfblood, and she solely listens to them. People might be thinking that the wizarding world is one big mess at this point. However, our present world is no different, it’s just that our prejudices are based on our skin color, not blood.
Just like professor Umbridge who had assigned punishments to people she deemed inferior, the current US police system also holds a notorious favoritism towards Caucasians. Take the current Black Lives Matter movement for example. George Floyd was a black man, a regular at Cup Foods, and a pleasant customer (according to the owner), who had worked as a bouncer but lost his job because of the COVID-19 pandemic. One night, his 20 dollar bill he used at Cup Foods was suspected to be counterfeit by the teenage employee and was reported to the police. The police tried to put him in the police car even though he was claustrophobic. When he fell to the ground, a policeman, Mr. Chauvin, put his left knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, even when Mr. Floyd begged and pleaded with him to let go because he wasn’t able to breathe. After 6 minutes, Mr. Floyd became motionless. When another policeman checked his pulse, there was none but Mr. Chauvin would simply not let go. This event cost George Floyd his life, and when a video recording this event was shared on social media, people became mad at the discriminatory police and justice system, which led to the current #blacklivesmatter movement. It appears that the police system was still discriminatory even before this incident: In New York City, 88% of police stops in 2018 involved Black and Latin people, while 10% involved white people. (Of those stops, 70% were completely innocent.) Also, statistics show that Black Americans are more likely than white Americans to be arrested. Once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted, and once convicted, they are more likely to experience lengthy prison sentences.
Also, just like how purebloods think that they are better than anyone else just because their ancestors are wizards or witches, some Caucasians seem to think that they are better than Hispanics, Asians, or African-Americans and so on just because of their ethnicity; During the 2015–2016 school year, Black students represented only 15% of total US student enrollment, but they made up 35% of students suspended once, 44% of students suspended more than once, and 36% of students expelled. The US Department of Education concluded that this disparity is “not explained by more frequent or more serious misbehavior by students of color.” Moreover, in one US survey, 15.8% of students reported experiencing race-based bullying or harassment. Research has found significant associations between racial bullying and negative mental and physical health in students.
Not only in the current society, but in history also, we could see the striking similarities between the wizarding world and us. Just like how Voldemort had rounded up muggleborns and blood-traitors and tortured or killed them, Nazis have also threatened the lives of Jews during the mid-20th century. This is called “the Holocaust’, which began with Einsatzgruppen death squads in the East, which killed some 1,000,000 people in numerous massacres and continued in concentration camps where prisoners were actively denied proper food and health care, and these people were also subjected to systematic murder and disposal of massive numbers of people.
In this case, even the use of derogatory words are similar: just like how people called muggleborns “mudbloods” or “filth”, Nazis called Jews “Lebensunwertes Leben”, or life unworthy of life.
Before the racially discriminatory history repeats itself, we must try to understand each other and respect that we have different appearances. We should also try to acknowledge that we are similar human beings, and that ethnicity has nothing to do with our personal abilities. Overcoming prejudices would be the first step; embracing our differences would be the second.
While the Wizarding World has “Purebloods”, “Halfbloods”, and “Muggleborns”, we are having a similar system of “ Caucasians (Whites)”, “Asians”, “Blacks”, and “Hispanics”. However, just like how they are all wizards, we are all human beings, and that’s the only thing that counts.
https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/06/27/3-discrimination-and-racial-inequality/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/us/george-floyd-body-camera-transcripts.html