Harry Potter Part III

For some reason, I want to write this all down on one go. This post talks about racism in the Harry Potter-books, as the people are divided into "muggles" (humans who cant do magic), true-blood wizards (who are descending from other wizards, for hundreds of years) and half-bloods (other parent is a muggle and other true-blood). There are also "humanlike" races, such as centaurs, elfs and giants. and "halfhumans", who are nearly human, but who may have other blood in their veins as well.

While in the first books the Evilness of Lord Voldemort is taken at face value, in the later books it is revealed that what truly makes him evil is his shame of being halfblood. He collects followers by talking against muggles (of whose hunting should apparently be legal) and on the other hand by promising more rights to humanlike-races, such as giants and werewolves.

Many trueblood-wizards feel that wizards of whose both parents are muggles should not be teached magic at all. Thru the books, Hermione Granger is said to be "mudblood", which has about the same politeness value as the word "nigger". While Harry and friends are of course opposed of this, they dont see anything wrong with insulting and bothering TRUE muggles. The Minister of Magic dosen't much apriciate the Prime Minister (a muggle) of the Realm. In the sixth book the PM goes thru several flashbacks, which show that the Minister of Magic dosen't tell anything to his de facto boss. And when he does, it is very grudingly, without following the spirit of the rules. After long conversation about something else, while already going for the door, the Minister of Magic, Mr. Fudge goes;

'Oh, and I almost forgot,' Fudge had added. 'We're importing three foreign dragons and a sphinx for the Triwizard Tournament, quite routine, but the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures tells me that it's down in the rulebook that we have to notify you if we're bringing highly dangerous creatures into the country.'
'I -- what -- dragons?' spluttered the Prime Minister.
'Yes, three,' said Fudge. 'And a sphinx. Well, good day to you.'

Also, humanlike-creatures, however peaceful they are, don't got any rights. Hermione repeatedly talks about elfs being used as slaves. She is the only one who has any problem with the subject, and is repeatedly treated as a joke because of her concerns. The centaurs can only live in the forrest next to the school because the Ministry very kindly allows it to be used as reservation. Giants are nearly extinct, and the last one in Britain was nearly stoned to death before the headmaster of Hogswarts went inbetween.

The halfhumans who can pass as true humans do so, as it's the only way to be employed.

While some of the races are pretty violent and on average dumber than humans (it is agreed that giants are partly of blame for their own situation; when wizards forced them to the mountains, they started killing each other accoarding to ethnic problems), halfgiants are as smart and calm as normal humans, but are still treated like their full-giants. Werewolves, even those who got bitten by accident and take medicine not to be danger to society, are greatly disliked.

All in all, wizards, even those who think themselves as fairminded, are actually very closeminded.