Harry Potter Racism

One World, Many Colors

“Racism is still with us but it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome”, this was said by Rosa Parks, back when she refused to give up her seat on a city bus which then sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955. This quote not only had a huge impact back then, but it can still be used in this day and age. Racism is perceived that one’s physical characteristics is better than others based on race. But racism is so much more; it can lead to the elimination of another race, the division of a nation, and the enslavement of an inferior race. Although all of these events took place in the past, and we now have laws against discrimination, racism is still around because

In the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling infuses into her books day to day problems that happen in the real world. Throughout the series there is constant discrimination between blood purity. The wizarding world uses blood purity to distinguish a wizard, muggle, muggle-born, half-blood, or a pure-blood. Because of these social classes there is a lot of discrimination against mud-bloods as well as pure-blood supremacy. In the wizarding and human world, the supremacy of blood purity has been a leading cause of racism, which has long affected us and will continue to affect the people of this world.

Racism and supremacy over impure blood can be seen through both Adolf Hitler and Lord Voldemort. The idea of blood purity was important to Hitler and the leaders of Nazi Germany, because they believed that the Aryan race was supreme and should be in charge of the world. Because of this belief the Jewish race was almost eliminated. By purifying the world of this non-aryan blood, it would ensure the survival of the aryan race. In order to make sure this happened there were many laws created to insure that there was no racial pollution or crime. Like

A group called the KKK, believed in only caucasian caucasian relationships rather than the mixing of two races. This group wanted to create a white, Protestant supremacy. They believes that “the suffering of black people is of less importance than the suffering of white people (Mills 101). Like the Ku Klux Klan, a group called the Death Eaters, from the Harry Potter series, believed in many of the same ideas. The Death Eaters, which was a group of followers for Lord Voldemort, believed in only pure blood relationships because they “are morally more worthy than other wizards” (Mills 100). Both of these groups wanted to get rid of the mixing of racial groups and would go out of their way to do just that. The mixing of racial groups has long been a problem in both the real world and the wizarding world. Still to this day one can find racism towards individuals that they believe are inferior to them. One example of African Americans can be seen when President Obama won the election. “Obama was soundly defeated in most southern states” (McVeigh 1145). Because of this, in his early years of presidency many of his policies had no support from southern Republican legislators. Not only did he have problems there but there was also “violent and non-violent resistance to the civil rights agenda from white segregationists in the South—reflected in the emergence or resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan