I should be over being disappointed by now. I’m 34. I’ve been let down by more of my childhood/young adult heroes than I can count.
And I already knew Rowling had issues with representation, but I just couldn’t get over telling myself that, hey, a single mother made it as a writer! She got famous and rich! She pushed through all the horrible shit! I can too!
But now… now I just… every time I look at the HP books and films, I’m going to remember that in Rowling’s world, “medicine men” were frauds. That in Rowling’s world, “wands” are somehow more powerful and potent than medicine bags or peace pipes or any of the other innumerable objects various tribes use. That in Rowling’s world, the dark and dangerous stories of indigenous people are them being misguided. I mean, I’m not going to talk about skinwalkers except to say I know just enough to know you don’t fucking mess with them. Making them out to be like the European girls killed at Salem?
Holy shit.
I mean, not even getting into the logic fails of “America doesn’t have the pervasive boarding-school culture Britain does” and “America is huge why would there only be one school.” Not even getting into “why would every tribe have the same wizard/Muggle divide Europe did, before the Europeans showed up.” Some might have, sure, but many likely wouldn’t and the most cursory examination of our history and living practices would show that.
Not even getting into “The Native American magical community” what the actual fuck. Yeah, because we’re all one tribe, right?
It’s shoddy writing, it’s shoddy research, and it hurts. It just hurts.
My life is not fantasy. My culture, my fellow NDNs’ cultures, are not fucking fantasy. There is very real shit out there that Rowling is messing with. There were all sorts of ideas and legends she could have chosen, could have built on, there are any number of people I’m sure would have been happy to talk to her about those things their nation is willing to share. But I’m guessing she just Googled “native american legends” and ran with the first thing she saw that she liked, because I know damn well if she’d talked to any actual Native people (and especially any actual Navajo!) she never would’ve used the fucking skinwalker.
She went with the easy way out. She went with the colonialist narrative.
I shouldn’t be surprised. And I’m not. I just hurt.
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1MaT7Ho