J. K. Rowling and #MagicInNorthAmerica
Over at Pottermore, J. K. Rowling has been releasing background information and history about magic in North America, and … okay, I loved the Harry Potter books, and I have a lot of respect for Rowling as a person, but this is a mess.
Others are talking about this far better than I could.
“‘The Native American community.’ Oh man that loaded “the.” One of the largest fights in the world of representations is to recognize Native peoples and communities and cultures are diverse, complex, and vastly different from one another. There is no such thing as one ‘Native American’ anything. Even in a fictional wizarding world.”
-From the Native Appropriations blog post Magic in North America Part 1: Ugh
“We’re marginalized in real life and we’re marginalized in media. To have a powerhouse like Rowling (though any non-Native author really) profit off our continued erasure and harmful representations is something I am totally not here for. The argument that it’s “fiction” is worthless to me. If we (as consumers) had diverse representation of Native people the same way white people do, Rowling’s latest wouldn’t be so problem, because consumers would have other representations to base opinions off of. As it is, so much of the Native narrative is romanticized and fantastical and now one of the world’s most successful authors has thrown her mighty magical empire against our fragile reemergence from near-total cultural genocide.“
–Magic & Marginalization: Et tu, JK?
“Pretty sure [Rowling] would never have dreamt of reducing all of Europe’s cultures to “European wizarding tradition”; instead she created Durmstrang and Beauxbatons and so on to capture the unique flavor of each of those cultures … [H]ow much more delightful could Magic in North America have been if she’d put an ancient, still-thriving Macchu Picchu magic school alongside a brash, newer New York school? How much richer could her history have been if she’d mentioned the ruins of a “lost” school at Cahokia, full of dangerous magical artifacts and the signs of mysterious, hasty abandonment? Or a New Orleanian school founded by Marie Laveau, that practiced real vodoun and was open/known to the locals as a temple — and in the old days as a safe place to plan slave rebellions, a la Congo Square? Or what if she’d mentioned that ancient Death Eater-ish wizards deliberately destroyed the magical school of Hawai’i — but native Hawai’ians are rebuilding it now as Liliuokalani Institute, better than before and open to all?”
-N. K. Jemisin, It Could’ve Been Great
“It’s fear of erasure, another white story brick built on top of 400 years worth of erasure and destructive lies … If you think the work this does is harmless, ask yourself how many years of Native North American history you took in school. How many native people have taught you about our real histories? How much of what you know is from Hollywood, or non-native authors?”
The Washington Post had an article with more roundup and reactions.
There’s also a lot of good discussion on the #MagicInNorthAmerica hashtag on Twitter.
#
I recommend reading the articles and discussion. Listen to why people are angry and upset. Try to recognize that this is part of a larger problem against people the U.S. has a long and ongoing history of trying to erase.
And please don’t be one of these fools. (Sadly, this is just a small sampling of the backlash.)
Colin: Sure it can! If you base your fantasy story on actual, you know, history, as opposed to racist stereotypes and ignorant generalizations.
April: The word you’re looking for in this case is “misrepresented.” I think it’s fair for people to ask for more than to be portrayed as homogeneous stereotypes or else erased altogether.
Jason: Thanks for this. It’s okay everybody! A white dude has arrived to tell you your anger isn’t real, and you’re all overreacting.
Jessie & Emily: And everyone else making the weak-ass “It’s just fiction!” argument. Y’all just blew out my ignorance-meter. Story is one of the most powerful things we have. Stories save lives. People go to war over stories. Fiction can change a person’s life and change the course of history. So, yeah. Just don’t.
sistercoyote
March 10, 2016 @ 3:09 pm
Story is one of the most powerful things we have. Stories save lives. People go to war over stories.
This. Stories save lives. Stories also can kill, if they’re used incorrectly, or thoughtlessly.
I wish Jo Rowling remembered that.
Mark Terry
March 10, 2016 @ 3:17 pm
Unfortunately, the arguments here tend to put anybody defending JK Rowling, er, on the defensive end. I’m reasonably certain if someone besides someone who has millions of readers had written what Jo Rowling wrote, like, say some white dude from Michigan with only a few thousand readers, nobody would care. And having read 2 of the 3 “stories” to date, I feel like there are plenty of other criticisms aside from cultural appropriation (sort of like: this is almost an encyclopedia entry, rather than a story). I also, alas, feel that no matter what I said on the topic, I’m going to be dismissed as “oh, you’re just the privileged white guy.” So, I guess I’ll shut up and mind my own fucking business. We wouldn’t want to challenge or even ask questions concerning the outrage so we could understand it better, less you attack us for challenging or questioning it.
Jayle Enn
March 10, 2016 @ 3:21 pm
Oof. I had an immediate bad feeling when I saw the cover of that book the other day, and fervently hoped it would be better than I expected. I’m disappointed, but not surprised, and really not looking forward to another conversation about misrepresentation with friends who should know better by now.
N. K. Jemisin
March 10, 2016 @ 3:25 pm
Mark, you’d be wrong, because if you visit the “Native Appropriations” site that Jim has linked, and other sites like AICL, you’d see that lots of lesser-known writers do the same thing, and get the same kind of backlash. Rowling’s backlash is just proportionately bigger. Those are two of any number of websites dedicated to helping people understand the outrage — for those who are sincerely interested in doing so.
Jim C. Hines
March 10, 2016 @ 3:37 pm
Mark – What the heck?
Sure, you’re a privileged white guy. So am I. If you actually believe you’re going to be dismissed to matter what you say, why did you say it? Especially toward the end of your comment, it feels really passive-aggressive and nasty, both of which are out of character for you.
And like Nora said, lots of smaller writers — including me — get criticized when we screw up things like representation.
What is it you were trying to accomplish with that comment?
Sally
March 10, 2016 @ 3:40 pm
When I saw the preview, I was all “ooh, this looks like it will be problematic in so many ways”. And it is. It’s all generic “mystic savage”, treating all Natives as one culture, mixing and matching things, saying that medicine men were all liars, and oh yeah, ignoring that whole GENOCIDE thing.
She should be thoroughly embarrassed. An hour on Wikipedia would have saved her from this backlash, if she couldn’t bother to talk to actual American Indians.
Also, where’s Canada and Mexico at? You can’t tell me that Aztecs and Mayans didn’t have some cool-ass wizards. Larry Niven and Steven Barnes wrote a whole book full of neato Inuit magic.
Also also: black people? Hello?
Mark Terry
March 10, 2016 @ 3:41 pm
I’m totally with you on the proportionality. But one of the problems that the website and its author runs into — and we all run into — is the slippery slope of arguing on the one hand that there is no “Native American community” (or African-American community, or whatever) and then criticizing someone for their portrayal of it. And from the POV of an author, the slope continues to questions of how writers (or TV/Film, etc) portray any gender or culture outside the author’s own. The suggestion, perhaps inferred, is that you shouldn’t be allowed to refer to other cultures in anyway. Here’s an example from my own writing history. Years back I wrote a novel from the POV of a female character. I was invited to be on a panel at a mystery convention on writing about the opposite gender. One of the other writers was also an African-American (“also” in terms of being a man). And he rather quickly went on a rant (yeah, I was uncomfortable) about as a black man he was told often enough what he could and could not do (he was also a very successful physician) and he resented an accusations of cultural and/or gender appropriation. My response regarding my female character was, pretty much, that if I only wrote about white middle-class males, I might as well not bother. There are women and people and cultures we bump up against. And please note, I’m not being defensive or angry, I’m just exploring my own thoughts about it. And in terms of Rowling’s story mentioning skin walkers, I thought of Tony Hillerman’s novels about the Navajo. He was not Navajo or Native American, but wrote about Navajo police and cultures and was quite lauded eventually by those tribes. And in at least one of the books one of the Navajo policemen commented that he didn’t believe in skin walkers, but he believed in people who believed in skin walkers, and their reactions, and from his POV that was what mattered. So my guess is that, even among Navajo, there are some who might be offended by JK Rowling’s piece and probably some who are quite proud to think that Rowling thought enough of their culture to have her magical world be a part of it. And, I would guess, there are plenty of Navajo who don’t care one way or another.
Sally
March 10, 2016 @ 3:44 pm
I’m a privileged white woman. But I can still signal boost by saying “This doesn’t seem right to me, and here’s what actual members of the affected group have to say” and then putting in links.
Which is what Jim did here.
Libby Block
March 10, 2016 @ 3:46 pm
“Writers make their own characters and world.” That would be fine IF Ms. Rowling were making her own characters and world. But she isn’t. She’s using worlds and characters that already exist. Kind of like taking a designer dress, ripping out the tags, hemming up the skirt, and saying, “Look! I made a dress!”
Sally
March 10, 2016 @ 3:48 pm
And how’s about the other Europeans, even? The Spanish were all over the place long before the English came. Ditto the French (there’s a reason American history books have an entry for “The French and Indian War”. Also: Quebec), Portugal, even the Dutch who founded New Amsterdam. The masses of Germans.
She’s a nice lady and she means well, but she’s awfully provincial.
Jim C. Hines
March 10, 2016 @ 3:51 pm
Mark,
I’m not sure which website you’re referring to in your second sentence there, but nobody’s saying you and I are only allowed to write about middle-class straight white dudes.
Rowling mentioned skin-walkers. She then described it as a Native American belief (as opposed to a specifically Navajo belief), and went on to explain they didn’t actually exist, and were actually animagi.
I started to say it’s like she decided to base her story on the fact that Jesus was really a wizard, and the apostles were his students, and he ended up being the first Voldemort and trying to make the muggles all worship him, and so on. That would piss a lot of people off.
Only it’s worse than that. People actually recognize and understand that Christianity is a real religion, and that people believe it. Whereas there’s still a tendency to completely erase native tribes and history and their ongoing existence. And Rowling’s work contributes to that erasure.
Hillerman did the research and treated the subject material with respect. Rowling doesn’t appear to have done either, at least when it comes to this aspect. She’s taking something sacred and playing with it like a toy.
It’s not that people aren’t allowed to write about other kinds of characters. It’s the expectation that it be done with some respect and awareness.
sistercoyote
March 10, 2016 @ 5:05 pm
is the slippery slope of arguing on the one hand that there is no “Native American community” (or African-American community, or whatever) and then criticizing someone for their portrayal of it
Let’s break this down.
1. There is no monolithic Native American Culture. There are multiple Native American cultures. Oddly, this is also true of any ethnicity you care to name.
1a. People therefore rightfully criticize those who imply by saying “The” Native American Community that there is, in fact, one monolithic Native American Culture.
Good so far?
2. Not all representation is created equal.
2a. Speaking with actual members of the culture one is attempting to represent via fiction and listening what they have to say is usually a Good Idea.
2b. No one should be grateful to see themselves in fiction if the way they are being “seen” has fuck-all to do with reality.
Still good?
3. You are addressing two separate pieces of criticism: the type addressed in point 1, and a second type that says: if you’re going to take from a particular culture, learn about that culture so you don’t fall afoul of point 2.
3a. So, for example, having established that skinwalkers are Navajo and not the non-existent monolithic Native American, it is perfectly legitimate to say: hey, you’re not treating this with the respect it deserves.
3b. Hillerman did basically the opposite of what Rowling has done, in that he did his research and talked to people and listened to what they had to say.
All this to say: Yes. One can both criticize the error of reduction (“The” NA culture) and the misuse of individual cultural elements portrayed within.
Rowland Smith
March 10, 2016 @ 5:07 pm
Personally, we black people choose to stay out of the way and listen to the Native American voices. It’s called empathy something many people and authors don’t have
sistercoyote
March 10, 2016 @ 5:30 pm
I don’t think she was calling out black people to comment on the situation, but rather observing that Rowling’s Magical History of the Americas neglects to note their existence.
Alice
March 10, 2016 @ 7:17 pm
Yeah, I knew this was going to be bad when I saw the maps. Before Magic In North America even came out, she released that map of the other “great” wizarding schools. And for some reason, only a single school from the continents of South America and Africa “qualify”. Really? Europe gets at least 3 schools, but for some reason, none of the wizards in Egypt or Ghana or Mali or Morocco or Peru or Chile managed to build lasting schools? And then the Brazilian school has a Portuguese name, so we can bet that we aren’t going to hear as much about the indigenous wizards of Brazil as we are about the brave Portuguese explorer wizards instead. How do you not put a school in Peru, honestly?
Peter Eng
March 10, 2016 @ 9:10 pm
“And from the POV of an author, the slope continues to questions of how writers (or TV/Film, etc) portray any gender or culture outside the author’s own. The suggestion, perhaps inferred, is that you shouldn’t be allowed to refer to other cultures in any way.”
Well, let me put it this way. What if I talked about writers as if they were all the same, had the same methods of going from idea to novel? Would you consider yourself justified in telling me to go do some research on what writers were really like, that they weren’t some monolithic group, that some start with plot, others with characters, others with worlds, and even where there are similarities, there are differences?
If you’re willing to accept that as a reasonable approach when thinking about writers, then why shouldn’t it apply to other subjects? I don’t know guns; I’d take some time to research them before I tried writing a character who used them. I don’t know what it’s like to be a white guy growing up in Detroit in the 1960s; research. I don’t know what it’s like to be a black woman in Los Angeles, circa World War 2; research.
J.K. Rowling doesn’t know anything about the history and variety of North America, either pre-colonization or post-colonization; research.
It’s often been said that authors should write what they know, but I think it’s more reasonable that they should know what they write about. Read first-hand accounts, talk to people who were there, study how the thing that’s being written about really worked.
Alternatively, authors can make things up, be completely wrong about the background, and get called out on their willful ignorance.
Marie
March 11, 2016 @ 1:46 pm
Oof! I can understand an author wanting to rein in the number of schools to try to keep it simpler and Hogwarts as THE premiere school, but she already established two other schools in Europe alone. With about 10% of world population, that means there should be about 27 more comparable wizarding schools to the three in Europe, most in Asia. North America would have one or two if you go by population, and Latin America two or three. But a different distribution with easier research in English could probably be more interesting and doable. With all the magical forms of transportation, an intermural interaction shouldn’t be the issue it is here. If she sees putting one and only one in NA, then where are the other 26?
As a side note, an author dismissing this side of the pond as only brash/simple/uncultured made much of Agatha Christie’s work unreadable. And in a business sense, dismissing a large chunk of your market is a bad idea.
Shawna
March 11, 2016 @ 2:07 pm
There are two things every writer must do: 1. Research 2. Let a skilled editor have at your work before publication. We cannot get away with ignoring or half-assing either of those things.
When it comes to writing characters from marginalized groups, research is even more critical because of the potential of contributing to the struggle people in these groups face. I’m exhausted with the false-equivalence arguments I see from people who act as if cultural appropriation and stereotypes affect everyone equally. They. Don’t. One cannot write a poor woman in Honduras the same way one writes a wealthy man in Spain, even if they’re both Catholic and primarily speak Spanish, because the real-life counterparts of the former are far more likely to be harmed by cavalier or deliberately crude characterizations that get absorbed into the cultural zeitgeist. Acknowledging differences in power and personal experience doesn’t contribute to marginalization; it’s the only way positive change can happen.
I’m currently working on the second book in a series set in a universe not dissimilar to JKR’s: Mythical creatures secretly existing alongside modern-day humans. As with the first book, this story’s main characters include queer folk and people of color. Also as with the first book, I’m researching my ass off to try my best not to screw up those representations. I’m pretty confident on the queer stuff, seeing as how I’m queer myself (and that’s part of why I write: to increase representation for people like me.) As a white person, though, I know I run a very real risk of messing things up with my PoC characters, so I work extra hard on those. In the current case, that includes a couple of First Nations characters. I’ve spent a fair amount of the past year or so making sure I have a good base of understanding of the culture–both historical and modern–of the Coast Salish people, and the Cowichan, specifically (as that’s what my main character is.) I am writing these characters as full, well-rounded people with modern lives, and also doing my best not to poach sacred or private aspects of their culture. I’m also working hard to avoid stereotypes: Even though my universe includes shape-shifters (I call them lycans), I’m absolutely not going there with these characters because that’s such a tired, shallow stereotype. Am I going to get this exactly right? Probably not. Am I going to do everything I can to get as close as any white person could? Absofreakinglutely.
Bottom line: If you can’t be bothered to do the research and write these characters respectfully, then don’t write them at all. If you’re just throwing them in for extra spice, you’re not helping. You can’t write characters that are just Ethnic Barbie: The exact same mold as the white standard, but with different-colored plastic and a cultural “costume.” People aren’t entirely defined by their cultures of origin, but nor do those things have zero effect on who they are. We are all patchwork quilts of identity, and each of those patches is important to making us individuals. If a character is missing some of those patches, that’s poor writing. If that character is also from one or more marginalized groups, it’s also contributing to the marginalization of the real-life people who share those identities.
Be aware. Be respectful. Do the research. Do the work. Or don’t call yourself a writer.
Sally
March 11, 2016 @ 6:48 pm
Yes, exactly. Sorry if I was unclear.
She’s up to her fourth and final part, and NO black people have been mentioned.
From 1500-1920 in the US, and no mention of black people AT ALL.
She skips from 1790 to 1918, missing half the history of the country and that little Civil War thing.
(sistercoyote, you have a great name.)
Sally
March 11, 2016 @ 6:55 pm
And now she’s skipped from 1790 to 1914, eliminating half the existence of the country, neatly missing that Civil War thing (putting in a later “Sasquatch War” instead), and managing not to mention any black people at all. Either alone or as a group. A quick Google tells me that there were 10.5 million black people in the US in 1920, 10% of the population.
Whether being left out entirely rather than suffering misrepresentation (I’m thinking Song of the South and Gone With the Wind is how she’d have gone) is good or bad in this case, I leave to our African-American friends to decide.
Oh, and she says a Thunderbird is the same as a Phoenix and NO I DON’T THINK SO.
Sally
March 11, 2016 @ 7:01 pm
You can’t tell me Machu Picchu didn’t have awesome wizards. Or Great Zimbabwe.
Or the Nazca lines — they were designed to be seen from the air, by flying wizards, and were in the shape of powerful magical creatures! I can come up with better stuff off the top of my head in a comment than she has.
sistercoyote
March 14, 2016 @ 12:08 pm
So much WTF with the Thunderbird = Phoenix.
I mean, not that there wasn’t huge amounts of WTF to begin with, but.
Digital content woes, JK Rowling on North America and other writing/publishing links (#SFWApro) | Fraser Sherman's Blog
March 15, 2016 @ 2:55 am
[…] story, J.K. Rowling has been writing about magic in North America. Some Native Americans think it sounds like a disaster. For example, Rowling explains the myth of the Navajo skinwalker as distorted stories about native […]
Friday Links (this is not great edition) | Font Folly
March 18, 2016 @ 9:04 am
[…] J. K. Rowling and #MagicInNorthAmerica. […]
Jen
March 23, 2016 @ 12:46 pm
I’d just like to point out that people make stuff up about the Judeo-Christian religions all the time. Book of Mormon, City of Angels, Damien, The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby…I could go on and on. The fact that one religion is rare and the other is common does not mean authors should be required to be more “sensitive” about one or the other. JMO.
Jen
March 23, 2016 @ 12:51 pm
The implication that Judeo-Christian people are somehow strong enough to deal with “insults” to their religion, while the poor Native American (or whoever) is not strong enough, is just insulting imho. Can we please move beyond the “your ancestors oppressed my ancestors so I should get special treatment” stuff?
Jim C. Hines
March 23, 2016 @ 12:55 pm
You’re not only missing the point, you then go on to belittle others based on your lack of understanding. Knock it off.
Jen
March 23, 2016 @ 12:58 pm
To clarify…I am Not trying to say we shouldn’t be helping historically oppressed populations to recover monetarily, etc. But excluding their traditions from being mentioned in current literature does nothing to actually help anyone. If anything, the activists demanding special treatment make them look weak. Hope that helps.
Jim C. Hines
March 23, 2016 @ 12:59 pm
Also, if you’re of the mistaken belief that all this oppression and inequality is in the past, then you should probably educate yourself before trying to jump into the conversation.
Jen
March 23, 2016 @ 1:24 pm
Have you read the story? Your words:
“It’s all generic ‘mystic savage’, treating all Natives as one culture, mixing and matching things, saying that medicine men were all liars, and oh yeah, ignoring that whole GENOCIDE thing.”
Point 1) She referred to the NAs in the same context (i.e. magical) as the Europeans. Because she is writing about a wizarding world.
Point 2) You say she referred to all NAs as being the same. However, she also referred to the “European Wizarding Community” without specifying the various European nations either. Again, her writing is treating the Natives THE SAME as the euro immigrants within the story
Point 3) She didn’t say all medicine men were liars. Please go back and read the story.
Point 4) re: ignoring genocide. She stated that conflict developed between natives and colonists. Which it did. The genocide happened over several centuries; it was not confined to a specific incident or short period of time. Covering centuries of war and genocide was NOT within the scope of her extremely short story (which is aimed mainly at young adults so going into gory details would be inappropriate anyway!).
Jen
March 23, 2016 @ 1:44 pm
Re: Thunderbird vs Phoenix….she says they’re related, not the same freaking bird. Lions are related to housecats….this does not imply that they are the same animal, or even close to the same. It just means they evolved from a common ancestor.
Jen
March 23, 2016 @ 3:21 pm
Hey it’s your blog, so say whatever you want. However I’d like to know what I said to “belittle” others? I was merely stating an opinion that’s different from yours. I am not sure why this would be taken as any kind of person insult. I do believe the issue is blown out of proportion and completely mischaracterized, however.
Jim C. Hines
March 23, 2016 @ 4:45 pm
Jen – You ask how you’re belittling others. In the same paragraph, you describe other people’s expressions of hurt and pain as being blown out of proportion. The word belittle means to try to make something seem unimportant. That’s exactly what you’re doing with your comments, your scare quotes, and so on.
What I *don’t* see from you is any attempt to understand why people might be expressing hurt and anger over this stuff.
Loose-leaf Links #19 | Earl Grey Editing
March 24, 2016 @ 2:39 pm
[…] J.K Rowling caused some controversy recently when she released some worldbuilding she’d done for her Potter ‘verse on magic in North America. N.K Jemisin expresses her disappointment over the reductive approach taken to representations of Native Americans. Jim C. Hines has a round-up of further links on this particular topic. […]