Harry Potter meta: Muggles and disability

[sqbr]

The thought hasn't had time to coalesce yet, but this unfunnybusiness post about Snape fans denying the "blood purity=racism" metaphor got me thinking about how in some ways being a muggle is like a disability, and so muggle-borns are the able-bodied children of disabled parents. Like...hearing children of Deaf parents who grew up in Deaf culture (of course some Deaf people would argue that it's not a disability, just a different way of being, but I'd say that's just as true of being a muggle, whatever the wizards think on the subject) Plus of course there's the squibs.

On the whole I think anti-muggle prejudice functions more like racism, but it's interesting to ponder.

Comments

[whatistigerbalm]

muggle-borns are the able-bodied children of disabled parents

More than plausible. You could easily think of magical ability as an extra sense the absence of which renders people disabled in the opinion of those who possess it.

[sqbr]

Yes, exactly. It also reminds me of the experience of having mobility issues, there's lots of stuff I either can't do, or that requires way more effort on my part, and people without those issues often can't imagine how I live at all.

[alchemia]

yes; in one of our fics, HG teaches at a special schoool for squibs; in another fic, a WIP, we go into greater detail... a wizarding couple (snape, harry) visit a squib school as they attempt to figure out what to do with one of thier children who is a squib. The schooling is modelled after remedial classes / "disability" focused schools.

[sqbr]

That sounds really interesting! I knew I couldn't be the only person who'd thought of it :)

[alchemia]

Thanx!

[elf]

The concept came up a while back, and there was a big wankstorm about whether ableism or racism was the more accurate metaphor, with charming examples of both in the comments.

I may see if I can scrounge up links this weekend.

My thots: there are similarities to both; JKR was obviously modeling the "blood purity" thing on racism, but it doesn't quite parallel--humans of different "races" have the same basic abilities; wizards and Muggles don't. However, JKR's writing is so loaded with kyriarchal assumptions (het-priv, cis-priv, white-priv, male-priv, etc.) that it's fairly pointless to pull out one aspect of discrimination and hash through it in detail, except as an attempt to understand minutia of the Potterverse in order to write fic about it.

Connecting the Potterverse !fails to the real world kinda falls apart, because the Potterverse is not a reflection of the real world; it's a reflection of JKR's take on the real world, with a lot of handwaving over the parts she didn't care to think about. Whether anti-Muggle and anti-Muggleborn prejudice are "really" more like racism or ableism is irrelevant; JKR is not a good enough worldbuilder to make either claim provable.

[sqbr]

Oh, I think making it strictly racism OR disability is a false dichotomy and not at all helpful. It's just another interesting filter to consider the books through. And oh yes, the books are FULL of kyriarchal assumptions, that's kind of the point: I've spent some time thinking about all the ways the "magical privilege as racism" metaphor is Deeply Broken, now for a change I can think about how fail-y the books/world are if you consider them as a metaphor for disability :) Also in general I've been thinking about doing a "disability in fantasy" essay-ish thing to carry on the ideas from the disability in sf panel I did, and thinking about HP in this context has been helpful.

[elaran]

oh gods the people that post quotes makes me facepalm SO HARD

[sqbr]

Me too, ack.

[rainbow]

I... I don't get how anyone could NOT equate blood purity with racism. Have they studied nothing about WWII? Gah.

I'd say more that being a squib is considered a shameful disability by much of (but not all of) the wizarding world -- including many of the supposedly "good guys", who make fun of squibs. 'Cause disability is so funny. feh.

[sqbr]

Yeah, the attitude of everyone to squibs is pretty vile.

[hl]

Personally, I prefer to think it as a sort of loose metaphor. It doesn't work exactly (with any real -ism), for many reasons, but it's strangely accurate in how it shows the people acting about it. And even if it doesn't work as a metaphor, thinking it in story, it's as bad as any ism is out of the story, so it's not like Snape apologists are right. (Phew! We couldn't have that. ;))

I've always likened the British muggle*/wizard situation to European people conquering America. The same feeling of superiority, the same lack of understanding of each other's tools of thought (wizards may have magic, but they seem awfully unable to think in a way we can relate, and magic breaks electrical objects--possibly all technology?--so they can hardly use them or study them or whatever) and culture, the same sort of amazement and othering from the more benign of wizards/Europeans. The same can be said about wizards and sentient magical creatures, though of course the comparison is really offensive. Disability seems to work better for the squib/wizard situation, and racism for the muggleborn or non-pureblood/pureblood situation.

They all start to fall apart if you apply them to the other situations.

*science is not something that is shared in all muggle cultures, so I'm narrowing the scope for accuracy's sake.

[sqbr]

Oh, yes, it's not a neat fit for anything.

And even if it doesn't work as a metaphor, thinking it in story, it's as bad as any ism is out of the story, so it's not like Snape apologists are right.

*nods*

I mean I think the "Is it exactly equivalent to racism?" argument is kind of like one of those "Does it fit the exact definition of X?" semantic arguments: it's a valid question, but to some extent it's irrelevant to the question of whether or not it's right.

I've always likened the British muggle*/wizard situation to European people conquering America.

Huh. That didn't occur to me. *ponders*

[hl]

Huh. That didn't occur to me. *ponders*

It's a more loose metaphor than any of the others, as the history is not the same at all--but the attitudes were strangely parallel. There's definitively ethnocentrism there, and it's got the power differential, as well...

[aquaeri]

Yes, I think the squibs as a type of disability works quite well, muggles as disabled in general doesn't work so well for me because muggles can live their lives without awareness of the wizarding world.

[sqbr]

That's why I gave the example of Deaf communities, afaict they are fairly self sufficient and relatively cut off.

[lilysea]

It's an interesting analogy, and I definitely think that it works in some ways.

Squibs are much like deaf and/or blind children to hearing and/or seeing parents - they don't have a sense (magic) that their parents have.

[sqbr]

*nods*

[darkrose]

The people quoted in that post are one of the (many) reasons I left HP fandom.

[sqbr]

I was thinking "The HP fans I know aren't so bad!" then remembered they're all people I know from meatspace who happen to be HP fans, which really isn't the same thing.

*takes a brief shallow moment to squee at your icon* :)

[(Anonymous)]

Disability certainly strikes me as the most apt metaphor, for the reasons you mention (e.g. because it has to do with a difference in how one navigates the world, and difference in ability obviously does not fall along racial lines). One way to fold both race and disability together, though, would be to see "blood purity" in the Potterverse as like eugenics, which of course used "blood" to discriminate along kinship lines against people for all kinds of reasons, including race and disability--and for imagined differences that in fact have to do with social structures rather than biology.

All of that to say, great point!

[sqbr]

Thanks! And yes, eugenics does about cover it, and shows how race and disability are often intertwined in the real world.