#but when a white person is bullied for having traits that are associated with poc it’s just bullying

[arsonisticscholar]

So a big nose on a brown girl is pretty and ethnic and aesthetic and cultural but a big nose on a white girl is ugly,,,

[ifyouknowmenahyoudontt]

canon sucks in the sense that there should be more characters of color than we can count on our fingers, more canonically queer characters, more disabled or neurodivergent characters. not everyone should be cishet, white, and neurotypical. ( and the "erm but actually dumbledore was gay and hermione was black!" bullshit doesn't satisfy this ) and i applaud the old fans for getting over the old faceclaims ( aaron taylor johnson, andrew garfield, ben barnes... i salute the many edits of them ) and the new age fandom for keeping up the poc headcanons!!

canon sucks in the sense that while we can have complex characters, morally grey leaning dark characters, those characters should not try to be slotted into "good or bad." those characters shouldn't have very brief redemptions that suddenly make them heroes and epic good guys after entire books of assholery and even bigotry. two guesses as to who i'm talking about here!

canon does not suck in the "my favorite character may have maybe a sentence of plot relevance doesn't get enough attention, so i'm going to ignore all the canon things that point to them being a bigot and instead woobify them and try to make them more important than they actually were" way.

like, fanon regulus black my ABHORRED. while he wasn't abused himself, was canonically the favorite of his parents because he aligned with their ideals, it's interesting to explore sirius' complicated thoughts on his little brother. one that many mistreated and abused older siblings have when it comes to their younger- could i have done more, could i have saved him, changed him, etc. but acting like regulus wouldn't have hated his guts and wanted sirius dead, literally became a death eater and fully agreed with voldemort's ideals?? did we read the same books?

and canon does not suck in the "i'm going to take these cool complex characters and dumb them down to a single personality trait or stereotype, and pretend they're not a complex person with flaws" way.

like, i love james and sirius, literally my favorite characters! they were not always the good guys. canonically, even if he turned out to be an exponentially worse person, they were the villains in someone's story. they used to be bullies, just for the sake of it. they used to be asshole teenage boys with big egos and privilege ( both coming from wealthy pureblood households ). and they don't have to use that privilege AGAINST anyone! they obviously wouldn't, both of them are considered "blood traitors" for a reason ( james marrying a muggleborn and sirius even associating with james and lily and remus ).

it's so much more interesting to explore how they would have been as privileged little dickheads in the 70s in the midst of war, rather than "sunshine himbo james" and "femboy twink sirius" ( or if we wanna go back to old fandom shit, "sexy, lady-killer, has fucked everyone and their mom sirius" ). i also just hate "big sexy strict alpha remus," i can stand him being sarcastic because it's funny but i can't with people who take away his shyness and kindness. give us quiet bookworm remus back PLEASSEEE

even peter, and i used to be a victim of this as well- THEY LIKED HIM! peter was a marauder, he was part of the group, he was their best friend too. i understand people who try to erase him altogether just out of hating him, but those who pretend that james, sirius, and remus didn't care for him are just wrong. it's okay to not like a character, but don't rewrite canon in a way that fully fucks up the story. peter's betrayal sucked from all angles, because he was their friend too.

and reading what you and multiple other people have said about lily is so right, she gets the "jealous straight girl that wants james but HATES REGULUS for stealing jamie!!" treatment, or is just cast out altogether. like, sorry, who did harry get his striking green eyes from? who brought him into the goddamn world? james sure as hell didn't do it alone, and last i checked, regulus was dead by then if we wanna be real about it.

this turned out to be an insane rant, SO sorry, but hp is my special interest and i LOVE the marauders era just as much as i love the golden trio era. they're interesting to explore as characters, ESPECIALLY james, in the same way a lot of people like rose quartz from steven universe? he's spoken about as this infamous, talented, really good dude who died protecting his wife and son and helped bring upon the savior of the wizarding world. but he was also like a huge asshole when he was in school, and harry probably would have hated to meet james and sirius from back then! but people dumb all of them down in the marauders era works just because we don't get explicit descriptions or tellings of what they were like. and it's so annoying!!

i strongly agree with this.

tbh regulus being one of the most popular character speaks a lot about this fandom. bigotry is a broad term and those who criticize JKR (rightfully tho) but go on again to do that to women? or the poc? hypocritical

and the fanon remus thing pisses me off so bad because the point of his character was that he was a soft and sensitive person contrasting with his “condition”!!!! he was human!!!!!!

i agree w this sm

[dreamworksconvict]

She-Ra: Racism Problem Pt. 2

Thanks to everyone who said nice things about my earlier post!!!! I like am really invested in representation and media so I’m glad it’s being received well. 

I also want to add a caveat that I’m not trying to cancel She-Ra. I just want to hold media to a high standard and think that we can critique the things we like.

Next I want to talk about some pretty heavy topics: the White Savior trope and colonialism. Again, I’ll be pretty spoiler-heavy here. I also want to warn people that there will be mention of genocide and antisemitism. I’ll be writing about Hordak in the next part.

In the fourth part I want to add an addendum about Catra being coded as Latina, which I think is a valid interpretation. I also want to talk about the ableism present in the show with both Hordak and Entrapta, which is a separate issue so I’ll label it differently. 

Imagine a story like this: 

“I am a white-coded, able-bodied, implied cisgender protagonist who has a Special Trait that makes me Stronger and/or More Unique than other characters. I also have some connection to Some Evil Colonizers from Space. Oh no! Some Evil Colonizers from Space have showed up to threaten me and my Token Diverse friends who get about half as much screentime as I do! Wait a second, “evil?” There’s no such thing! They’re only Misunderstood Colonizers Who Didn’t Mean It, and/or there was More to the Story. Maybe they came from a Dysfunctional Family or were Abused/Bullied! I think the people/places they colonized may have been Secretly Bad or Just As Bad all along, too! Wowee! Let’s all have a Heart-to-Heart and/or sacrifice one of my Token Diverse friends to save the day!”

Which story am I referring to? Well...

Voltron... or She-Ra... or Steven Universe.. and probably others...yeah.

(And for those who claim that Keith isn’t the protagonist of Voltron, well... I mean he is... but that’s an entirely different essay. But notice how Lance and Hunk are actually smaller than the other characters on the screen and are partly transparent, and that Allura gets pushed to the back row and is mostly covered? Yikes...)

(On my previous post, someone also noted that Steven is half-Jewish. I was not aware that Rebecca had confirmed this officially. As I am not Jewish myself, I don’t want to speak over this, but I do want to point out that you can be white and Jewish, as it is a Diaspora identity. There are many Jewish ethnicities, such as Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and Mizrahim. I also wish that we had seen more of that in the show--like Steven celebrating Hanukkah, or learning Hebrew, or having a Rosh Hashanah celebration... From what I can tell, Rebecca only confirmed this on a Reddit AMA post. So I don’t know specifically how Steven identifies because that was never clarified in the show, but it seems like he is coded as white. Definitely feel free to disagree, this is just how I’ve interpreted the show, especially given its treatment of colonization.)   

On top of all three of these shows recycling a very similar plotline, they all share the White Savior trope. Teen Vogue has an article talking about how this is linked to colonialism and I highly encourage checking that out. I’m going to pull a large chunk of text from there because I think it’s really important and applies to animation, not just live action films. 

“Many white people in films based on the stories of POC are often subliminally depicted as godlike saviors, heroes who are rational and judicious to the core. They are usually deified men or women — glorified and righteous — like scripture out of a Holy Book. Look at Hillary Swank in Freedom Writers. The white savior somehow always ends up usurping the narrative. And in this centering of whiteness and white characters, the POC characters end up becoming props, which only perpetuates ideas of our otherness and unimportance, which then establishes a status quo of racism. Whiteness is again normalized, and POC are decentralized. This is particularly problematic because whiteness is not only favored in Hollywood but also in society at large; white privilege is ever-present and ubiquitous.”

Look at the center poster for She-Ra: Adora is pictured in white and gold and red as an accent. She’s bathed in a golden light. This color combination is no coincidence, because we already associate that combination with religious iconography, like the Vatican. 

(I also want to make a note that this is specifically associated with Christian/Catholic iconography. A lot of these shows could be classified as antisemitic in their handling of colonialism and genocide. I would argue--and will be arguing in my thesis--that Season 6-8 of Voltron’s plot heavily relied on antisemitic tropes, especially as it related to Lotor and the Alteans. But that’s for another day.) (Also see my discussion of Steven Universe’s Jewish identity above.)

So how exactly does She-Ra follow the White Savior trope, how is it similar to other stories’ utilization of the trope, and how does this all relate back to colonialism? I would say there are two main factors: setting up Adora as a white heroine with a darker-skinned foil (Catra), and setting up a narrative where Hordak “isn’t that bad of a guy, really.” For this part I’m gonna focus on Adora.

1: Adora as the White Savior

Adora is from the Horde. Keith is half-Galra. Steven’s mom is Pink Diamond. 

All three of these protagonists have some personal tie or connection to a group of colonizing villains. The Diamonds want(ed) to take over earth and suck the life force from it, as they’d done on other planets. They also used a super-weapon to with the intent to kill all the rebel gems. The Galra created an empire and also sucked the life out of planets. They also created a super-weapon that could kill an entire planet, and had already committed genocide against the Alteans. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Big Bad of She-Ra, Horde Prime, has similar goals. Hordak certainly does.

There is an ever-so-slight separation of Adora from the other two protagonists, who, at the start of the series, do not know they are related to the villain group in some way. (Steven doesn’t know he’s a Diamond.) Adora, on the other hand, starts the series as a villain. She’s part of a group that has actively been fighting and destroying the Princesses and the planet. The first episode notes that she is particularly good at her job, with Hordak nominating her for Force Captain. Adora also notes that “this is what [she’s] been working for her entire life.” When Catra and Adora leave the Fright Zone, it is not out of goodwill. They simply want to go for a joyride on a skiff. 

When Adora gains the power of She-Ra, she acts ignorant of the Horde’s actions. The first episode, Adora is completely defensive of Hordak. She even claims that “Hordak says we’re doing what’s best for Etheria.” It is not until the second episode that Adora begins to have any remorse for her actions--but also note that Adora’s main motivation during the first half of this episode is to continue onward with Bow and Glimmer because she wants to know more about herself, not repent for her actions. It is not until the end of the episode that she begins to become a bit more self-aware, but there is a key phrase that Glimmer utters that is very key to the White Savior narrative: “I feel like maybe you’re here to help us.” This line comes after Glimmer apologizes for not trusting Adora. Adora. The Horde soldier. The soldier from the group of colonizers who were responsible for the death of Glimmer’s father. 

Ok sure. 

Consider how realistic this is. (Not that fantasy has to be realistic, but when you’re working with a narrative based on systemic violence, you need to at least be considerate of how this works in reality.) Adora has been trained to fight and kill Princesses and their allies. She’s been trained to take over Etheria and strategically destroy and/or take resources to weaken them. Yet she acts as if this is all news to her. Suddenly meeting the people she’s been trained to destroy causes her to repent, and suddenly the people who have been victimized forgive her and trust her within two episodes. 

Here’s what I think is going on here: given the current hyper-conservative political climate and rampant xenophobia in the world right now, white creators feel the need to put a white person as the hero as if they’re claiming, “See, this character--and subsequently myself--aren’t like those other bad white people!” They want a degree of separation from the reality that they have white privilege and are part of the problem. 

There is no truly “woke” white person. White people have been raised in a society where they benefit off the oppression of the chosen “other,” in this case black and brown people. Even if you do your research like I’m doing, you still will mess up. White people cannot rid themselves of privilege no matter how hard they try, because in this current society, the legacy of colonialism, imperialism, and racism have made it so that white people will ultimately be more successful and have more opportunities for success than others. (Also, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, so even attempts to be considerate about taking advantage of laborers cannot be completely successful.) 

All of this results in a lot of White Guilt. Thus, we end up with narratives where the white colonizer character suddenly has a change of heart and fights against the system without really challenging the core mechanics that put that system in place. But fighting against oppression and violence doesn’t make a white person special--it just makes them decent. 

It also ignores the fact that white people, to be blunt, haven’t done shit to advocate for inclusion and equity compared to literally everyone else. I want to pull another quote from the Teen Vogue article:

[White saviors] perpetuate an idea that is essentially a historical banner of colonialism: People of color need white people to save them. To this day, some people still latently believe what imperialists such as Rudyard Kipling said, that colonialism was important for everyone: the conqueror and, most importantly, the conquered. That without the colonizers, the colonized had no hope of survival. And by constantly churning out movies with plots in which white people "save" people of color, Hollywood reinforces colonialist dictum.

Why does Glimmer think that they NEED Adora to be saved? Why is this white woman the only one who can do it? Sure, Adora has the power of She-Ra, but remember that giving Adora, a white woman, that power was a CHOICE made by the writers. They could have given the sword to someone else, they could have made Adora a PoC... but they didn’t. So suddenly, because Adora, ex-Horde soldier, is there, the Princess alliance can be reformed, people start working together, the rebellion is saved! etc. etc. etc.... 

So then it’s extra ironic (and honestly is pretty predictable given this White Guilt narrative) when the White Savior trope goes right along with The Colonizers Weren’t Actually Evil, Just Misunderstood.

This post is way too long so I’ll continue in the next part. 

[laulink]

This may be just me, but I remember rewatching V1 with a friend and, when Weiss said racist stuff, it reminded me a lot of how things are in France. You'll never hear a French person say that France is a racist country (or if you do you're speaking to a pretty woke person, more than average at least), but in France you hear stuff similar to Weiss' mentality A LOT.

For example, in France, we don't have BLM movements because we don't need them the way the US do, our cops don't shoot people holding a water bottle in front of their kids. But we do have a lot of bias toward people of other ethnicities ; not just black people, all ethnicities. Some are worse than others : we consider Germans to be very disciplined and follow rules (they are not and they don't, at least not more than others) ; we consider Spanish people to be lazy, Italians to be romantic, Chinese to be hard-working... And Moroccans, Algerians, Tunesians and other people from North Africa or the middle-east to be less accepting than us of people's differences (ha) like sexual orientation and stuff, more controlling toward women, etc. It's not just POC though : the bias for Romani people is that "they are thieves" and French people feel insecure when there are Romani people in their town.

Those biases are based on ethnicity, but to that most people add biases based on the place people live in or how they dress. For example, if you see a kid dressed in sweatpants and a hoodie in a "hot" part of a big town, people influenced by those biases will be scared the kid will pull a knife on them.

Those biases are widely spread and a lot of people consider them to be born of facts and therefore things to always take in consideration : "a lot of gangs live in this part of town and there are shootings every week, therefore everyone who lives there must be associated with drugs and we shouldn't talk to them ever" or stuff like that.

Weiss in V1 felt like that to me : all her life she'd heard her Father badmouth the Faunus, especially the WF, talk about how they destroyed their property, apparently killed their associates, stole their Dust, etc. Like French people, she didn't think too hard (because she wasn't made to, before Beacon, and never faced people who thought differently) on the "why" of these attacks and the social issues backing them, she just heard about people committing crimes targeting her family and friends and was taught to hate them, the same way French people hear stories on the news about young migrants or children in towns with bad reputations attacking perfectly innocent people and attaching those attacks to a whole group. So Weiss developed a mindset of "Faunus and especially those associated with the White Fang are more likely to be criminals" and ran with it.

We don't see Weiss interacting with Faunus who show their trait before she meets Sun. She sees Velvet getting bullied and doesn't intervene, but to be fair, no one does and she doesn't say that it's normal. Before she meets Sun, she suggests that the Dust robbery might have been done by the WF because in her experience, whenever Dust was stolen from her company, 9 times out of 10 it was stolen by the White Fang. Then Sun appears and the sailors from the boat he was on immediately call to bystanders to catch him, implying he had done something bad, once again playing in Weiss' view of Faunus.

Then she fights with Blake, the reveal happens, and for the first time, someone she knows personally and considers a good person and a friend is a Faunus. And Weiss cares for Blake as a person, not as a human only, so she decides that her impressions of Blake that she had before the reveal didn't have to change and that's why she says she doesn't care about Blake being a Faunus or formerly part of the White Fang : Blake is her friend and that's all that matters.

So yeah, all this to say : Weiss' attitude and thought process was racist, but like French people, she probably didn't consider herself to be racist, and she didn't discrimate against Faunus because she considered them "lesser" than humans, she thought she was acting from past experiences, that she "knew" something on Faunus as a whole and based her behaviour on it. For a more Remnant-based comparison, think of her fight with Flint and Neon in V2 : Yang asks what to expect from Atlas students and Weiss bases her expectations on the fact that they are from Atlas, a heavily militarised kingdom, the same way she bases her expectations for Faunus on what she knows of the group that is supposed to represent them, the WF. Realising Blake was a Faunus made her also realise that things weren't so black and white and that her attitude and all the people acting the same way as she had was the reason the WF acted out in the first place and gave Faunus a bad name, which is why she later stood up to other racists.

So to put it in a nutshell : as I see it, Weiss didn't consider Faunus to be "trash and subhuman", but she was heavily biased against them by a lifetime of crimes and stories designed to stoke fear and hate which made her act racist. She outgrew those biases though and learned to see things from a different angle and that's why she's now sending actual racists who believe Faunus are lesser than them into the trash.

(for Winter I think it's easily explained by the fact that she is older than Weiss and had time to learn the same lessons she did, especially since Atlas Academy accepts Faunus students, like all other Academies. For Whitley, it just didn't fit in the story arc, would have felt like a regression to give him the same kind of arc that Weiss went through in V1 and would have been completely out of touch with the rest of V7 and 8, which focused on very different matters)

So weird when Weiss stans will try to erase her racism when the fact that she outgrew that bigotry and is now fighting for the rights of people she used to hate is literally her best character trait

Honestly I'm not even talking about Weiss stans (although some could also be saying that). I mostly see it from people trying to make sense of why Weiss had her racist attitude whereas we don't see it in the rest of her family, save Jacques.

And like, whatever, you can come up with a thousand theories as to why Weiss was the only schneebling to have Inherited Racism(tm) from her father, but "Weiss was never actually racist" is such a surprisingly common galaxy brain take among fans and critics alike and I don't get it.

[pinkxsheets-blog]

venus as a boy (pt.2)

(an interview with Olivier Delouche, who is my long-time friend, a male Frenchman, and a not so big fan of the patriarchy)

1. In terms of referring to the harmful behaviours often associated with the masculine, people often talk about ‘toxic masculinity.’ Would you agree with the idea that the patriarchy builds towards a toxic masculine culture?

Yes, I agree that the patriarchy builds towards a toxic masculine culture. I think it tries to masculinize traits and behaviours that should neither be imposed on men nor looked down on in women. Moreover, it either ignores or actively discourages men from another set of behaviours and traits that would indeed be beneficial to society if men embodied them. To name an example, there are clearly double standards when it comes to authority depending on gender (‘men are supposed to be authoritative’ and women who are authoritative tend to be called bossy, a word that has a negative connotation), whereas I believe that particular trait has a lot more to do with the individual personality of people rather than their gender. In short, I can’t think of a specific social behaviour that one shouldn’t exhibit (be it based on morality, social norms…) based solely on whether they are male or female.

2. Describe a time in your life you felt you struggled most with what was expected of you as a boy.

I don’t think I have ever had one scarring experience where the main cause of my frustration was the set of expectations assigned to my gender. In general, however, I would say that I feel trapped by what is considered acceptable behaviour by society in every day life. I feel it in particular when it comes to the way society looks at, deals with and judges typical relationships between males and females, in other words, how people should act in amorous/sexual relationships. In a lot of ways, I believe the type of relationships advocated for and sanctioned by society often times lack a lot respect and consideration. I wish society were more open to people not conforming with how most people deal with relationships, as well as fail to condemn sexism and misogyny within them.

3. How do you think your experiences/struggles with the patriarchy as a white or western man, give you privilege over other men, who are POC.

I don’t know if the fact that I struggle with the patriarchy in and of itself gives me privilege over men who are POC, although it could be said that my grievances with the system are mostly about what behaviours/discourses should or shouldn’t be allowed or encouraged, where as men who are POC have to add to that a struggle to be treated fairly based solely on who they are physically. It is no doubt immensely harder to be challenged or judged on something that you have absolutely no control over rather than something that you could theoretically change, regardless of whether you should/want to. It may also true that the patriarchy treats gender roles differently based on race, however I don’t feel like I know enough about this topic to comment appropriately.

4. What are some of the biggest issues that men face as a result of the patriarchy that you think we should be tackling. How do you think we should go about tackling this/these issue/issues?

A while ago I read about this advertising campaign that was launched in Australia to encourage men to cry. It tried to tackle a crippling problem in that country, which doubt exists in many others: a high rate of suicide in men. A lot of those suicides are motivated by a failure of society to accept men’s expression of feelings, which results in a sense of guilt; because after all, they’re not supposed to ‘be weak’, and crying is for the weak. Although there are many more insidious issues which can directly be traced back to patriarchal norms, it is worth focussing on a type of societal bullying which results in death. I believe the advertisement campaign used in Australia (which, if I remember correctly, used ‘shocking’ phrases and pictures) is a really good way to raise awareness for the issue, and make a large population of men more in touch with their feelings and their freedom to express them whenever they feel. What is also important is for people to lead by example; the more people are seen challenging patriarchal norms, the less normative they seem, and the less hesitant people will be to follow. However, it’s important to distinguish that they will not be following just for the sake of breaking norms or copying others, but rather, follow if that is how they would naturally behave. I believe this movement should be about emancipation of self, personality and expression. In other words, a purely personal experience which encourages to dare to be yourself even though you may be different than your neighbour.  

5. In your own terms, describe what it means to you to be a feminist.

I readily accept a widely accepted definition of feminism: the idea that there shouldn’t be any unfair discrimination based on genders. To say that there are no differences between men and women is to be intellectually dishonest, whether referring to physiological or psychological differences. This, in my mind, clearly allows for men and women to be treated differently in different situations. However, the double standards and discrimination that I see afflicting women (and to a lower extent, men) are in no way justified by the differences that can be established between the sexes (and which, by the way, in many cases we do not understand perfectly yet). To me, then, feminism equates to acknowledging that there are injustices that are based solely on gender, and challenging them whenever possible. Some people might see this as a kind of personal feminism, as opposed to activists who actively try to spread awareness to the issue. I see some problems with this wider type of feminism, but I agree that spreading awareness to issues is the first step to them being solved.  

6.  What do you think people should be doing more to tackle gender inequality?

I believe that something that would help this entire problem, for both genders, is scepticism. A big part of the problem is the way men and women are ‘fed’ patriarchal norms, from ads to TV shows to politics. For example, moral absolutism applied to characters from TV. Just because one likes a specific character, or can identify to some level with them, does not mean that character does or says everything right, and does not mean that it is good to try to be like them. In every day life, it is important to keep a dose of doubt, and to think twice before accepting something as ‘normal’ or ‘acceptable’ just because it is portrayed in public life. This would of course help tear down unhealthy and unjustified norms that contribute to gender inequality, but I believe it would also help solve other problems in our society.

[ottogatto]

There’s a strong theme of classism though (bullying rich vs villified poor)

And without wanting to give stereotypes, POC have been kept in poverty whereas whites conserved power and wealth, using those to keep POC discriminated. Which is what we can see in James & Sirius vs Snape.

Also the fact that Snape belonged to Slytherins and was villified for it, it’s disturbingly analoguous to say that a community, because of its history, is meant to turn criminal, and you shouldn’t associate yourself with them ~ POC are seen as future terrorists, criminals and drug dealers (interestingly there seems to be potion traffic in Hog’s Head, and knowing Snape is a Potions Master, maybe he’s been one).

Harry has been described explicitely as white, and looking just like his father except for the eyes and slight differences with the nose (James’ is straight). There is no indication that James is POC, especially when we see that Rowling had drawn him and Harry as white.

Harry and James can easily be drawn as Metis, but you see, the moment someone will draw Snape as Metis, they will come with “hOw DaRe yOu” because of his purist past and because they can’t fathom that idea that James bullied a Black/POC character — because we try to villify Snape, and to achieve so you have to cast him as white.

Yet people forget that being POC does not mean you can’t be racist. I especially remember this Black person who called another the N word just because he had blue eyes and the other not. Rowling has a lesbian friend but is transphobic. I remember a trans petson who refused trans Snape without any other reason that it was ‘gross’, which is bordering transphobia and particularly trans erasure (refusing a person to be trans just because you refuse to acknowledge them for other reasons). That person who said that if Rowling was a laten antisemitic person and Snape had semitic traits, then it means he has to be cast as a villain for those features, which is antisemitic.

You can be queer and queerphobic (on a more or less conscious level), you can be a woman and mysogynistic/sexist, you can come from another country and be xenophobic against it (I saw this very well), you can belong to a community and perform the same discrimination you’re living (a bit like Snape as a half-blood); so the probability of belonging to a discriminated community but discriminating another is even greater. When you want to belong to the upper class, you might adopt their bigotry, ironically helping them to discriminate you. More, you can cast yourself as a bad person following their stereotypes.

Racism, and discrimination overall, is not just a clear battle between two parties, the good and the bad, between “queer/trans ethnic POC (often female)” and “white racist xenophobic queerphobic (often male)”, like people try to say. It can be “white racist queer” and “POC queerphobic”. It can be “POC racist (yup) queer xenophobic” and “white racist queerphobic with other origins”. It can be “queer but queerphobic”, “ethnic but xenophobic”. Discriminations overlap each community, and belonging to a community does not exclude you from being discriminative, towards others or towards yourself.

It annoys me how Dumbledore tells Snape that perhaps they "sort too soon". Basically imo implying that because of his actions (protecting Harry at great risk to himself) he actually belongs in Gryffindor, and that's not the case at all. Yes Snape was brave, but he is a Slytherin through and through imo, & that's not a bad thing. That being said though although there is a lot of narrative bias against Slytherin, it's not overlooked like Hufflepuff & Ravenclaws sometimes are

it annoys me too but it’s fascinating. i bet snape thinks his life went to hell when he was separated from his only friend so dumbledore was rubbing salt in his wound. snape also craves validation and praise from authority figures which includes dumbledore, who tends to withhold affection so when he does give it, it overwhelms snape and probably made him more likely to carry out dumbledore’s plans. imo ‘we sort too soon’ applies to dumbledore who is machiavellian when it comes to snape (and to smaller extent harry).

dumbledore is jkr’s mouthpiece so snape willingly putting his life on the life finally makes him worthy enough for the golden club. i don’t know how to feel about that because slytherin is very obviously the house for evil people and snape did his best to rehabilitate it (very few students joined voldemort compared to slughorn’s tenure as head of house) but the idea that he finally elevated himself so that he was now good enough for gryffindor is so interesting because he did it by protecting harry who is canonically gryffindor’s heir.

that conversation says a lot about jkr. read this post about harry potter being colonial fantasy and realise snape occupies a different spot than harry. he’s not sporty or overtly brave, he’s a spy with features that might be considered ethnic. someone many years ago (i hope @deathdaydungeon can confirm or deny) said that in the old english books (from the 19th and 20th century), there’s usually an english male character who is athletic and often pursues the affection of an english woman who has a foreign suitor, usually french or from another european country. this person has greasy hair and hooked nose, etc. if this is true then dumbledore’s quote could be read as snape transcending his otherness to become worthy of standing on the same line as the heroes.

regardless there’s some form of elitism going on and without a doubt gryffindors are considered elite since they inherit the ministry and run it the ‘right’ way.