There's nothing confusing about a black actress playing Hermione Granger

A news producer rang up this morning, asking me to talk about ‘colour-blind casting’. Noma Dumezweni has just been cast as Hermione in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the stage sequel to JK Rowling’s novels. So there I was, listening to a hack ask ‘isn’t it confusing when black actresses play white roles?’ When I was too stunned to answer, he added, encouragingly, ‘we thought you’d be happy to come on and criticise Sonia Friedman’.

True, if you follow theatre, you’ll know that Sonia Friedman, the super-producer who brings Hollywood’s most commercial franchises to the West End stage, won’t be sending me a Christmas card this year. But for very different reasons. Friedman knows how to pack her houses, and when she brought Benedict Cumberbatch to the Barbican in this year’s Hamlet, I described the cinematic result as ‘a production cut to frame its star’. Scott Jordan Harris identified ‘the carefully choreographed theatrical re-creation of the trademark moments in Sherlock,’ Cumberbatch’s iconic TV series. This could have been an opportunity for theatre to challenge and engage a new audience: instead, it merely monetised an existing fanbase.

That’s always the concern when an iconic actor returns to the stage, or conversely, when a successful film franchise comes to the theatre. We’ve all been wondering what Sonia Friedman would do to Harry Potter, and the omens didn’t always look good. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child hits the Palace Theatre in July of next year, and one of the earliest announcements revealed that it has been spread over two separate plays, meaning fans have to buy two tickets to ensure they get the full story. Move over Hunger Games: Mocking Jay Parts 1 & 2: when it comes to milking cash-cows, you’ve nothing on Sonia.

So if you were looking for a friendly showbiz hack to gush about Friedman’s latest casting news, you shouldn’t be looking here. But here’s my honest assessment: the casting of Noma Dumezweni as Hermione Granger in the forthcoming Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is inspired. And it reminds us that the play’s director, longstanding Friedman associate John Tiffany, understands something vital about theatre.

As everyone capable of a glance at Twitter knows, Dumezweni is black. A minor point that seems to have been lost is that she’s also an actress who consistently engages and enthrals. She’s no newcomer, winning an Olivier award for A Raisin In The Sun in 2006, and stepping in to replace Kim Cattrall last month in Linda at the Royal Court. Last year, in A Human Being Died That Night, she brought a brittle dignity to the role of Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, a human rights investigator in Dumezweni’s native South Africa.

But yes, her colour matters. Not just if you’re a well-meaning type who thinks that diversity on stage is nice and that black actresses should have a chance at meatier roles. It matters, to anyone who cares about theatre, because it’s a sign that Tiffany isn’t just trying to recreate the movie on stage.

Theatre is the most adaptive, fluid and flexible of the narrative arts. We take old stories, and make them speak to new eras, new audiences. JK Rowling tweeted this morning that she’d never specified Hermione’s skin colour in the books, which is well-intentioned, but shouldn’t matter. The race of the historical Cleopatra is fiercely contested, but actresses of all races and nations have taken Shakespeare’s version of her and created something new. Hermione won’t always belong to JK Rowling. She certainly doesn’t belong to Emma Watson.

In Dumezweni’s current role, she didn’t just step into Kim Cattrall’s shoes. She made it her own. Linda is a portrayal of a woman in her mid-fifties, suddenly confronted with the realities of ageing, of redundant motherhood, of the decaying female body. There’s a moment, towards the end, when Dumezweni lifts her hand to her luscious hair, and suddenly, a wig is stripped away, revealing short, knotted whisps. Reminiscent of Viola Davis in How To Get Away With Murder, it’s a moment that makes visible the specific anxieties of black women’s relationship with their hair. But it also speaks to every woman, of any age or race, who has a beauty secret to hide. It could never have happened with Kim Cattrall.

As I’ve written before, the casting of black actors in ‘white’ roles doesn’t distract from any reality being portrayed on stage (remember the old ‘suspension of disbelief’?) But it can enrich it, adding new questions, new concerns. A black, forty-six year old Hermione will add new resonances to a mythic story, if we choose to see it. Such is the essence of theatre’s mutability. So trust me on this. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is something about which even the most curmudgeonly of theatre critics should be excited. It’s adaptive, it’s alive. Even if I still don’t think I’m going to be grabbing cocktails with Sonia Friedman any time soon.

TaggedHarry Potter, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Hermione Granger, JK Rowling, Noma Dumezweni, Sonia Friedman

Show comments

Badger

I don’t care who stars in Harry Effin Potter.
So long as I don’t have to read it or watch it then I’m happy.
Oh, and Rowling being a progressive – this is not news.
renee202

why do blacks immediately attack any whites who become rappers when rap was invented by mostly Jewish men if you go back to the Beats or by a very white Blondie who had the first rap record? Why are no white NBA players? I am so sorry, frightened turtles and PC JK Rowling, white people got civilizations built and were highly competent in the process. As for your rappers and race baiters, every instrument including modern ones was invented by white people as was basketball and tennis, so stop appropriating our culture, you true racists.
sidor

When white actors play Othello, they traditionally paint themselves black. Is this a racist tradition?
Old Fox

Nothing confusing – no; it used to be called tokenism. Now it is more accurately known as PC diktat. Imagine the furore there would have been had the situation been reversed.
Terry Field

She could play Diane Abbott!
- Old Fox
  
  No, Emma Watson’s down to play Abbott.
Leon Wolfeson

Ah, the decrial of art because it doesn’t suit people’s prejudices.
Dr Bock

I’m all for it, if Idris Elba can play James Bond let’s have Fassbender play Nelson Mandela, also more yellow, white and brown face, or am I missing the point? Apparently they had Chinese actors in white face with slow, exaggerated movements doing an Arthur Miller play a few years back, I’m sorry I missed that.
Ian Walker

I was absolutely disgusted last night when I went to see a performance of some dancing cats at the Palladium, only to find that some lefty, politically-correct, positive-discrimination type had cast a bunch of bloody humans.
Damaris Tighe

I’m far more concerned with the use of black actors to play historical characters who without doubt were white. That’s the re-writing of history & future generations who’ve lived in a multi-racial society from birth won’t know any different.

How would it be if any future play or film portraying Mandela used a white actor? That’s colour-blind casting, isn’t it?
- kitten
  
  Is this likely and does it matter?
  - Damaris Tighe
    
    No it’s not likely, & that’s the point. And black people I’m sure think it would matter. And that’s also the point.
Woman In White

Could be worse, some people might start claiming that the Christ was a Muslim.

(…)

Oh, hang on … (checks Koran) …

Oh OK then, so when can we expect the TARDIS to regenerate as a mosque ?
- sidor
  
  According to the Vatican doctrine, Jesus was a Roman Catholic and prayed in Latin.
  - Woman In White
    
    As usual, you have that completely backwards.
    - sidor
      
      Don’t hesitate to correct ignorant me. Waiting for your learned opinion.
      - Woman In White
        
        Catholicism was created by Christ, not the other way ’round.
        
        As to whether He “prayed in Latin” in His earthly life, quite apart from this being an unknown, I have NO IDEA why you think the Church claims anything of the sort.
        
        sidor
        
        For centuries the Roman Catholic Church executed people who tried to use other languages for praying than Latin. From this we can conclude that using Latin is the essence of the Catholic faith. Do you claim that this linguistic innovation was introduced by Jesus?
- Damaris Tighe
  
  Re-writing history is the real danger so I’m far more concerned about historical rather than fictional characters being played by black actors when they were in fact white (eg Shakespeare’s Duke of York). When something can be anything you choose it to be, rather than what it is/was, then the world has left objectivity & truth & entered the realm of political expediency & whim.
douglas redmayne

Now positive discrimination: with all acting roles now only open to the young rich the elite can offset it’s guilt with the occasional token gesture like this. Not only does it serve as conspicuous compassion but it also divides the working class which helps the same group. I will boycott this film.
Dai Jones

I wondered what all this was about… then:

Sonia (((Friedman)))

Mystery solved.
Hippograd

As I’ve written before, the casting of black actors in ‘white’ roles doesn’t distract from any reality being portrayed on stage (remember the old ‘suspension of disbelief’?) But it can enrich it, adding new questions, new concerns.

Very true. Similarly, the casting of Female actors in ‘male’ roles doesn’t distract from any reality. But the casting of ‘white’ actors in Black roles or ‘male’ actors in Female roles must be utterly forbidden.
Mc

“A news producer rang up this morning, asking me to talk about ‘colour-blind casting”

Why a producer would have Kate Maltby on her contact list to comment on vacuous subjects tells one all one needs to know about Maltby. Most normal people would respond to the first call like that with a firm F off, resulting in no further such calls.
Icebow

A black girl named Hermione Granger. It just doesn’t sound right, somehow.
- Hamburger
  
  Why not? Many black people have European names.
William Matthews

I hate it when the do this: Mr. Miyagi was Japanese, not Chinese. Daniel-San a Latino, not black. Starbuck was a man, not a woman. Hermione was white. … and if they ever remake ‘
To Sir, with Love’ with a white teacher (or Muslim one) I will run amok. Just a warning…
Wasmopolitan

If you say no, they riot. Is that it?
Boethius

Great, more signalling from a mainstream “right-wing” publication against the incipient political forces of the popular right. When will you guys learn that the key to politics is knowing your enemy? I’ll give you a hint on this one: your enemy is not the person who (resignedly) votes for you, frequents your blogs, and buys your newspapers and magazines? Do you ever see the Guardian put out reverse-shot articles against communists?

As for Hermione, is she white? Is is possible that the girl with an English name, written by a white European writer, living in a magical version of Britain heavily indebted to white European mythology and filled with white European cultural signifiers (Western dragons, werewolves, goblins, unicorns, pointy wizard hats) might actually be a white girl? Is Light Yagami Japanese? Does a bear s*** in the woods? If you can’t see the connections between aesthetics, ethnicity, mythology, and tradition, and how they come together to cohere, then you really are a lost cause, and hardly conservative by the letter of the word—what are you trying to conserve? Change? Do you think it would be appropriate to stage Lady Aoi with black actors in yellowface? Should we throw Arabs, banshees, and chupacabras into the Fengshen Yangyi? ‘Cause y’know, it’s all just fiction and fantasy and hey it might add “new resonances to a mythic story” and black women have different hair and isn’t that just special. Additionally, this death of the author logic (“Hermione won’t alway belong to J.K. Rowling”) only really applies in convenient circumstances—the mainstream opposition tends to be between red liberals who think whitewashing is bad but not the reverse, and blue liberals (Thatcherites and libertarians) who think anything goes. The latter always lose because they’re too timid to take a principled stand that doesn’t follow the economic logic of the market. Yes, I do want Europeans to be represented in their own media to the exclusion of outsiders.

Incidentally, Prisoner of Azkaban does indeed describe Hermione as white: http://i.imgur.com/f2yWrK9.png
- E.I.Cronin
  
  ”If you can’t see the connections between aesthetics, ethnicity, mythology, and tradition, and how they come together to cohere, then you really are a lost cause, and hardly conservative by the letter of the word”
  Brilliant! Thanks for this – I will quote.
- Mongo
  
  ‘Hermione’s white face was sticking out from behind a tree’
  
  an odd turn of phrase in the context, but then again Rowling is a pretty awful writer
  - Old Fox
    
    She is indeed.
  - Woman In White
    
    She’s positively brilliant at her best, but the latest novel she’s published is utterly ghastly.
- Saul Till
  
  Christ almighty. It’s a play. By a deeply mediocre writer whose fantasy world has always leant left-wards(Harry falls for a Chinese girl, Hermione is a female heroine, Dumbledore was gay(I think))…
  Rowling’s world wasn’t created with right-wing conservative readers in mind. Yet the right seem to have scoured six/seven extremely lengthy kids’ books for counter-evidence of Rowling’s claim that Hermione’s race is not specified.
  Is it that huge a betrayal? A betrayal of what? I see a lot of rhetorical questions in your post but no real articulation of what it is that bothers you about this. Your reductio ad absurdums of radically different cultures being spliced into great works is specious – how does the colour of this woman’s skin signify some enormous dissonance between the Hermione you’ve always thought of and the Hermione in this new play? Is the average black Brit so extraordinarily different from the average white Brit, in their cultural interests, in their educational attainments and direction, in their social milieu(these aren’t rhetorical questions by the way)? Even if they are, is it unthinkable that many of the differences have been chiselled away over the last two or three decades?
  There are posh, preppy black children in this country you know – it might seem preposterous to you but it’s true.
  What’s ironic is that you seem to engage in a kind of identity politicking, only refracted through a conservative lens; the idea that black culture is black culture and white culture is white culture and only soppy halfwits would ever disagree or posit that reality’s more complicated than that.
  - E.I.Cronin
    
    You’ve missed his point entirely. Hopefully Beothius will respond in time but to me what he’s pointing to is Hermoine’s character, her authors cultural history and mythological sources are all embedded in Northern European culture and ethnicity. Casting Noma smacks of multiculti tokenism. Can you really say none of this matters when you have a multi-million pound race relations industry funded by government campaigning for racial equality and ‘positive’ discrimination policies? Theresa May just recently issued a public statement about the police force being ‘too white’.
    
    It’s the double standards that are so grotesque.
    
    Notice that the article mentions her role as a human rights activist in South Africa – if a producer cast a white women can imagine how progressives would be moaning about cultural appropriation! And that would be dissonant to me as well.
    
    Look it is just theatre and fantasy – but the fact that racial profiling is now permeating every facet of our cultures is a little sinister.
Jack Smith

This casting decision is completely inauthentic and mocks the role of Hermione. It is an act of cultural sabotage on a par with the absurd and offensive decision to make Miss Moneypenny black.
Nuahs87

You are of course entitled to your opinion, but why are people who complain about established characters having their race, gender or sexuality changed always accused of bigotry? I don’t like Shakespeare being set in council estates, or films that completely change the ending of the book upon which they were based. I am I boring? Perhaps. Do I lack creativity? Perhaps. But my view is surely legitimate e.g. A black or female Doctor Who is perfectly possible given the way that the show has progressed. A black or female James Bond is just stupid, and so is a black Hermione. If you want more “minority” characters write them more roles. There really is no need to change established characters in such a way as to kill the original character off.
- chump23
  
  What’s wrong with setting shakespeare in a council estate?Some of his plays were set in Scottish estates…
  - Icebow
    
    In one televised play, the BBC cast a black man as the Duke of York.
    - Mongo
      
      some productions have a white Othello
    - mohdanga
      
      A play came out a couple of years ago in Toronto, about the First Fleet that sailed to Australia. One of the leads was black….
  - Leon Wolfeson
    
    It’s art, but it’s never right to some people.
E.I.Cronin

It’s not the fact a black actress is playing Hermoine that’s the disturbing issue, though Kate is wrong, the role does belong to Watson who indelibly stamped the character, it’s the smug, self-congratulatory thrill that progressives so obviously feel (because they tweet and FB about it) about ‘breaking down racial stereotypes’… blah blah snore. As if theatre is somehow connected to reality.

SJW’s love to self-pleasure with identity politics, they deplore racial profiling while deploying it. Look at the last paragraph ”new resonances”, ”it’s adaptive, it’s alive” as if an English actress would somehow be so white she’s anaemic.

This article reminds me of a very funny blog entry from 2011 – Admiral Cod’s entry is outrageous (as you would expect) but it’s the commentary I found very interesting, the best I found was Evelyn’s comment on cultural loss.

http://admiralcod.blogspot.co.nz/2011/05/harry-potter-and-race-replacement_24.html
- Mongo
  
  “they deplore racial profiling while deploying it.”
  
  this is the heart of the Leftist double-standards and rank hypocrisy. Race/colour/ethnicity isn’t supposed to matter anymore as everyone is equal, yet they do nothing BUT highlight racial differences – Music of black origin awards, Black Business Awards etc…
  
  except for celebrating or highlighting ‘whiteness’ of course which is deemed utterly racist. Can you imagine the outcry if someone suggested creating a business awards only for white people? Or a festival to celebrate white culture?
  
  Equality or diversity – which do they want? At the moment they want to have both, but only when it suits them. Both having their cake and stuffing their smug gluttonous faces with it.
  
  so, Leftist Social Justice Warriors – Equality or diversity – which do you want?
  
  because you can’t have both without exposing yourself as utter hypocrites
  - E.I.Cronin
    
    Too right! The double-standards have become so blatant the SJW’s are finding it harder to cover their tracks. For some people at least, it’s becoming possible to publicly reject Multiculti orthodoxy. You still have to be very careful about what you say and where. But dId you see the articles about Anglo/European Student Unions a few weeks ago? Caused quite a stir and apparently they’ve started to spring up across Universities in Australia. Looks promising. There’s a new confidence slowly growing I think.
    
    I find this topic fascinating. Hope you don’t mind me rambling a little but perhaps England has been racially diverse for much longer than we were. I grew up in White Australia (looking back many of my schoolfriends were of Welsh or Scots heritage) and didn’t see a black person until I was 11 or 12. I can still remember the shock when a pair of black people (whom I now recognise as Papua New Guineans) walked past our school – it caused a riot. Literally. We all ran out of the classroom. One girl screamed. The poor people must have felt like museum displays. When I arrived to live in London in the 80’s I couldn’t believe my eyes.
    
    Because I’ve experienced both cultural poles, I can honestly say the predominate monoculture offered safety, happiness, stability and opportunity. Equality and diversity are just perverse code-words for conflict, alienation and competition.
    - Leon Wolfeson
      
      Yes, of course you hate allowing i.e. Sikhs and Jews in Britain.
      
      It’s a “hoax” that other views are allowed…
  - Leon Wolfeson
    
    Really? Oh, you want to fore false choices, as you want to profile, right.
    
    Equality of opportunity. Which you so bitterly oppose, Righist SHW.
- IainRMuir
  
  Well said.
  
  And why are these intrusions always black? Why don’t the Chinese need special help on a regular basis?
  - E.I.Cronin
    
    A Chinese Hermoine!? Now that would be rather strange.
    I hope I don’t live to see the racially modified, multiculti remake of Harry Potter :-/
    - Woman In White
      
      They should re-cast Voldemort as a Bangladeshi boat person.
      - E.I.Cronin
        
        Haha! Now that is one piece of racial tokenism that could work.
        Anjem Choudhary as The Dark Lord would be very apt.
    - Ian Walker
      
      Ah but because Hermione is a bookish nerd, casting a Chinese girl would actually be racist, in the weird mindwarp of the leftist
      - E.I.Cronin
        
        They are warped. I recently read a ghastly multiculti propaganda book by our Chinese-Malaysian Race Discrimination Minister who gets 300k per annum for scolding Anglo-Celtic Australians for not embracing Arab extremism. In the book he describes being ‘Australian’ as comprising of nothing more than ‘Going to the beach, having BBQ’s and checking out sheilas” (that’s old Aussie slang for women).
        That would be like one of us reducing Chinese-Malay identity to ”playing mah-jong; eating with chopsticks and hanging up red paper lanterns”. You could lose your job for saying that but in the twisted multiculti mindset HE gets paid for ‘trivialisation’.
        
        Leon Wolfeson
        
        Ah, the twisted views which don’t hate Sihks and Jews for being in Britain…
    - mohdanga
      
      There’s a new Sherlock Holmes series that has a Chinese female as Watson…couldn’t make it up!
      - E.I.Cronin
        
        oh dear… it’s happening already?!.
      - E.I.Cronin
        
        Sorry mate, I’ve typed 3 replies and all have been modded! I cant even type the character actor you refer to. How odd.
        
        mohdanga
        
        Very strange. The name of the show is Elementary.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2191671/
    - mohdanga
      
      It’s called Elementary (link did not attach properly).
  - Leon Wolfeson
    
    There’s non-white actors. PANIC!
TrulyDisqusted

What’s all the fuss about? Did I throw my iPhone at the wall because Apple’s Christmas advert only portrays wealthy black people inside a beautiful house singing songs around the piano?

Damn Right I did!

Haven’t they heard that all over America evil white cops are gunning down beautiful black children???

Or don’t rich black people care?

Hope Santa brings me a Samsung Edge and the watch thingy that’s also a pacemaker and a toothbrush that I can order pizza from whilst I sit on the toilet.

Haven’t they heard of glorious multiculturalism in California?
- Mongo
  
  Seems to be de rigueur that every Christmas advert now features at least one ethnic minority
  - rationality
    
    Designed to demoralise you. Dont let it break your spirit.
    - TrulyDisqusted
      
      It didn’t break my spirit, I simply smashed my iPhone and moved on!
      - rationality
        
        Those tracking instruments are very expensive. How will TPTB keep hold of your every move?
      - Hamburger
        
        Very wise, they are useless things.
Mongo

it’s even crept into James Bond – the new Miss Moneypenny is black.

I walked out of the cinema in disgust…
- Woman In White
  
  Not sure that café au lait is black, sorry …
  
  Honestly, minor roles like that should be colour-blind to some extent — but culturally well-defined ones really shouldn’t be.
  - Damaris Tighe
    
    As long as they really are colour blind – I get the impression that much of the casting in 21st century tv dramas etc is actually rubbing our noses in diversity. For example, Midsomer Murders (set in typical English villages) was forced to be less white (Producer Brian True-May, who insisted on a realistic cast, had to resign), with the result that every episode now has one or two ‘statutory’ BME resident villagers. That turns me off. Likewise the last few episodes of ‘Lewis’ (Oxford detective series) suddenly had around 50% of the main characters as BME. As soon as I sniff political propaganda, it has the opposite effect on me from what they’re aiming at.
    - Woman In White
      
      sure
    - mohdanga
      
      Used to watch Midsomer years ago with the original cast and liked it because it showed the village England before the tsunami of enrichment. Sad that Inspector Lewis has gone the same way….and the representations are way out of proportion to the actual percentage of blacks in the population.
      - Damaris Tighe
        
        Exactly. If ‘Lewis’ hadn’t ended I would have voted with my remote button anyway.
        
        mohdanga
        
        Is the BME portrayed as the victim or the criminal in these shows? Because showing them as criminals would only ‘perpetuate the systemic racism in white privileged society….’. Notwithstanding that in the US, blacks make up 13% of the population but commit 50% of the murders.
        
        Damaris Tighe
        
        In the very few I saw before I voted with my remote, both. BUT, they’re all middle class so that’s ok.
        
        Damaris Tighe
        
        Edited my first reply to this as I hadn’t read your post properly.
        
        Leon Wolfeson
        
        Never mind the actual linkage (poverty), right.
        
        mohdanga
        
        Plenty of poor white folk in the US, why is their murder rate 1/10th of the black murder rate? Look it up, Einstein.
        
        Leon Wolfeson
        
        It isn’t. But facts.
        
        mohdanga
        
        OK, Einstein, here are the facts from the 2013 Centre for Disease Control in the US.
        
        Of the 11,208 firearm-related homicides in the U.S. for
        2013:
        
        Whites: 2,799 (25.0%) – out of 198,000,000 whites (2014 U.S. census
        estimate) – 62.1% of population
        
        Hispanics: 1,750 (15.6%) – out of 55,481,128 Hispanic/Latino – 17.4% of
        population
        
        Asians: 298 (2.6%) – out of 17,218,281 Asians – 5.4% of population
        
        Blacks: 6,364 (56.8%) – out of 42,089,131 Blacks – 13.2% of
        population
        
        Native Americans: 198
        
        I’ll go slowly for you: white gun murder rate is 2,799/198,000,000/100,000 = 1.4/100K.
        Black murder rate is 6,364/42,089,000/100,000 is 15.15/100K. You can look it up on the CDC website.
        
        Leon Wolfeson
        
        You keep seeing everything in skin-colour terms, right.
        
        Never mind what I actually said.
        
        mohdanga
        
        I said the black murder rate is 10x that of the white murder rate, you said it wasn’t, I provided facts from an objective government agency and then you refuse to accept these facts. Can’t help that you are an idiot.
        
        Leon Wolfeson
        
        You ignore what I actually said, check.
        
        “UR IDIOT”, you spout, ignoring what I posted in your frenzy to make everything about skin colour.
      - Leon Wolfeson
        
        Ah, before there was anyone not like you, so you didn’t panic.
rationality

Bit by bit our culture is taken over not through guns, bombs or tanks but by exploiting white guilt and the associating fear of being called a word utilised by Trotsky no less, for this very purpose.

Demoralisation and ideological subversion.
- Mongo
  
  Cultural Marxism is the greatest threat to Western civilisation
  
  centuries of progress and struggle torn down in only a few decades
  - rationality
    
    The extent of the betrayal is incalcuable. That progress will disappear all because we were too nice.
    - Leon Wolfeson
      
      No, that’d be because you want to tear it down in a coup.
  - Leon Wolfeson
    
    So the conspiracy in your mind…
- TrulyDisqusted
  
  I don’t have any white guilt.
  
  I just take comfort from being a member of the master race. There’s a reason millions of white folks aren’t burning their western passports and breaking into Arab and African nations….
  
  And I don’t believe that it’s because we’d feel guilty about it.
  - rationality
    
    But will we be the master race when the SHTF? By now they know our resentment and this will only grow but still they exploit us as they have installed non master race people who have been manipulated to hate us through the media who will cry the dreaded word whenever things dont go their own way. Basically the elites Praetorian guard re-inforced with the ‘brave refugees’. It doesnt look good for us master race types.
    - Leon Wolfeson
      
      You can take tips from the last guy who tried your plan on a mass scale.
      
      Ended up losing the war and killing himself, but details!
  - Icebow
    
    Yes. We must embrace white privilege. (No sarcasm.)
    - Leon Wolfeson
      
      Yes, oppress everyone not just like you!
      - Icebow
        
        I have no wish to oppress anyone, but if I can be non-oppressive only by oppressing myself, should I be blamed for not acting so?
        
        Leon Wolfeson
        
        “I have no wish to oppress anyone”
        
        Well that’s a change!
- Leon Wolfeson
  
  Ah, the evils of allowing black actors.
  
  “Demoralisation and ideological subversion.”
  
  Thanks for talking about your goals, Orwellian.
  - rationality
    
    You do make me laugh.
    
    But Mr ‘Wolfeson’ youre a bit of a one trick pony with your trolling. Someone makes an argument on what the left (genocide, communist/fascist control) has in store for us and you respond with something similar from the right which is exactly the sort of thing posters are arguing against. So you feed off people trying to debate with you as you change the goalposts.
    
    I will be informing other posters of this.
    - Leon Wolfeson
      
      You’re an idiot, as you try and blame the left for everything. Conspiracy theories, woo!
      You’ll spam hate because hate spam is what hate spammers do.
      - rationality
        
        The left rules us all. Youre too stupid to see that.
        
        Looks like I touched a nerve there. Good. No doubt Ill see you trolling around soon.
        
        Leon Wolfeson
        
        More conspiracy nonsense, I see.
        
        As you claim to have assaulted me. And you’ll hate spam me? Right.
King Kibbutz

Not confusing, but predictable.
- Mongo
  
  I’m more disturbed that they made her 46!
trace9

– Apart from being hideously ugly..
jim

The White Christian West decided long ago not to be any of those things anymore. ….Everyone else still has their culturally defined space but we now have no choice but to share ours. I despise this fact but I don’t see what can be done about it..That ship has sailed. Certainly no one sounds more wretched than a white western christian who cheerleads our being elbowed off our own turf and out of our own space.
- xDemosthenesx
  
  While I don’t agree with this nonsense, I can’t really see what the ‘Christian’ element of a Harry Potter production might be.
  - jim
    
    If we were discussing a freakish anomalous casting choice,your comment would be understandable…but of course we’re not.We’re talking about a persistent undermining and subverting…A gay Bond , black Harry Potter ,it’s all part of the culture war against the white christian west.
  - Woman In White
    
    I can’t really see what the ‘Christian’ element of a Harry Potter production might be
    
    Half-Blood Prince ends with the Rite of Christian funeral, given by a priest.
    
    JKR quite rightly de-emphasises this in the narrative, as it’s marginal to the story ; but it’s hardly the only direct or indirect reference to Christian teachings in the series.
- Mongo
  
  there’s little that can be done about it, certainly not through the ballot box. We just have to live with it.
  
  or if you have the means and money there are still parts of the UK mostly unaffected which we can move to, perhaps in retirement.
  
  otherwise we can use the power of our wallets – boycott. Not that I would ever pay to see a Harry Potter play regardless of who was in it.
- chump23
  
  I bet you haven;t been to church in 20 years.
  - jim
    
    I know it’s hard for people like you to accept but western civilization even today is at least partly the product of christianity and that remains true whether or not either of us go to church.
    - chump23
      
      Tosh. If you’re Christian good luck to you. But you’re not. You just don’t like anyone who doesn’t look or speak like you and are perfectly prepared to exploit anything that comes to hand. You know it, I know and anyone who hears you sounding off in the saloon bar knows it. You probably wear a hat while driving.
      - jim
        
        This is too easy.You are a standard issues self loathing liberal .Plenty of “daddy issues” which are worked out by the grim satisfaction you take from watching your own tribe being vanquished.Even the dumbest creatures in the forest have a survival instinct but not you ..the mass produced state subsidised product of our modern universities media…..and you all think you’re so courageous. It takes no guts to parrot PC bromides.You’re a gimp..I make no apologies for favouring my own kind. What is perverted is conspiring against your own interests. That is just sick..What did your poor old Dad do to you?.Sick puppy.
        
        mohdanga
        
        I was going to reply the chump, but your reply takes the cake! Well done!
Mr. Bernard Wijeyasingha

Blacks have made great progress in both Hollywood and the British movie industry. Personally I would not watch a movie where a black woman plays the role of Hermione Granger. What is really odd about the British Movie industry is that there are plenty of black and white actors but hardly any Actors from the Indian subcontinent.

Why is that odd? because the subcontinent was the center of the British Empire and both the Subcontinent culture and that of Great Britain have far more in common than with Africa. I believe British producers and directors include black actors and hardly if any Indian actors is due to the massive black population of America.
chump23

Grabs popcorn, sits back.
terence patrick hewett

Teea Henry? Miluk?
- ohforheavensake
  
  Are you ill?
  - terence patrick hewett
    
    Hermione Gingold in Mrs Doom’s Diary.
jeremy Morfey

After the eight films defined the role, so that not even Emma Watson could cut off her wavy hair for as long as she played Hermione, then it is wrong to miscast the role just to be politically correct.

However, the theatre is all about suspending reality, and so too is Harry Potter. All that is required is for some spell to befall Hermione and all is explained and all is well with the new casting.
- Woman In White
  
  After the eight films defined the role
  
  erm, seven books and eight films, actually
GraveDave

The likes of Kate Maltby looking for a cheap bit of PC virtue signalling. Hilarious.Remember Daniel Craig and the anti ‘James Blond’ petitions. So where are the purists now?
xDemosthenesx

“remember the old ‘suspension of disbelief’” – quite, and that is where your ludicrous ‘right on’ hand waving of the issue falls apart.

We are supposed to pretend that it doesn’t matter, when it does matter and by ignoring the fact that it does matter makes it matter more.

It’s cringeworthy and frankly I feel for the actress. The problem is that roles for black women are not being written, or if they are being written they are not being bought – shoehorning them into these roles is just sad.
- GraveDave
  
  So why cant they write their own? Is the child Laureate (Malorie Blackman) not a black woman?
- chump23
  
  it doesn’t matter. One person played the role, now another is playing the role. Herminone isnt black or white, shes a made up character.
GenJackRipper

So when is the next “Shaft”-movie coming out with Ryan Gosling as the star?

Or “Roots” starring Michael Fassbender?
- chump23
  
  Where is the equivalence? How is Hermione white – other than one pretending person pretended to be her in some films and happened to be white at the same time?
  - Alex
    
    It’s excellent troll bait for the Speccie readership, but it’s clear that
    Hermione Granger can only be white. Every aspect of her character reflects
    the over-educated middle-class girl with professional parents. Of
    course black people can be all of those things in a descriptive sense,
    but they can never, I think, claim to come from the same cultural
    background as the Hermione Grangers of this world. Surely to claim
    otherwise is cultural appropriation. A majority culture, and an insipid
    one at that (although note how I feel I have to talk it down!) – but nonetheless a culture. At a stretch I might say maybe an Indian girl could carry it off if you really wanted to make a point.
    
    Secondly, of course,
    she is a Rowling self-insert. Quite apart from Rowling being white, I’d
    be very surprised if she had even come into contact with any black
    people during her time at school in the Forest of Dean.
    - chump23
      
      If I wanted to have a go at the books, I’d start with fat=evil, lower middle class=evil and posh=evil. She wrote the books in Edinburgh where the only black guy (afair) ran the reggae disco and was fitted up for rape by the cops. plenty of S Asians, no blacks. And I very much doubt there are many black faces round her Barnston dinner table with Gordon Brown.
      But it still doesnt have to be a ‘white part’ and anyone arguing it does is weirder that a bat flying backwards.
      Seriously, you do realise most of these people neither know nor care except to make rude remarks about someone because of their skin colour? If they were doing on the grauniad site, I might try (but fail) to raise a smile. Done here, it ain’t trolling, it’s saddening. Don’t you hate it when people you agree with about policy turn out to be sick making?
  - xDemosthenesx
    
    It literally says so in the book:
    
    “‘One moment, please, Macnair,’ came Dumbledore’s voice. ‘You need to sign, too.’ The footsteps stopped. Harry heaved on the rope. Buckbeak snapped his beak and walked a little faster.
    
    Hermoine’s white face was sticking out from behind a tree.
    ‘Harry, hurry!’ she mouthed.”
    
    Page 426 of the Prisoner of Azkaban
- xDemosthenesx
  
  Ah, but that would be ‘cultural appropriation’ then, you see.