Lecturer points to racism in Harry Potter |
Lecturer points to racism in Harry Potter
The Daily Campus
The Independent News Source for the University of Connecticut
2013-02-22
Christopher Kelly, Campus Correspondent
Nature of science fiction discusses race in unseen ways
Eric Hamako from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst came to speak to UConn students and faculty Wednesday about the increasing popularity of racist movies. Racism in this case is referring to stereotypes or what “Psychology Today” calls “empirical generalizations.” These generalizations stem from what may be or may have been true for a number of people, but do not extend to every member of a group.
Following this understanding of stereotypes, Dictionary.com defines racism as, “a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others.”
Hamako, who has a master’s degree in mass communication from Stanford and is half-Japanese and half-Jewish, lectures on the position of multiracial Americans in society. His lecture, “Harry Potter and the Mistaken Myth of the Mixed-Race Messiah,” addresses the polar opposite of the overt racism that was so prevalent in pre-Civil Rights Movement America: mass media subtle projections of stereotypes.
“Sci-fi, fantasy movies talk in code so that you can talk about mixed-ethnics without realizing you’re talking about it” he said…
Read the entire article here.
Tags: Eric Hamako, The Daily Campus, University of Connecticut