Muggle prejudice

[jack]

Most people will have read Harry Potter and know there's a big deal about anti-muggle prejudice. Most of the nasty characters despise muggles and muggle-descended wizards, and claim to think them inferior, which the nice characters make a point of refuting. But there's another side to it. Hagrid says harry "grew up in a family of the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on", and in a couple of other places, there's the implication that everyone tends to agree with this.

Muggle means both 'non-magic' and 'exemplifying common and stereotypical negative traits of non-magics: boring, unimaginitive and small-minded'. Only the nasty characters pretend to think that *all* muggles are hopeless, and even they don't keep it up, but people seem to accept that it's somewhat typical, even if there's plenty of counter-examples.

But didn't people use 'nigger' like that? Don't we use 'chav' like that? I hope I'm being oversensitive, but the parallels are large.

Comments

[edith-the-hutt.livejournal.com]

"They're only mundanes..."

[satanicsocks.livejournal.com]

It seems to me to just be like general prejudice and -isms. Racial, class, even gender. In a world where there is an overriding majority (magic users, white people, Christians) then words come into existence for those not of the majority, and they're often used in overly negative ways.

[nakedtoes.livejournal.com]

Are you concerned by the idea of us being like JKR characters, or vice versa? *is slightly confused*

[mr-ricarno.livejournal.com]

'Chav', like 'pikey', is used as a general outgroup identifier. Though 'chav' does seem to be more about fashion sometimes.

Most communities need to express contempt for certain outsiders, I know not why.