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As Farah Mendlesohn notes in her essay "Crowning the King: Harry Potter and the Construction of Authority," "attempting to write a critique of a body of work that is clearly unfinished is a challenge to any academic" (159). Despite such difficulties, literary critics, including Mendlesohn, found the interpretive challenge too tempting when it came to analyzing J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Unfinished though it was until 2007, critics could not resist putting forth arguments about Rowling's novels, and the world(s) they depict, arguments that could only be proven definitively once the series had concluded.
One issue in particular has led to vastly different interpretations of the Potter series: the books' stance on issues of race and ethnic otherness. As many readers have noted, the Harry Potter books are deeply invested in teaching their protagonists (and through them, their readers) how to confront, eradicate, and ameliorate racism through its depiction of the racism that underlies Voldemort's campaign against "Mudbloods." This essay will discuss two different intellectual traditions of antiracism education- multicultural antiracism and social justice antiracism - and explore how Rowling draws upon each in order to show both her protagonists and her readers how to approach the challenging task of fighting racism. It will also explore the implications of her decision to privilege a multicultural antiracism pedagogy over a social justice approach.
The critical response to the issue of race and ethnicity in the Harry Potter books has been varied, to say the least. On one end of the spectrum, critics such as Karin E. Westman have suggested that the Harry Potter novels offer a trenchant critique of "materialist ideologies of difference," a critique that Brycchan Carey argues demonstrates "opportunities for political activism available to young people in the real world" (Westman, "specters" 328; Carey 104). Such critics believe that Rowling's texts create an implied reader who is asked to condemn the racism of the wizarding world-not only the distinction between "Mudbloods" and "pure bloods" voiced by its more extreme members, but also its limitations of the rights of sentient others and its foundation on enslavement of house elves. On the other end of the spectrum can be found critics such as Mendelsohn, who argue that "Rowling's world of fantasy is one of hierarchy...