Hinoto-no-Ryuji t1_jaunts9 wrote
Reply to comment by Avhumboldt-pup0902 in Banning Words Won’t Make the World More Just - The Atlantic by vaikrunta
An interesting avenue to explore, for sure.
On the one hand: narratively, Cho serves primarily an avenue to create a complex romantic entanglement for Harry. In Book 4, her being involved with someone objectively pretty great forces Harry to contend with unfair, jealous dislike of a decent guy; in Book 5, the fallout and trauma that his death inflicts on her creates a wrinkle that put an ironic twist on things. None of this narrative purpose leans even a little bit on Cho being Asian, and the narrative never plays up her being so (her physical description is exclusively in realm of "black hair" and "freckles" and - especially - "good looking"). Indeed, Cho could be any other race, save for her name - a trend that extends to all of the few PoC (Patil twins) in the books. This lack of leaning into racial caricature when it comes to other PoC could lead one to giving her the benefit of the doubt: Cho being Asian is incidental to her role in the narrative and therefore any associations with "Pining Oriental Beauty" are unfortunate coincidence born (as so many in the books and especially their expanded universe are) of ignorance of those tropes in the first place. Rowling is many things, but she's rarely (never?) been actively racist, even in terms of narrative stereotype; I don't think it's unbelievable that she just didn't think of the optics.
On the other hand, given the rather distinct lack of PoC in the books at all (IIRC, the only other explicit ones *are the Patil twins*, and I think also a minor Slytherin?), one could argue that Cho being even passively Asian is enough to raise eyebrows. Why is this character, of all of them, explicitly PoC? Maybe balanced out by the totally benign Patils, but food for thought, nonetheless.
Avhumboldt-pup0902 t1_jaup49r wrote
Yea, it's been a very long time since I've last re-read them. The slam poem "an angry letter to JK Rowling from Cho Chang" is my primary source for the critique. Which, maybe in Harry Potter is passable but looking at it from the perspective of western writers writing Asian characters is a bit different.
I also think in the grand scheme of her digging her heels into transphobia and aligning herself with right-wingers to that end, who generally are very racist, it's hard to uncouple.
But I agree, it's certainly good food for thought!
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