Harry Potter

I knew Edgar Allan Poe was pro-slavery before I read anything he ever wrote.

Arthur Conan Doyle fully supported the British empire.

Pretty much any comedy from the 20th century is going to have at least one homophobic joke.

Learn to pick the battles that matter. Rowling is going to be a billionaire if you read her books or not.

Okay, so here's my take:

It is very reasonable for people to stop buying things from the Harry Potter universe because of JKR's shitty views, which she is vocal about. She sucks. If you can't even read or watch her stuff without thinking about how shitty of a person she is, then by all means, stop reading or watching stuff. I wholeheartedly agree with your position, not that you need my personal approval for it.

THAT BEING SAID, shitting on other people for consuming it in any way is some guaranteed glass house stone throwing. Nestle uses slave labor (including child slaves), takes water from drought areas and sells it elsewhere, and generally commits evil across the whole world in ways that ruin or end lives. The chocolate market is so inundated with slave labor and unethical practices that even companies like Tony's Chocolonely who are specifically about ethically sourced chocolate can't 100% guarantee child slave labor isn't used. The meat and dairy industry torture animals their entire lives for the sake of efficiency. The atrocities committed around the world for the sake of the things we consume in the First World is unconscionable and there's little we can do short of living a completely self-sustaining life.

Now, I know what the immediate response is, that this is "whataboutism" or deflecting, but let me be clear. Child slaves, animal torture, environmental catastrophes are orders of magnitudes worse than a billionaire who talks shit about an already marginalized group. What she is doing sucks, and if you have a particular distaste for that, and that's the particular hill you want to die on, then by all means. But unless you are a vegan who grows their own food and buys exclusively locally produced goods, put the stone down and go back to your Potter-free glass house.

Y'all are new to this. Us old farts have been navigating the racism of Lovecraft and the sheer bloody minded stupidity of Orson Scott Card for ages now :)

Sometimes you have to separate the art from the artist.

To be honest, I don't really engage in this community because of the discomfort Harry Potter generally brings me now. I was honestly a bit relieved when it died as I knew when it was created it would eventually spell trouble. I want to preface this as I say all of this as a queer Jewish man.

I was a big fan of Harry Potter as a kid. It was the one of the big book series' I enjoyed and it connected me with my mother. I had difficulty picking up reading and Harry Potter was a pathway to solidifying my literacy. I understand why people enjoy it, and in many ways the memories I have of it with connecting to my mother is something I will never forget. But at the same time... there's a big difference between consuming public domain work made by awful people who no longer receive profit whilst consuming work by a woman who is actively engaging in political campaigns to make trans peoples lives worse with the profit she still receives.

I am not trans and I cannot speak from that perspective, but what I can speak on is that I don't really talk about Harry Potter amongst my friends who are as a sign of general respect. It's hard to really emphasize just how much pain JK Rowling has brought people. It's horrendous. There is obvious nuance here and I get that and whenever people talk about Harry Potter I try my hardest not to to pass judgement in spite of the fact I cannot help but think of all the awful shit that's happened. It is extremely difficult for people to break from the cultural hold that Harry Potter has held. It is one of the most iconic media franchises of the early 2000s for a reason.

When it comes to the antisemitism aspect of it, it brings me frustration as it is often an after thought in the discussion of her stuff. TERF shit and antisemitism tends to be best of friends for some reason. Most likely since TERFs are often embraced by fascists who are already antisemitic and they pick their talking points up, but I digress. Antisemitism is a big thing across most media in general and that did leak heavily into Harry Potter at first, but her antisemitism in her work is more jarring knowing that she is now openly associated with public antisemites as well.

I don't know. The whole thing just upsets me honestly. Seeing the conflict it creates is painful.

Dr. Suess was cheating on his wife while she was suffering from a disease and she ended up committing suicide from it. HP Lovecraft was a flaming racist, yet I would guess that most fans of his work are themselves not flaming racists. It's ok to enjoy the creative work of otherwise not-great people, by reading their work you're not saying you agree with their personal beliefs (though people may question you if you're seen reading Mein Kampf out in public, which it's not a creative work, so maybe it's different for political works).