Mad About Inclusion

I’ve spoken a great deal in the last year or so about the woke-scolds who do all they can to be offended and suck the joy out of everything by finding tiny flaws, blowing them up beyond their intended significance, and yelling at people who don’t agree with them.  I do not try to please the woke-scolds, because it’s an impossibility.  How do I know this?  Because of Harry Potter.

I’m a HUGE Harry Potter fan(the books…the movies were okay but not as magical).  I didn’t read my first Harry Potter book until I was 29, having blown them off as children’s books.  But a guy I worked with pestered me to give them a try, and I started out with Harry Potter andthe Prisoner of Azkaban(the third one).  Suddenly I was hooked!  I went back and read the first two, and then #4, before waiting breathlessly for each new one to come out(and I read each in less than 24 hours the day I got my copy).  As any real Harry Potter fan will tell you, you seek out new info on Harry’s world.  JK Rowling has happily fed fans with the sustenance they’ve asked for, putting out Fantastic Beasts and Where to FindThem, Beedle The Bard, and a couple of new movies.  She also tried to give more depth to the magical world by adding in schools from around the world(which was what I really wanted to learn about).  We found out about Ilvermorney, Uagadou, Castlebruxo, and Mahoutokoro.

Unfortunately, Rowling’s attempt to be more diverse and inclusive came back to bite her as woke-scolds around the world decided that her inclusions weren’t diverse enough, that she was being prejudiced and bigoted in how and what she included.  Academics from Swarthmore and reporters from Vox came down on her for what they decried were stereotypes and cultural centrism lacking inclusion(such as Africa having only one wizarding school while Europe had three(at least…four if you include the Russian school)).  Seeing the political correctness on display made me want to vomit.

For starters, nice to see that Rowling’s attempt to broaden the base of her world was met by folks so ready to take offense over a fictional world meant mostly for the imaginations of children, but there was the further lack of imagination on the part of the woke-scolds.  Rowling herself had to come out and say that these were not the only schools, but only the most prominent, and that there were smaller schools all over the place.  You know…because folks who want to be enraged can’t possibly envision beyond that which is in print.  Nope, no more imagining these things outside of the written word!

Rowling had to actually spend time trying to show that these weren’t the only places, and that there was a diverse world of magic out there.  She’s more patient than I am – I’d have told the woke-scolds, in no uncertain terms, to go fuck themselves and write their own damn books if it mean that much to them.  It’s not like she wrote about Uagadou selling others into slavery, or Mahoutokoro being run by geishas and men with large teeth.  No, she simply talked briefly about the schools to satiate the thirst for more her fans had shown.  And most appreciated it – I know I did – but some folks won’t appreciate any effort unless it’s exactly what they wanted and how they view diversity.  I wonder what it must be like to be so hate-filled that one seeks out popular works intended mainly for children to rage against.  I hope I’m never that angry.