Yes. It is self-defense.

For shit’s sake, Sarah, you can’t erase Kristy Swanson like that. I was introduced to Buffy 23.8 years ago, and gladly.

Mine too. Every Christmas. And maybe once a month after that,

Thank you for putting it like this!

The fact that it was written for one actress, and then the people behind the movie found that another actress of a different ethnicity was a better “fit” for the role, doesn’t exactly disprove the idea of stereotyping.

Before people jump all over me—I’m not saying it proves it, either. This may have been a perfectly…

hot take:

she was obviously attempting to incorporate the culture, not appropriate it. Jeeze

The people who were tried and executed as witches in North America weren’t actually witches, though. They were persecuted by an unjust religiously intolerant system in a climate of fear. The conflation of those events with JKR’s fantasy wizards is distasteful, to say the least. It implies that the authorities were…

Like this?
Hey, can I take a sacred story of your people and use it in my book, except I’m going to say that the story was a totally fake rumor told by some of your people to trick other of your people. ‘Kay?

And it’s easier to reference and contextualize the culture you grew up in. You start learning some version of that shit as a child, and build on it as you mature. I’m an academic (blech) and my area of focus is outside of the culture that I grew up in. I am constantly reading because I’m so, so aware that I don’t have…

You don’t see the irony of writing a story about the colonization of the Americas where white people are the persecuted ones? And where there’s absolutely no mention made of how any of these white European wizards reacted to the conquest and genocide of native populations?

Wait...why is education and collaboration the responsibility the Native folks and not JK Rowling? She could have very easily reached out. Also, no one is calling her names and pointing fingers at all.

“there may not have been priests per se”

Equally bad was the complete non-recognition of Black Americans, she just goes right by the whole slavery-means-they-didn’t-have-a-choice-in-coming-here thing.

But is this a ‘meaningful way’? The difference is that non-Natives treat Native culture as ‘lore,’ but that’s not what it is to Natives. I was told when I was young to never discuss skinwalkers with non-Natives and never at certain times. This (and other elements of Native cultures) is not wizardry or magic, so…

Uh, this is pretty much the equivalent of saying that native representation in movies either doesn’t exist or can only be Johnny Depp playing Tonto.

Literally all she had to do was contact Native Americans and ask them. Heck, even collaborate with an NA fantasy writer!

Well, no way was that expected. A British person coming over and using something from First Nations peoples for their own purpose and potential profit? Inconceivable!

The Mormons literally did the exact same thing....Ms. Rowling, thankfully, admits her work is fiction.

I like Harry Potter but I’m not sure how I feel about her including American Indians into it. Too often the characters are based on stereotypes and not on more culturally accurate information. I have to see how she handled it to decide how I feel about it.