The “mystic Native trope”? You do realize that this is Harry Potter right where EVERY local magical tradition is fair play. That’s the whole point.

Sincere question: How is naming something after Native American lore, and acknowledging it as such, a bad thing? Isn’t appropriation only harmful if the appropriators take credit for or misunderstand the appropriated material?

Actually there’s a difference between appropriation and referencing. In this specific case it’s referencing, or paying ode to and not appropriating, or stealing/using to make a profit/claiming rights to.

Nor was using leprechauns to celebrate the arrival of the Irish Quidditch Team in The Goblet of Fire?

So speaks the proud native scholar, upon whom the Great Spirit bestowed the name “Chad Patterson of Elm Street.” He knows what he’s talking about, as he is 1/38th Cherokee on his dad’s side, and he has engaged in proud native traditions, like the time he watched almost half of Dances With Wolves before falling asleep,…

Comparing blackface, a theatrical phenomenon that was intentionally used across the world to lampoon and vilify the appearance of Africans, to a caricatured image of a Native American for a team that has the noun ‘Indian’ in the title. Right.

we support teams like the Cleveland Indians with a super-duper racist insignia

But how do they actually know ANY of that if the work itself hasn’t come out? Not a bit of the actual content of the movie has been released, especially not specifically how Native American characters are depicted. The people blindly criticizing are just as bad as the Christians who refuse to read the books because…

Oh, I wonder who benefits the most from these articles? The Native Americans mentioned in them, the wolrd as a whole, or simply the journalists and people who run nativeappropriations.com?

These “scholars” (along with io9) can’t write fiction on the level that Rowling and other authors can, so they try and get their…

Thank you for standing up for the rest of us little people, Tall White Savior. You calling out JK. Rowling on Gawker because she uses Indian tribe mythologies in her writing is what’s ending racism. Bless you, sir.

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. It seems we’re both on the same side, give or take. But that’s normal - hardly anyone agrees 100% with someone else, let alone an entire “movement”.

Of course I am pro equality for everyone and pro respect of people’s traditions and so on and so forth, but in my opinion, the…

If you’re going to tell us that fantasies have to be accurate to real life, maybe don’t. Otherwise, Rowling should take out all centaurs, elves, dwarves, goblins, wizards, witches, giant spiders, half-giants... and if course it can’t be a historical fiction either, as this are never accurate either.

Shouldn’t we let the people who are being “insulted/appropriated” determine if they are being insulted/appropriated? I mean us White people speaking for others and making assumptions, like we know best, hasn’t been one of our high points throughout history.

“Native American here. These names are ok.”

Black person here. Isn’t it annoying when white people tell minorities how offended they should be? I get this all the time, and it is so condescending.

The names are fine, your comment makes no sense.

By the internal logic of Rowling’s oeuvre, the magical beasts named are the ones local to the school. It makes perfect sense that North American magical beasts were named by the Native American people, and the school names the groups after them. By your logic, the school, since it is not a Native American institution,…

Or you know a work of fiction, where an artist can change anything about the real world as they see fit so to better fit the story they are trying to tell. So there is no issue and never has been other then people projections their own insecurities onto the topic.

So in direct answer to my question: you know of 1 (kinda 2 if you read into it) Native Americans who are actually upset by this. But she speaks for all Native Americans though because she is offended?

This is one of those times when the easy route of naming them Eagle, Bear, Puma and Wildcat would have been perfectly appropriate. If there’s one thing we Americans like more than naming things after dead Native Americans, it’s having cool wildlife mascots.