Her response to critiques of this performance impressed me more than the actual performance. She sounds intelligent and talented enough to write her own children's books, should she decide to set the record straight with the youngin's as well.

Really? I understand racial insensitivity, but is this a fair expectation of diversity in a fictional place that takes place in Scotland? Sure, the name is completely off, but it feels like the rest of this anger is misplaced on an author who is not trying to tell a story on themes of racial diversity.
To top it off, crowds react strongly and positively to enthusiastic and impassioned anger, further building the bravado of this poetic "slam" piece.
If Rowling is trying to tell and cast a story reflective of the local demographics, it doesn't appear inaccurate.
Scotland isn't the same type of "melting pot" America has come to be. Again, perhaps the expectation has been created that all cultures must have the demographic diversity that America has established. Remember, the character she is referring to is actually Scottish.

Scottish population by ethnic group (Scotland 2011 Census)

Percentage of total
White Scottish - 84.0%
White Other British - 7.9%
White Irish - 1.0%
White Gypsy/Traveller - 0.1%
White Polish - 1.2%
Other White ethnic group - 1.9%
White Total - 96.0%

Pakistani - 0.9%
Indian - 0.6%
Bangladeshi - 0.1%
Chinese - 0.6%
Other - 0.4%
Asian Total - 2.7%

Caribbean - 0.1%
Black - 0.0%
Caribbean or Black Other - 0.0%
Caribbean or Black - 0.1%
African - 0.6%
African Other - 0.0%
African Total - 0.6%

Mixed or multiple ethnic groups - 0.4%
Arab - 0.2%
Other - 0.1%
Other ethnic group Total - 0.3%

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I'm asking this out of curiosity, not to be snide -- I really don't follow the HP stories closely at all -- don't children come from all over the world to attend this wizard school and thus the demographics of its students should have very little to do with the demographics of Scotland? I remember them taking a fairly long journey to get there in the first movie...

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Race does not signify; shut up about it.

The rest, if not nearly all of them are coming from England.

They had some guest schools visit in the Goblet of fire. One from France and one from Hungary (I believe).
But mostly they are English and Scottish children.

Agree with Bryce. She got the name wrong, but the book is about a school in Scotland. Get over it.

This is about as big of a deal as Rowling thinking she made up the words "Hagrid" or "Dumbledore" she just needed to do a bit more research.

You're right - it's a British institution if we're to take the books as they come. But let's look at it from a J K Rowling point of view - from a brief scan of wikipedia, she went to an average british school with presumably average british children probably around 30 years ago - vastly different from the stats quoted above in 2011. There weren't many africans, pakistanis, etc. nor were there many gay, bi, transgendered people when i went to school about 20 years ago (1 black girl and everyone was "straight"). What she wrote came from imagination based on her own experiences and why on earth would people chastise her for the sheer happen-stance of her life experiences? She didn't write a book to exclude people, she wrote a book that just happened to not include every type of person in a fantasy world where there existed entirely different sorts of people. Are we to expect another video from professional-offence-takers about how JRR Tolkein - another FANTASY writer - didn't represent the diversity of humanity in any of his books?

And that's selling her short; there are elements of the books that make allusions to homophobia, racism, etc. - "Mudblood," is a xenophobic term used by characters in the book and it's not accepted by any of the extended main characters, and people really should think long and hard before placing their own expectations and values on other people and judging them for it.

Whether you like the books or not, they are popular and i think their popularity stems from the belief she has in her characters and story. Sure, she could have replaced Ron with an albino lesbian transgendered midget who would have lived happily ever after with Hermione, but would the books have been as good with a character that didn't come from Rowling's heart, someone that Rowling felt like she understood? What if she wrote a gay part for someone and got it wrong, is she then liable to take an ear bashing from the gay community for misrepresenting gay people? Where do you draw the line? Do we - at the expense of the story - put one gay person in and then suddenly we're taking abuse for including a "token" gay person?

It should not be the responsibility of anyone to compromise their art to appease someone else's sense of right or wrong, especially when it seems that their right or wrong is balanced on "is there someone like me in there?" In my opinion, if you come away from a story like Harry Potter with the burning question "Where were all the gay/whatever people?" then it's probably you that has the problem with diversity.

I say this - homophobia and racism are dead when no one even considers the issue any more. Now you can't do that in the workplace and stuff, because there are genuinely racist people out there who we try and keep in check. But this is the absolute worst place to direct your anger - no one was hired or fired based on their creed, no one did anything wrong here, all this woman has done is draw attention to what i consider to be her own contradiction. We want to encourage the idea that "Everyone is equal; there is no black or white, straight or gay, everyone is simply the same - we're just people!" And quickly follow that up with "Hey, where are all the GAY people in this fictional story?"

And finally, how the fuck does she know that every character in the book was straight? Isn't it a bit strange (i want to say homophobic) for her to expect gay people to act differently to the degree that she can spot them in a crowd? 95% of the people in Huffelpuff could be single and gay for all anyone knows. The main 3 characters are straight, all of their parents had to be straight for them to be their parents, but all the rest of them we never need to know about their sexuality, so why should they stand out, why should we even discuss it in a kids book anyway? There's only about 4 relationships in 7 books and some of them happen to the same characters.

These are just some of the problems i have with this nonsense and i've written an entire page.

Did anyone else have a problem understanding her through the echo?
And WTF woman?!? You have no 'right' to be adequately racially represented in someone else's story, especially a fantasy story. If you feel you need that, write your own.
Or should someone make a ranting slam poetry video about how pissed off they are that the actual story of 47 ronin doesn't have any white people in it? I mean, just because there were almost none in japan at the time is no excuse, right? (instead, I'm pissed off that they inserted one in the new movie, we didn't need Neo in Edo)

All slam poetry should be prefaced with http://videosift.com/video/Anything-can-be-a-slam-poem-if-you-say-it-like-this

Wow, and I thought it was weird that Orson Scott Card had such an obviously gay main character in Ender's Game.

GOD, that was annoying...

Dumbledore's homosexuality never comes up in the books because DUMBLEDORE'S HOMOSEXUALITY DIDN'T COME UP IN THE BOOKS.

I didn't read the books but I do remember in the last movie that something needed to be blown up really bad, and to whom did everybody immediately look? The IRISH kid!

It was pretty funny, but still kinda racist.

The neanderthals decry their complete omission.
The scythians were peeved to only be in crowd shots.
Still no one appreciates the pale Visigoths, who appear a bit washed out on the big screen.
Most of china is assured that jk rowling thinks mongolian means retarded.

Haven't read the books, only seen a couple of the movies and I doubt I've even seen them in order. Have no idea who Cho Chang might be, etc.

But it's pretty rare to find an author/writer who can portray a character in a non-stereotypical believable manner when it's a nationality, culture, gender, etc different than theirs.

You'll notice a lot of American characters are based on the "cowboy" attitude when it's set elsewhere in the world. Doctor Who has a bit of this at times.

And male writers who do female characters in books, I often find they spend a lot of time thinking about the lead male character, love, hate, etc. If the lead is a "bad guy" the female is usually very subservient, and if the lead is a "nice guy" the female is "an equal" which they go to great lengths to make clear.

Female writers who do male character perspectives spend a lot of time either belittling the lead female character, being a potential love interest, or are "nice guys" who the female lead has no interest in but they obviously keep trying.

They main character tends to be a similar nationality and race as the author...or values similar to what would be standard for their upbringing. And they often pick hair colors they have.......and similar backgrounds to theirs if it's a more modern book. Lawyer, doctor, martial arts, military, areas they grew up in and or live in, etc.

I mean at this point, I find it funny that as soon as XYZ nationality or "age group" person dies in The Walking Dead they find a replacement usually before 2-3 episodes pass. Killed off annoying old dude who had two "daughter like figures", find a new annoying old dude who has two daughters...situation.

So.... given Rowling's popularity....she's probably doing a bit more than the common author/writers are to keep people interested...because the stuff I wrote above is like 75% of the authors. I'm sure a lot of Chinese writers aren't producing a lot of white guy main character books.....probably should make that black guy instead because they can get offended.

All the Amish people I know who watched the movies are pretty pissed they were entirely excluded.

They'd come on here and tell you that themselves, but... they're Amish.

I have read the books and I can honestly say that her complaints are complete rubbish. If she is pissed about this, then she better stop reading or else she's in for some huge disappointment when everything she reads doesn't have a useful Asian person in it. I'm German, but I don't get pissed off when my people are represented as mass murdering, goose stepping, lab coat wearing, mad scientist types that are only out so as to sew someone's ass to another person's mouth. Could be worse though... l could be Russian. Bunch of vodka swilling, fun house of death loving, lesbian beating Cossacks over there.

The only thing I find upsetting in regards to Cho Chang that Harry replaced her with a redhead. Come on Harry, movie Cho was soo much hotter than movie Ginny.

I think some of the comments are missing Rostad's point, which is that Cho Chang symbolizes the systemic invisibility of Asian characters--especially females--in popular culture. If the only popular images of certain bodies--like Asian women, in her example--are stereotypes, then many will never understand other people as being anything other than what someone like J.K. Rowling depicts in her fiction.

And here you have it: "'Why exactly are all the main characters in ‘Frozen’ white?' my husband asked a white friend recently. She responded thoughtfully: 'Well, the movie is set in a Nordic, cold place — you know, it makes sense, right?' Annoyed, my husband countered, 'The movie has a talking snowman.' It’s funny, and sad, where we draw the lines for what’s acceptable in fantasy movies. Somehow a talking snowman makes more sense than, say, a black Norwegian."
"Fortunately, as children so often do, my son rose to the occasion. He bought his parents’ awkward explanation of how 'Harry Potter is a made-up character, and he could be any color.' Yes, for a moment, he quietly resisted; he knew that Harry wasn’t just any color in the movie. But then his enormous childhood imagination took over, and he decided he could be Harry for Halloween after all. I’m not sure I want to know whether my son imagined away Harry Potter’s whiteness or his own blackness."

Link to full article here.

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