Hermione is black and J.K. Rowling couldn’t be happier
In a new London theatre production of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger is going to be played by a black woman, and J.K. Rowling couldn’t be any happier.
The Guardian reported on Sunday that South-African-British actress Noma Dumexweni will be taking on the beloved role, which picks up where the seventh book left off, telling the story of the lives of the beloved trio 19 years later.
While it reimagines the young wizards we read and watched as children now well into their adulthood, some are more concerned that the precocious heroine of the trio is going to be “race bent.”
J.K. Rowling, however, took to twitter this morning to remind people that the character’s race isn’t so much bending because she never was bound to being white in the first place.
Canon: brown eyes, frizzy hair and very clever. White skin was never specified. Rowling loves black Hermione 😘 https://t.co/5fKX4InjTH
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 21, 2015
She went on to pin the tweet to her timeline and retweeted fan art that featured a black Hermione for extra clarification.
Some of my favourite Hermione fanarts next to our new Hermione! pic.twitter.com/80bIkcLBMJ
— alice (@alwaysdragxns) December 20, 2015
Hopefully one day we’ll have an expelliarmus spell for racism. But until then, we’ll have to settle for the author’s assurance that there is no more reason to doubt the appropriateness of Dumexweni’s casting than there is the presence of horcruxes in the wizarding world.
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