As someone who has been a Harry Potter nerd since I was eight years old, my moral compass tends to come with a wizarding vocabulary. Harry Potter is a series that, through the genius that is J.K. Rowling, infuses magic with reality; it allows us to escape our world as we know it while simultaneously reflecting it back at us. It has influenced me from a young age, and so sometimes I cannot help but make connections from what I’m seeing around me to the books; in fact, sometimes I don’t know how else to talk about current events.
One thing has become more and more clear to me as our political discourse continues: Please, for the love of Dumbledore – don’t be Professor Slughorn.
For those of you who aren’t very familiar with Harry Potter (in which case, pick up one of the books right now), Horace Slughorn is a portly man who rejoins the Hogwarts teaching staff in Harry’s sixth year. He is a Potions Master who loves nothing more than crystalized pineapple and taking credit for his students’ subsequent successes. He is all in all a relatively nice fellow – much nicer than many of the Slytherins Harry has previously encountered – but he possesses some unattractive qualities nonetheless.
One thing you ought to know: the wizarding community – however wonderful and quirky – is steeped in prejudice of its own kind. Some wizards subscribe to the theory that the more “pure” one’s blood is (that is, the less one is related to Muggles/non-wizards), the more powerful and worthy one is. These wizards (the most extreme of whom are known as Death Eaters) hate Muggles and Muggle-borns with a vengeance, and their leader is the most powerful dark wizard in recent history: Lord Voldemort.
Professor Slughorn, however, is only casually prejudiced. When told that the best student in the sixth-year class is a Muggle-born (Hermione Granger, of course), he is surprised and says, “Funny how that happens sometimes, isn’t it?” When Harry isn’t amused, Slughorn is quick to defend himself, saying that Harry’s mother, a Muggle-born, was one of his favorite students.
This response is the wizarding equivalent of someone saying, “I’m not racist! One of my best friends is black.” It’s a prejudiced statement followed by a defense that uses a marginalized friend as a shield or excuse. Now, Professor Slughorn may not mean any harm, and he certainly would never dream of becoming a Death Eater, but his assumptions are hurtful in their own right.
Another quality I suggest you try not to emulate: Professor Slughorn is one of those people for whom saving his own neck is always the priority. Rather than fighting injustice, he runs away from it. “The prudent wizard keeps his head down,” he says. “While I’m sure [members of the resistance] are very admirable and brave and all the rest of it, I don’t personally fancy the mortality rate.” He employs self-pity, which Harry finds hard to sympathize with considering he knows entire families who put their lives on the line to join the resistance, and that one of his best friends has the courage to fight against the Death Eaters despite her dangerous status as a Muggle-born.
Desmond Tutu once said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Even more damning, Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote: “The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great conflict…an [individual] who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” One simply cannot remain silent or neutral on issues of these kinds without contributing to the problem. If you identify with Slughorn’s attitude, you may want to think about this.
Another unattractive quality? Slughorn has difficulty owning up to his mistakes. This may seem annoying but rather harmless; on the contrary, it becomes one of the most difficult obstacles Harry and Dumbledore face in trying to discover the truth about Voldemort. Dumbledore collects peoples’ memories of Voldemort back when he was known as the dashing Tom Riddle in an attempt to discover how to thwart him. Professor Slughorn has a crucial memory, but refuses to give it up because he is ashamed of the part he accidently played in making Voldemort the closest to immortal anybody has ever become. It isn’t until Harry uses a combination liquid luck potion and clever thinking that he is able to swindle the memory out of Slughorn and finally discover the truth about Voldemort’s supposed “immortality”.
If you hope to be an ally (to any movement or person), it is crucial to learn to own up to mistakes. Not doing so may not seem like a big deal, but oftentimes the most important lessons come from our ugliest moments. To pretend they never happened is to deny oneself and others the opportunity to learn something incredibly important. And that ain’t cute.
I’m not just writing this article because it’s fun for me to talk about Harry Potter (although I’ll admit that added to the allure). I’m writing this because I see versions of this all the time. On a daily basis you are not likely to run into Voldemort; you are much more likely to run into a Professor Slughorn. I see him in friends online who post about how #BlueLivesMatter. I see him in the man who says he’s not trying to victim-blame, and yet continually focuses on how alcohol is linked to rape, rather than how rape culture is. I see him in my friends who view their neutrality as heroic, as if “taking sides” is something reserved for people who are intellectually inferior. Most of all, I see him in privileged people who do nothing; who perhaps silently agree with acts of resistance but are too afraid or emotionally removed to do anything constructive themselves.
One of the strongest points in the Harry Potter series, in my mind, is the fact that being a Gryffindor is largely a choice. Gryffindors, at least how I see it, are not sorted into their house because they lack loyalty, ambition, or intelligence (capstones of the other houses), but rather because they choose to also employ bravery. Harry is a prime example of this: The Sorting Hat informs him that he possesses qualities that suggest he could succeed in Slytherin, the house of ambition. Harry, however, refuses this lure, and chooses to value courage first. Thus, a Gryffindor is born.
We all have this option every day. What will we value? How will we choose to live our lives? Will we sit by the sidelines, safe in our personal bubbles? Or will we choose to lean into discomfort and fear, knowing that the world will be better for it?
The Quaffle is in your court. Only you can make the next move.
