Harry Potter

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In today’s episode of Water Is Wet, The Sky Is Blue, And White People Are Exhaustingly Fragile, a Black man has been cast to portray Hogwarts Professor Severus Snape in HBO‘s forthcoming Harry Potter series, and the Caucasian nerd-o-sphere is predictably salty about it.

Recently, it was announced that I May Destroy You actor Paapa Essiedu was cast to portray the classic role of Snape. We already knew how the news would be received by a certain segment of the melanin-deficient population because we already saw it when Ariel of The Little Mermaid, some of the Harfoots of the Lord of the Rings universe, and the Valaryons of the Game of Thrones universe were depicted as Black. Basically, the most catered to and overwhelmingly represented racial group in every pillar of our popular culture — from TV to film to broadcasting to advertising — are throwing their typical temper tantrums over Black actors getting cast in roles Black actors could hardly conceive of before a decade or so ago. 

From Newsweek:

X user @GoatHerder101 posted: “This is the worst race swap in the modern history of race swaps. Of course racism will be a focal point in Snape’s backstory now, since he will bullied mercilessly by James Potter and his friends. HBO has officially divided the fandom before filming has even begun all for the sake of DEI [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion].”

Media personality Jon Root posted to X: “HBO just officially killed their show in the womb…Snape is white in the books, so he should be white in the show. This is just DEI nonsense. Now imagine what’ll look like when white James Potter bullies black Severus Snape…Great way to push a racism, victim agenda.”

X user @MyNerdyHome posted: “And just like that- everyone who picks on Snape is going to be labeled a racist. In 2025 they would never let the silent hero of this series be a white man. What a shame.”

Reddit user u/midtrailertrash posted: “I am truly sorry but I cannot get behind Paapa Essiedu playing Snape. I think I will have to pass on this tv series.”

Reddit user u/TheJoshider10 posted: “You just know they’re going to make Hermione black too. Harry Potter has so many diverse supporting characters that never got a chance to shine and easily could be made more important. We could get the likes of Cho Chang brought into the story sooner as a character with her own agency rather than being nothing more than ‘ooo Harry’s first crush’ in a later book. Why change what already exists when you can elevate the characters that never got a chance to shine in the past? The example I always go to is Spider-Man. Why would you make Peter Parker black, when you can just create a new character. Because of that we got Miles, and now over a decade on from his debut he’s a popular Marvel character. Yet Hollywood is so adamant on making unnecessary changes to existing characters, whether that be through race or gender. Do something different that doesn’t cause controversy. Create new characters or elevate less known ones so people can have more characters to love rather than replacements for what is already there.”

It must be nice to be white in a world where whiteness is the default and diversity is a relatively new concept. It must be nice to be able to simply ignore the fact that the only reason the overwhelming majority of the most iconic superheroes, Disney princesses and fantasy characters are white is that the source material was created at a time when everything was overwhelmingly white by design because white people needed to see themselves on the screen, and that need was always catered to by the Western entertainment industry. And, of course, we should celebrate that industry racism by ensuring that white actors are the only actors to receive opportunities to play those roles. 

Ironically, some of the commenters above complained that casting Snape as a Black man will ensure that the bullying he endured will be seen as racism, which is pretty much a micro-example of how white privilege works. As long as Snape is white, the bullying is only imagined as bullying, but if he’s Black, the issue of racist bullying is inescapable. That’s not just how the show’s viewers will see it; that’s a reflection of true Western society.

Other commenters are asking why not just create original Black characters as if the world of white fandom doesn’t also get itself into a white-tearsy tizzy when original casts of color become prominent in entertainment. (See the Black Samurai in the latest Assassin’s Creed game.) Again, the effort to bring true diversity to the entertainment world has only been going on for a decade or so, and it’s already on a down slope, largely because not a day of said era has gone by without white people kicking and screaming about it.

Who knows how good a job Essiedu will do portraying Snape until we see it? What we do know is that a Black man playing Snape changes absolutely nothing about his story outside of his original physical description, which would only matter to Harry Potter fans for one reason:

They’re racist!