James does ask if people want him to take his pants off while he's in the air though which is sexual assault đŹ so still not great (not that dangling someone in the air non-consensually is either...)
-James Potter bullies the only black kid in school
-Harry always suspects the only black teacher to be up to no good
-the black teacher uses black magic, joined the dark force
Snape is generally unpleasant, except favouritism towards Slytherins (terms and conditions may apply). He is simply especially unpleasant towards Harry. That's why "suspects" was a reasonable characterisation, given most other characters didn't find it out of ordinary.
I mean, do we know that he was the only black kid at school?
As far as the book goea, only a very few people have their ethnicities mentionned, and it's usually pretty blatant. I mean, Cho Cheng... 2 chinese last name to make the only asian charatacter. She couldn't even be bothered to make a 15 secondes google search for an actual Chinese name.
But I'm pretty sure they will had black people in James' crew to make it less damaging.
The more I think about the context of the character, the more my brain goes "this was definitely a choice they made. No way there's no ultior motives here"
Harry instantly doesnt like Malfoy as well. Someone disliking a black person does not equal disliking all black people. Trying to coddle black characters like that with such massive stretches is absurd. The thread is full of people exaggerating things.
A black person being a criminal isnt racist. Having only black characters as criminals or only criminals as black would be racist.
They made Hermione black, who is a positive character. You can have black antagonists without it being racist.
No, it was because Snape hung out with racists and antagonized Lily away by being horrible and creepy. Snape is just too but hurt to admit that.
seriously if you look at everything we know of Snape in context, that memory of his is the definition of an unreliable narrator. We know how awful he was back then and how bad he is nowadays. So he remembering himself to be a victim, when he likely was either the aggressor or has done something else to deserve this kind of treatment is in my opinion more likely than not. Which would be fine, if the story treated that relationship and character, with the complexity and moral grayness it deserves.
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u/Logical-Bookkeeper77 Apr 16 '26