iloveyouless:

unappreciatednoirbeauties:

sundayafternoonsocialclub:

countlessuntruths:

So, racebent Hermione. But, you wanna know a secret? The first time I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone?

I thought Hermione was black. Or, well, at the very least of mixed ancestry. It was, I think, the description of her hair, mostly, what did it for me. The whole bushy thing? My thirteen years old brain translated that Hermione was black.

And it seemed AMAZING to me and so obvious. Like, blatantly obvious when in Chamber of Secrets she gets called Mudblood and she doesn’t get it until Ron and Hagrid explain it. SO COOL. I liked when there were dark skinned characters. And this? This was the brightest, smartest girl in Hogwarts. How awesome was that?

For me Hermione was a black girl, thin and precocious, huge eyes and unruly impossible to tame hair.

And then she wasn’t. Movies started coming out, Emma was cast as Hermione, I shrugged my mental picture off.

But it’s still there, I think. Since the last books came after the movies, I read them with a white Hermione in mind, but I wonder if it’ll be the same thing, was I to reread the first books.

I thought I was the only one who thought Hermione was mixed!

Yeah when I was reading the books I envisioned a smart, independent Black girl who didn’t take shit from anyone. Plus with the big wild curly hair that I could relate to really made me think that a Black actress would be good for the part. 

My sister thought she was mixed. I always pictured her as a white girl - probably because in books, most people are white. It’s the default. And then the movies came out. I want to read it again picturing her as a minority.