My latest in PJ Media:
J.K. Rowling, the famed author of the Harry Potter series, has fallen victim to the cancel culture. Laurie Charles, a British writer who equals Rowling neither in accomplishment nor in renown, has accused Rowling of “transphobia” for a book she wrote under a pseudonym in 2014, The Silkworm. The UK’s appalling Daily Mail, noticing that the “transphobic” passage involves a burqa, claims that Rowling “has been accused of playing into both Islamophobic and transphobic prejudices.”
Here is the offending passage. If you can’t spot the “transphobia” and “Islamophobia,” you just aren’t woke enough:
A young woman wearing a hijab was watching them talk from an opposite seat. She had large, sweet, liquidbrown eyes.
‘Assuming somebody really did enter the house on the fourth, I’ve got to say a burqa’s a bloody good way of getting in and out without being recognised. Can you think of another way of totally concealing your face and body that wouldn’t make people challenge you?’
‘And they were carrying a halal takeaway?’
‘Allegedly. Was his last meal halal? Is that why the killer removed the guts?’
‘And this woman—’
‘Could’ve been a man…’ ‘—was seen leaving the house an hour later?’
This enraged Laurie Charles, who took to Twitter to call attention to this passage, about which she fumed: “JK Rowling made her f**ked up attacks against trans people and threatened to sue anyone who called her transphobic because she’d already sent her manuscript off to the publisher and wanted to preempt the inevitable criticism of this.”
And just to make sure everyone knew the depth of her moral indignation, Charles added: “It’s like she’s sipping human blood and viscera from a skull through a curly straw with one hand and typing with the other.”
Charles may have been on the lookout for new evidence of Rowling’s “transphobia,” for she has been in hot water for it before, when she dared to note that using the term “people who menstruate” instead of “women” is absurd. And even that wasn’t the end of Rowling’s villainy, according to the Daily Mail: “The row worsened after her new book Troubled Blood was released on Tuesday, which tells the tale of a man who dresses as a woman to kill his victims – a trope in literature that’s been criticised by activists for perpetuating negative stereotypes about transgender people.”
So now, in the Left’s moral universe, making the common-sense observation that “a burqa’s a bloody good way of getting in and out without being recognized” is somehow prejudicial to men who dress in women’s clothing, and men who like to think they’re really women, and that will just not do. And the burqa! You know what that means. “Not just transphobic but Islamophobic too… I regret ever spending money on Harry Potter,” commented one former Rowling fan on Charles’ tweet.
Another added: “So apparently Rowling is just racist as well. What a surprise, transphobes tend to be obsessive bigots, huh.” And a third: “Ewwwww how does she manage to be racist and transphobic in one paragraph?”
Of course Rowling must be racist, because Rowling is bad, and everything bad is racism, and so there you are. Islam is not a race and women of all races wear burqas and niqabs, but no matter: in Britain and the U.S. today, you’re a racist for imagining someone committing a crime while wearing a burqa. Because that never, ever happens, right?
There is more. Read the rest here.
j c a reid says
Rowling is just taking this from reality. In the late 1990’s in England a British Muslim Terrorist was being sought. The authorities knew he had made his escape on an Inter-City bus. They picked him up on CCTV in the old Digbeth Bus Depot, in Birmingham. He had put on a Burka & went to the Ladies’ toilets to hide out. It was when he emerged in the usual garb of a male was arrested by Local Police. Apparently Muslim men, like following Mohammed’s habit of cross dressing. They like to put on a Burka & wander around Ladies Changing Rooms & have a good wander around. Especially popular with the Muslim men in Canada.
curious george says
She’s done quite well for herself, sold approximately 460 million books and is worth approximately 1 billion dollars.
https://www.thetalko.com/j-k-rowling-highest-sold-books-literary-sales/
https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/authors/jk-rowling-net-worth/
David M says
The left turning on itself. She is actually a leftist who favours mass immigration from third world countries. It’s like Sunni Muslims killing Shia Muslims for not being Muslim enough.
job says
muslims killing muslims is good.
Margaret Cornes says
And .?
maria says
‘
she is an excellent writer her Harry Potter books are ones of the best books both for children and adults
She is courageous and intelligent and that´s why the muslims and far left are against her
David M says
I agree, I would rate her books as the best children books of all times. She is also a leftist.
Eva says
I’m definitely buying her books! I bought one of the Cormorant Strike books and it was a damn good read. But now I’ll buy more just to support her and enrage these brain-dead, self righteous a**holes.
I’m waiting for the stupid, snowflake kids SHE made rich and famous to stab her in the back over this, just like they did over her previous ‘transphobic’ comments.
I’m just surprised that they haven’t demanded an apology from her yet, because her back hurt their knives.
gravenimage says
+1
eduardo odraude says
The lunacy out there is astonishing.
I might also get another of her books. I read all the Potter books a couple of years ago. Didn’t love them, but they were entertaining enough. In the fantasy genre, I do love C.S. Lewis — not just his books for children, but also his fiction for adults, all of it is genius. However I did not like all that much one of Lewis’ best know “fictional” works, The Screwtape Letters, because they are half way between fiction and essay. Lewis’s essays are often great, but to me not as wonderful as his fiction. The other exception is Lewis’ Till We Have Faces, a novel I personally found a bit inaccessible, but others may be able to get great joy out of it. But these Lewis novels have given me more pleasant reading than almost anything other books I’ve read:
The Pilgrim’s Regress
The Great Divorce
The Dark Tower (unfinished novel)
Out of the Silent Planet
Perelandra
That Hideous Strength
The last three listed are his Space Trilogy.
I also got tremendous pleasure from Lewis’ \Narnia Chronicles, all 7 volumes of which I read three times at intervals of a decade between each reading. On the surface they are for children, but they contain rather glorious visions for adults, as well, and resonating through the images are profound adult themes if one looks a little below the surfaces. To me Lewis’ fiction is infinitely more powerful in imagination than most of what is available, much more powerful than the Harry Potter series, with all due respect to Rowling.
revereridesagain says
The Potter books really are quite good. Each is a separate, well-constructed mystery novel — though the last one is a bit iffy — made extra intriguing by the layering on of the imaginative rules of the “magical” environment in which they are set. Don’t let anyone give the plot away and find a group of fellow new readers and you can have the entertaining experience of spending months or even years in, say, the middle of the Snape: villain or hero debate.
gravenimage says
Harry Potter and the Islamophobic Author
………………..
Just absurd. Even if I did not like Rowling’s work–and I do–I would support her here. There is nothing “Islamophobic” about that passage–in fact, it is obviously sympathetic, perhaps overly so, to the Muslimah in the Hijab.
At this point Muslims will accuse anyone of “Islamophobia”.
Eva says
Exactly!!! And all their shills and apologists are falling in line!
curious george says
With the Red/Green Alliance, freedom of speech, is what they say it is. Anything that is contrary to their narrative is labeled hate speech or some other derogatory term.
We’re in a war of attrition, the Red/Green Alliance is slowly and methodically defining the terms, and he who defines the terms, wins the argument.
john smith says
GI, I would also support here, but I strongly oppose her on bringing more Muslim refugees into the country.
gravenimage says
Absolutely agree, John.
Rarely says
What’s next?? Rowling describing a villain as a “cat burglar”?? The SPCA will be all over her.
A burqa is a near perfect way of hiding one’s identity if out on a nefarious mission regardless of sex, age, nationality, race, sexual orientation.
It’s not as if Rowling is suggesting that some transgendered person or transvestite (I hear that burqas are preferred “dress” in the transvestite community — everyone has a few) dressed in a burqa decides: “Hey, I’m unrecognizable. Why don’t I go kill somebody or rob a bank or something just to spice up the afternoon?”.
This criticism has gone all the way to the ridiculous without passing through the sublime.
Who are these nuts anyway?
gravenimage says
Pious Muslims don’t want *any* criticism of Islam, no matter how oblique, to be allowed.
Rarely says
I think you could use the term “nutty” instead of “pious”. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the most pious muslims aren’t shaking their heads over this one. That some criminal (male or female, transgender or not, transvestite or not) could wear a burka to conceal identity is hardly a criticism of islam — oblique or otherwise. Would the wearing of a Trump mask while performing a robbery a criticism of the Donald?
gravenimage says
Rarely, it is indeed pious Muslims–those most committed to Islam–who are most aggressive in threatening any criticism of Islam. They may also be “nutty”–but just calling them that implies that this is not mainstream Islam, which it most certainly is.
Margaret Cornes says
So right x had a laugh !
rubiconcrest says
The same thoughts enter reasonable minds when a Burqa appears.
Jude Cross says
Rowling has been notorious for calling out people for shaming. She’s also a leftist activist for the Labour party. I don’t care about her predicament.
Mauricio says
It’s not much about Rowling: it’s about stupid people flagging you for writing such a simple thing.
gravenimage says
You *should* care, Jude. If you think that only those on the left will be so victimized, you are much mistaken.
Arun says
Phobia is a psychological state of irrational fear.
The gruesome acts of the ISIS that proudly represent the true teachings of Qur’an. Recalling the horrors of 9/11, 05/07, 26/11 and roughly 60K terrorists in Pakistan all proudly crying out “Allah hu Akbar”, the rejection or criticiasm of Islam is far from being irrational.
Shaming someone of Islamophobia has become an easy insult and leaves the accused little room to counter such infantile accusation.
Ignoring the perils of such a dangerous doctrine for the sake of being political correct on steroids will bring more such events.
James Lincoln says
Arun says,
“Shaming someone of Islamophobia has become an easy insult and leaves the accused little room to counter such infantile accusation.”
The recipient can, rightfully, choose not to feel the shame. Guaranteed, it will infuriate the person shaming.
In other words, take the power away:
“You can call me islamophobic – I don’t care. I care about the safety of my family and my country. If you consider that to be islamophobic, then so be it.”
Bikinis not Burkas says
The facts in Paris France 18/09/2020
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/09/22/man-disguised-islamic-veil-opens-fire-paris-street/
gravenimage says
Yes–I was going to cite that story.
Proves Rowling right.
Bikinis not Burkas says
Muhammad said women are deficient of intelligence!
https://muflihun.com/bukhari/6/301
Pull on an Islamic head dress raise your hand and scream “Look at me, look at me, I agree with Muhammad, I am STUPID!”
Bikinis not Burkas says
The perfect man, NOT, defective DNA.
Muhammad was WHITE!
http://quranx.com/Hadith/Muslim/Reference/Hadith-2340/
Muhammad was a dwarf and fat!
http://sunnah.com/abudawud/42/154
terry sullivan says
trannies are mostly nutjobs
Rarely says
Don’t see too many of them in burqas at the Gay Day Parade but that could change as burqas catch on. Might soon compete in numbers with those in Nuns’ habits. It’s all just a touch weird.
David says
Rarely, you have weirdophobia, as do most (not all) normal people! You cannot force people to like things they don’t like. You can only suppress their expression of their feelings.
I have a saying:” I don’t mind you having an opinion, as long as you keep it to yourself!”
Hindu Kaffir says
This problem of censorship by the left finds its equivalent in India too…. a book was launched recently accusing the left liberals and Islamists of hatching up the plot for Delhi riots, on the day Trump came to India…. the left were quick to jump into action, and the publisher,Bloomsbury, immediately refused to publish the book…..
And then the left accuses the right of censorship….hypocrites to the core….
Frank says
Ironically (or maybe not) there is a UK Guardian article by Remona Aly ‘Nine uses for a burqa…that don’t involve bashing them’ one of which is a a mobile letterbox. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/06/burqa-bashing-mohammed-ahmed-mohamed-image It’s a satire defending the burqa but those people who attacked Boris John for his ‘letterbox ladies’ comment have forgotten this. Digbeth In Birmingham (UK) was(?) [I haven’t used it for some years] the location of the nationwide coach station and considered a potential terrorist target. There was another example where a man evading the Police went into a mosque and came out in a burqa.
Re J K Rowling it is a case of the biter bit. A few years ago she was part of the cancel culture but now understands where it leads. “There is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents……”
revereridesagain says
There is no such thing as “transphobia”. You either recognize that a man who has his penis cut off and fake breasts sown on is suffering from mental illness and is now a mutilated male, or you don’t because it is more important that your equally deluded “woke” friends approve of you. Which, in turn, means you are neurotic and incapable of recognizing reality in the face of subjectivist rot.