For Colored Witches
Fred Johnson-Weasley was the White child, the one with the complexion of sliced almond, bright eyes, a defined jawline and the long copper hair that had little curl to it except for a few strands in the middle that refused to be untangled. Yet he was unmistakably Roxanne’s brother, the son of George and Angelina, more affectionate than most Weasley men (or most men period) and someone who was taught to never compare his looks to his sister’s.
Only White witches and wizards couldn’t tell he had a Afro-British Caribbean witch for a mother, but Dean Thomas, Lee Jordan and Kingsley Shacklebolt instantly saw the Black, that subtle and dark heaviness beneath the Caucasian face.
Roxanne was different in every way. Curly-haired, and tan-toned with dark and full lips and eyes. The only thing remotely “Weasley” about her face were the brown freckles that Granma Molly said made her look like a little pumpkin spice cake. People made Fred and Roxanne exoticized and outcasted at the same time. Muggles gawked. Magicals applauded, pitting the siblings against one another, telling Fred he was “more Weasley than his sister” and that Roxanne “was ten times his Johnson” and shouldn’t “worry her pretty little head about any of it…”
It was something for Angelina to hear her parents express a little concern that she married into a family prized for possessing a certain look. Her mother, Marceline Freewitch, was a pureblood from a line that had been in England since the time of St. Mungo. Her father, Marlon Johnson, was a half-blood from Montego Bay where a small magical compound, Shangoville, had thrived since slavery was abolished in Jamaica. Marlon’s great-grandfather, Clive Strathmore, had been one of the founders of the Mystics’ Institute of the West Indies.
Yet just as with blood prejudice, Elvish Welfare and Witch’s Rights, the Wizarding World seemed so apt to ignore race as well. So many folks considered themselves “above race” and “accepting of all cultures”, but still considered Wizarding Britain the magical beacon to light the world, the “refiners of magical practice and skill”, those who “made progress where it seemed doomed to fall into escapability”…
All of it made Angelina want to spit. How did they think European magical communities came about in the Americas? Salem Witch’s Institute didn’t just pop out of the sky. Bathilda Bagshot, as lovely as she once was, did the same things that Western Muggle historians did when it came to other cultures: erased truths and painted pretty lies. The existence of the “secret class” of enslaved African witches and wizards on all-magical plantations, divided on a workload that mixed blood status and skintone meant nothing to these folks. The truth that wizards fought alongside Muggles during the Haitian Revolution was not as important as “the universal wizard’s struggle.”
Did these people really believe that a bunch of Indigenous witches and wizards happily agreed to the Statute of Secrecy even after they’d been intermarried with and protecting Muggle chiefdoms from Dark creatures for thousands of years? That Muggles meant nothing to Indigenous magic-makers simply because they did not possess preternatural powers? Even after developing hundreds upon hundreds of charms to replenish crops, ward off disease and defend themselves from Dark Magic and teaching colonial wizards how to cast a multitude of Weatherworking Charms, they were still brutalized and marginalized.
Sometimes, Angelina wished she’d attended the Mystics’ Institute of the West Indies. Perhaps, then, everything wouldn’t have to be so difficult to deal with.
