The Invisible Cloak
One of the most common objects in the Harry Potter series is a piece of fabric known as ‘the invisible cloak.’ It will help the characters walk past enemies and challenges without being noticed while underneath it. As far as I know, it has served them pretty well.
Not getting into the scientific bit, but its functionality is pretty self-explanatory: wear it and get invisible. So, once the invisible coat is in place, any story, object, or person will virtually vanish. J. K. Rowling created quite an artifact.
A few weeks ago, I was discussing with someone how prejudice affects so many people around the world. As someone older and much more conservative than me, the person promptly stopped my line and said, “how exaggerated people are,” and that “not all of the things people categorize as hate crimes really represent those.”
The example they used for that is of a trans-woman who was killed recently in Brazil, but “not because she was trans,” of course, but because she owned money to her boss, a drug dealer.
At first sight, indeed it does look like it’s the case, after all, anybody who owes money to a drug dealer would’ve been murdered, right?
Or maybe that’s just the invisible cloak here?
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Unlike other businesses, drug dealers typically won’t hire someone to assess their potential for promotion -they want someone who can be easily controlled, as their primary interest is in retaining their business.
That might mean that, to serve as a role model, one of the current team members might be eliminated so the other employees understand what happens if they don’t perform well. Nothing better for that than someone they might perceive as “useless” or “disposable”; someone dehumanized, and that nobody would file a complaint if they just vanished.
If the hate crime is not perceivable in the murder, maybe they can realize it’s here. But we can dig deeper.
Being “useless” or “disposable” is not the default condition of a human being -usually, of course. Dehumanizing someone takes some actions, like spreading the idea that headless men form a tribe you want to conquer, so your people back home do not feel bad about slaughtering them.
Sometimes, however, those actions are taken by someone else. It’s not uncommon that the most traditional families won’t accept their kids when they are gay or trans, expel them from home, and leave them to their own devices at a very young age. Because of that, it’s not usual that trans people aren’t able to finish their studies, which leads to an obvious line of events, including the lack of opportunities.
And here we have the beginning of the hate crime. The drug dealer who killed that trans-woman didn’t commit a hate crime when he pulled the trigger; that was just the invisible cloak. What’s underneath is much more complex and shows how it was a project executed in stages.
June, the Pride month, brings up a plethora of sad stories and -what’s worse- a ton of bigots that are all over Facebook and other social platforms spreading their prejudices and misinformation. While these people continue to do this, stories like the one above will continue to happen.
Their words weigh a ton; these people need to be ashamed and answer for their crimes. Until their lives aren’t uncomfortable because of their prejudice, they will keep on making other people’s lives unbearable.
Take care (unless you’re J.K. Rowling, who unfortunately represents so well the population I mentioned above).
