memes

My father grew up poor in the East End of London and got a scholarship to go to the sort of upper-class school that Hogwarts emulates. Apart from being proud of the achievement of doing so well academically there, he had very little good to say about it, especially the upper-class snobbery and, yes, the bigotry (he was Jewish) from both the students and the teachers. He told me that every morning just before school prayers, the headmaster made a big deal about excusing all the "Jews, Catholics and other heathens" (or something to that effect) to humiliate all of those kids. One of his only friends at the time was another kid there on scholarship.

Ironically, he said his favorite teacher at the school was the school's chaplain, who was a really kind and funny man that didn't care that my father wasn't an Anglican, just that he was a smart kid.

My wife loves Harry Potter but I could never get into it after hearing all of my dad's stories about his school when he was growing up.