Like beth, I've only ever heard the word used in a negative & offensive way, in the context of laws or social taboos against interracial marriages. Furthermore, I've only heard it applied to situations in which one of the partners is white. The term carries a strong connotation that the white person in the relationship is degrading him- or herself by mixing with a person of color. It may not have the same connotations in different countries & languages, but its history in the U.S. is pretty gross.

there were ( and may still be ) laws against miscegenation.

not in the United States. Loving v. Virginia overturned them.

My history teacher in tenth grade told us that it meant slave owners having sex with their female slaves. And that was what I assumed it meant until, when I was reviewing for the US History AP exam with my dad, I said something like "And there should have been a law against miscegenation" and he gave me a very odd look. Then I told him where I'd learned the word, and he told me to go look it up in a dictionary.

(OK, this really has nothing to do with anything.)

Alrighty. I'm kinda new.

...

What exactly is 'racewanking'?

In the movies, when Cho Chang speaks, does it throw in a disconnect?

Nope. But I totally get that YMMV.

wrt the international cover art, I actually liked the French artwork you linked to more than either the UK or the US cover art. Presently, though, I've got editions of all the books with the adult covers, which I like much more than the UK or the US 'proper' covers. (Which surprised me, because previously I'd really pooh-poohed the whole notion of having adult covers, thinking of it as a sort of brown paper wrapper to hide the shame of kidlit. Only then I saw them on the shelf and my first thought was "Pretty!" So I did a bit of a 180 on that one.)

Hey there, Matt!

"racewanking" isn't really a usual term per se, but 'wanking' is frequently used (and forgive me if any of the following is patronising - I'm going to assume that this is an aspect of fandom you're not familiar with) to refer to lengthy, heated debates about fannish things, usually spanning myriad different journals/sites. Check out the infamous 'fandom wank' site for examples of this, including the recent Harry Potter fandom kerfuffle about race:fandomwank

wrt said racewank - I've got to admit, I'd never heard the term 'miscegenation' in my life before I read Witchqueen's post.

Damn it, y'all got me reading the Teddy Lupin series. Which is actually kind of good....

wrt said racewank - I've got to admit, I'd never heard the term 'miscegenation' in my life before I read Witchqueen's post.

Well, it's a specifically American word -- sounds all Latinate and everything, but it's actually a neologism coined in 1863 by a Democrat* out to smear the Republican Party** by implying that the entire Civil War was all about the Republicans' sooper seekrit white-race-tainting agenda.

If some weaselly creep hadn't been horrified at the prospect of the abolition of slavery and the legal personhood and autonomy of black people, the word wouldn't exist. And since England disentangled itself from slavery a bit before the US, without our spectacular degree of bloodshed and general fucked-upedness, there's no reason why you should have heard of it.

It's actually kind of reassuring to know that this asshole word hasn't really migrated past our shores.

*1863 Democrat=modern day racist extremist
**1863 Republican=modern day Democrat. Isn't political history fun?

I have a really stupid question. I mean *really* stupid.

Is the n-word used in places other than the US in the same way?

Is the n-word used in places other than the US in the same way?

That one I think was a carry over from the UK, sadly. It may not have carried all of the negative connotations it does here, however.

At least, that's what I've always assumed since the original title of Agatha Christie's ...And Then There Were None aka Ten Little Indians was Ten Little N*****s, and that was written in the '30s (or early '40s).