'Harry Potter' Star Sparks Backlash After Using Archaic Racial Slur To Describe Black TV Host In Uncomfortable Clip

Actor Miriam Margolyes may be best known to many west of the Atlantic for roles in the Harry Potter franchise and the British comedy series Blackadder, as well as a number of other popular films and TV shows. She's also appeared in a series of travel documentaries/reality TV shows filmed in India, the U.S., Russia, Japan, China, Cuba, Australia, New Zealand, and Scotland.

But on the eastern side of the Atlantic, Margolyes has become known for her often inappropriate comments on talk shows like The Graham Norton Show, where she once told former costar Daniel Radcliffe that his "balls" had "dropped" since they first met.

While her comments have been mostly laughed off, Margolyes' appearance on ITV's This Morning to promote her book Miriam’s Full English: A Grand Tour of All Our Best Bits, has drawn backlash for her racist microaggression and casual use of an archaic racial slur.

Speaking with hosts Christine Lampard and Andi Peters, Margolyes first attempted to mimic Lampard's Northern Irish accent.

She then turned to Peters, who is Black, and remarked:

"What accent would be normal for you?"

Her racist microaggression was the linguistic equivalent of asking where a non-White person is "really" from—a common microaggression in the United States—while never putting the same question to people perceived as White.

Margolyes assumed Peters "real" accent should either be from another country or sound like her stereotype for a Black person. But Andi Peters was born and raised in the Chelsea area of London and attended school in Battersea, South West London, England.

However, when he told Margolyes his accent was his "normal" speaking voice, she responded:

"What are you?"

Seemingly confused, Peters replied:

"What am I? I’m me."

To which Margolyes added another racist stereotype, declaring:

"Well, you’re a mix, aren’t you? So you’ve got a Black daddy and a White mummy."

Whether Margolyes was acting on the racist assumption that a "well spoken" Black person must be part White or colorism based on her perception of Peters' skin tone was unclear.

You can watch the moment here:

Now visibly uncomfortable, Peters replied that both of his parents were Black.

Margolyes then declared:

"I think you’re what I would call high–"

Peters interrupted her, joking that perhaps the makeup department had gotten his concealer shade wrong, but Margolyes persisted.

The actor dropped an archaic racial slur on live TV, saying:

"I think you’re high yella."

The term "high yella" mimics stereotypes of Black American speech patterns. It refers to the colorist term "high yellow" that originated in the United States during the late 19th-early 20th centuries to describe Black people with lighter skin, assumed to be the result of mixed White and Black parents (rape by slave owners) during the slavery era.

Unfamiliar with the slur, Peters asked:

"What’s high yella?"

Margolyes laughed, then replied:

"That’s what they call it in America. When someone isn’t deeply Black."

But the racist and colorist term fell out of use by broader society over 50 years ago.

While sometimes used by Black artists like Spike Lee to spotlight racism from without—and colorism from within—the Black American experience, like the n-word, Black people's usage of the term wasn't intended to promote use of the slur.

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After Margolyes started to talk about shades of Blackness, Peters again attempted to diffuse the situation by indicating This Morning's producers were "getting nervous."

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Not taking the hint, Margolyes told the Black Englishman she just insulted:

"Don’t be nervous. We welcome everybody."

Margolyes didn't explain if her "we" referred to just people like herself or to Great Britain as a whole.

ITV hasn't issued a statement and the moment was immediately scrubbed from their online archives.

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In the aftermath, Peters only responded to an X post with:

"As you know we have to be ready for ANYTHING!!!"

But Margolyes addressed it in a book tour appearance by dropping an ableist slur, saying:

"I didn’t know who he was and I didn’t know he was Black until I saw him. When you see someone, of course you know they’re Black..."

"I wanted to know what he thought about it because that’s what interests me. How do Black people feel? How do Brown people feel? How do cripples feel? How do fat people feel? ...I am fascinated by other people."

You can watch her comments here:

People were appalled by Margolyes' behavior.

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Unfortunately, for someone "fascinated" by otherness, Margolyes doesn't seem to know how to be respectful to their identities.

Recognizing and not using slurs is a good first step.