HARRY POTTER: A 'Half-Blood Prince' Revealed

Today, as millions of people rifle through freshly minted copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to discover the identity of this mysterious new character, I can't help but imagine this prince as biracial rather than "half-magic."

"Half-breed" — akin to mongrel, mutt or half-caste — flies around as a jab at biracial people more often than "half-blood."

In J.K. Rowling's world, half-blood means "half magic." But the term — reflecting a dichotomy between magic/powerful and mundane/helpless — implies a hierarchy. This "magic" hierarchy directly resembles racial hierarchies.

http://www.tolerance.org/news/article_tol.jsp?id=1256