As a reminder of the shaky ground the franchise was standing on in terms of diversity at this time, a certain statistic had been making the rounds again. Across the 8 films, only 6 minutes of dialogue were spoken by a person of color in nearly 20 hours of total runtime. So, yeah, casting "Black Hermione", as JKR put it, seemed to also be a good PR move. They just weren't expecting the fans to disagree based on canon. Let's check the text.

We've covered the bushy hair thing to death. And, to be clear, it was always described as brown, not black (which is typical for black women). Contrary to this was Hagrid's hair, which was listed as "bushy black" in the novels. Then there was the passage in PRISONER OF AZKABAN about Hermione's skin being "very brown" after visiting France (a particularly sunny climate in comparison) during the summer. But it was also mentioned numerous times that they were having a heat wave in the UK as well. Which is why, in the same sentence, Ron's skin was described as "incredibly freckly".

This example is, in a sense, a case of being lost in translation. "Very brown" is a reasonably common British turn of phrase to describe a suntan. I found some examples in a series by Enid Blyton, an English author who also wrote about a boarding school (albeit less magical).

"Hallo, Sally! How brown you are!"

Mary-Lou was at the deep end, watching the others. At least, she watched Darrell mostly, admiring the way she swam, cutting the water so cleanly with her strong brown arms, and thrusting through the waves like a small torpedo.

A pair of wicked eyes looked out of the window of a car, and a tuft of hair fell over a brown forehead. "I may have!" said Betty, stepping out.

There are many other examples of characters being "browned by the sun" or "sun browned". For that reason, a British author (JKR) describing her recently vacationed character as brown should not be considered an example of her normal skin tone, but a colloquial term for looking tanned after a holiday. Furthermore, this is confirmed in the Chambers Universal Learners' Dictionary.

Also, it would be strange to describe a dark-skinned character as "very brown" as a result of getting extra sun on her face. Not to get too scientific, but there is a biological aspect to this as well. People of color have more melanin in their skin, meaning their tans are often less noticeable. As well, you wouldn't commonly describe someone with a darker skin tone as "turning pink / pink-faced" when they are embarrassed, excited, overexerted, or cold, which is how Hermione is quite often described.

My favorite passage from the books in regards to this can be found in HALF-BLOOD PRINCE:

"I love you, Hermione," said Ron, sinking back in his chair, rubbing his eyes wearily.

Hermione turned faintly pink, but merely said, "Don't let Lavender hear you saying that."

In her original quote, JKR stated,"I had a bunch of racists telling me that because Hermione 'turned white' - that is, lost color from her face after a shock - that she must be a white woman, which I have a great deal of difficulty with."

Although the only characters who ever "turned white" in the books were Stan Shunpike and Harry (get it riiiiight, grrrl), she had a good point. More often, she used "pale" to denote shock and exhaustion. The snippet I found that most pinpointed Hermione's skin tone in comparison to someone we know to be white is from GOBLET OF FIRE.

There were footsteps down the passageway and Hermione and Ginny came into the kitchen, both looking pale and drowsy.

Not definitive, of course, but I think it's also safe to say that a children's author would probably not describe a black character as being white-faced with fear. Across all seven books, the only characters she described with a "white face" were Crouch Sr., Voldemort, Slughorn, Lupin, Xenophilius Lovegood, Luna Lovegood, Snape, Harry, Ron, and Hermione. And although this may be parsing words, I think it's important to understand the use of the word "white" in context.

In Chapter 22 of AZKABAN.

Hermione's white face was sticking out from behind a tree.

The quote says that her "white face was", not "her face went white". The emphasis of her skin tone placed us firmly within the tension and physical energy of the scene. It's a good tactic. JKR used it first with Ron a few chapters earlier.

Ron crawled to the four-poster and collapsed onto it, panting, his white face now tinged with green, both hands clutching his broken leg.

As a final example, let's go to the one I used in my first Fred and George book. In Half-Blood Prince, Hermione is on the receiving end of an early product from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.

Hermione emerged, coughing, out of the smoke, clutching the telescope and sporting a brilliantly purple black eye.

Paragraphs on, we're reminded of the bruise.

But when Harry arrived downstairs ten minutes later, fully dressed and carrying his empty breakfast tray, it was to find Hermione sitting at the kitchen table in great agitation, while Mrs. Weasley tried to lessen her resemblance to half a panda.

Obviously, I shouldn't have to spell it out for you, but panda bears are mostly white, with black fur on their ears and around their eyes. If Hermione resembles "half a panda" in this scene...put two and two together.

Either way, here's a cute baby panda drinking a bottle. EEEEEEE!

Mike, you sure are going to a lot of trouble to get across the point that Hermione had white skin...

Yes, I realize that. Partially because I'm tired of seeing good-natured fans being labeled racists and bigots for being confused. And because, after all this time, and with all the eventual canon issues we learn about in the CURSED CHILD script, one of the very first things people gripe about is that Hermione is not supposed to be black. As I've said before, her skin tone and race shouldn't matter, as long as we aren't rewriting established canon to fit a "hey look, we're totally diverse" narrative. The decision to do so inevitably causes infighting with the fans. So, yes, I'm beating a dead horse here (I wanted to say "beating a Thestral"... that brought out an unfortunate visual), but I'm doing so in the hopes that we can finally reconcile this issue and the fanbase can be "whole" again.