Jesus, what do you mean by "you people"?
Lefty Memes
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
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Rules
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Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
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Well he's talking to a little black girl about race, so it's either black people or all of not white people.
Nah, not Jesus too 😭
I'd be shocked if they put that much thought into it. It's probably just good old unconscious ethnocentrism. Jesus is white because I'm white and that's my default setting to view the world.
Or because at that time they only knew white people so they assumed he looks like a person.
It doesn't even have to be some subconscious ethnocentrism. It could just be someone painting what they know people to look like.
There's quite a bit of evidence they knew what other people looked like. Western Christianity goes big in Italy and they have regular trade contact with the Levant and Northern Africa.
That trade contact comes to the entirety of Europe thanks to the Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire.
You know that there's different depictions of Jesus in many races, right? Like, people in Africa have depictions of a black Jesus, for example.
Yeah, I think the far easier explanation is "people around the world depict their religious figures as looking like themselves".
Humans depict god and his boy like a human, so yeh makes sense
It's about European churches using historical revisionism (depicting Jesus as a white European) to establish a sense of "superiority".
Those churches are by far the most dominant
I prefer juiced up Korean Jesus. Does thy god even lift?
I had to check this out. Jesus!!!
Jesus the Barbarian, amazing ✨
Frankly this comes off almost as a conspiracy theory. Christian art in Europe developed its typical imagery when the vast majority of Europeans could have no direct contact with non-Europeans, before colonialism or coherent ideas about racial identities, when far-off lands were thought to be occupied by one-legged giants...
You know that... Christianity developed in the Roman Empire? The Middle East (more exactly Palestine and Syria. Which were larger that today's counterparts) wasn't some magical place where giants lived, but a province of said Empire
"Black Jesus" is a deliberate response to the traditional white depiction of Jesus, arising out of an acrimonious colonial relationship with whites. We're trying to discuss why Jesus was depicted as white in the first place.
Actually, Christianity in Ethiopia dates from the 4th century and is not the result of European colonialism.
Their Jesus usually looks pretty black.
Jesus: It's because I'm not your god. I'm god of the people that colonized your country, took some of your people as slaves and made you all believe in me instead of your original black gods.
Jesus is like a Marvel superhero. Like any pop culture fiction, it's rendition changes to reflect and is a product of the era of that particular iteration of the superhero. You even have the religious offspring sect equivalents of Invincible and The Boys.
Was going to say... there's no shortage of art - historical or modern - that portrays Jesus as the dominant regional ethnicity.
A theory that claims multiple leaders – from Jesus to Barack Obama – are actually Turkish and that modern nations are little more than portions of a greater Turkic whole is gaining traction in many countries
Or hear me out, most depictions are from the renaissance when "Not being white" was a relatively new concept to Painters?
Jesus is white and ripped because of several very prominent renaissance painters using their hot twink lovers as their models
This is a pretty flawed understanding of history.
Humans have always travelled, in Europe even serfs would hope to go on pilgrimage and Lords generally had to allow it. Although it may only be to a nearby cathedral. Italy was a trade hub, and a relatively short trip by boat to north Africa.
European painters knew that people came in different shades. As proof, go look at the school of Athens painting.
Jesus became white when Christianity spread in Europe and became a European religion. Earlier Jesus paintings had him a few shades darker. Palestinians are still light skinned and the dark skin is mostly acquired from working in the field.
Jesus is depicted as black in the Ethiopian Orthodox church and is shown as Japanese in some Japanese Orthodox churches.
Because the Vorlons have programmed the younger species to view them as holy beings
Ethiopian Jesus looks like an east African.
Because he was drawn by Europeans
Just like Black/Yellow Jesus existing in those populations
You ask someone to draw a person, they will likely draw someone resembling people they see. If you tell an artist a thousand years ago “from the middle east” they will say what’s that
Then you just propagate those depictions
Say it louder for the people in the back. This is how white supremacy works. One of capitalism's most powerful tools.
I don't feel very Supreme. I don't even feel Gucci. I feel Private Selection at Kroger at best.
This is why deities, demons, spirits, angelic beings and so forth should be animalistic, aka furry. Have fun being racist about animals lmao.
It's not only Jesus, but it's religious figures too. Muslims do the same to depictions of their saints, they should always look like "us".