Not Negro though. Maybe they're saying that Christianity has become too Caucasian? I dunno. I'm not sure what their point is considering it's not a Western religion in origin.
From a religious perspective, as you say, it doesn't matter what color Jesus was, or what any of his physical traits were. He is our savior regardless of that. From a sociological perspective, however, the racebending of Jesus is something I find troublesome. I don't know what all those protesters were going on about, but in that criticism, at least, I have to say I'm on their side.
Darker yes than my pale Celtic complexion, but not so dark that he'd have looked like he came from Kenya, which is what I think they were saying.
I agree with you though that the artistic depictions of Jesus with fair skin, blonde or red hair, and pale blue eyes are pretty stupid. And yep, it does have some unfortunate implications of "oh, he's God, so he must be white!"
Once I took the photo and ran away yeah they started shouting about how they didn't really need to hide from photos and videos anyway because apparently all white people and black people were going to start fighting each other in NYC soon anyway and it would be all over the media.
Ahhh! So that's who they are! Thanks for the linkage. I've been curious ever since I saw them.
Yep. We were staying on 40th Street. I think I wandered down a bit and took this photo near a Borders store around there. They like to hang around Times Square?
Yep, they are a curious bunch. They've ALWAYS been in that area but I observed them more closely over the course of a year or two, since I worked VERY close to where they usually hung out, same block. They tended to yell at white men passing by, I guess to intimidate them or something, usually with a bullhorn or a mic and an amp. They also sell roll-on perfume oils (frankincense, myrrh, sandalwood, etc.), books, etc, on the outer part of the sidewalk... usually books that say "blackman" and "blackwoman" somewhere on them. They never yelled at me though, for some reason or other, and I used to buy a nice Egyptian sandalwood/frankincense blend from them every so often when mine ran out or went rancid. :)
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Maybe they're saying that Christianity has become too Caucasian? I dunno. I'm not sure what their point is considering it's not a Western religion in origin.
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Jesus probably looked more like this:
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On a serious note, he probably would have looked more like this. And yes, he would have been rather dark-skinned. Personally, I find the "white-washing" of Jesus in so much Western artwork to be somewhat problematic, only because it is part of a larger problem of defaulting to white=good/heroic in Western media.
From a religious perspective, as you say, it doesn't matter what color Jesus was, or what any of his physical traits were. He is our savior regardless of that. From a sociological perspective, however, the racebending of Jesus is something I find troublesome. I don't know what all those protesters were going on about, but in that criticism, at least, I have to say I'm on their side.
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I agree with you though that the artistic depictions of Jesus with fair skin, blonde or red hair, and pale blue eyes are pretty stupid. And yep, it does have some unfortunate implications of "oh, he's God, so he must be white!"
I think they were from the Islamic sect The Nation of Islam.
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I must've missed that on the news :p
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nation_of_Gods_and_Earths
Were you near Times Square by any chance? :D
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Yep. We were staying on 40th Street. I think I wandered down a bit and took this photo near a Borders store around there.
They like to hang around Times Square?
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