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May 27, 2009

Jesus Had An Alternative Family

Jesus Had Two Daddies 

Inspiration here and here.

Another poster after the jump.

Jesus Poster

From the BBC, via Popular Mechanics.

Comments

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Extreme wonderfulness with which to start the day. Thanks, Stephen!

Getting cuckolded by God would tend to give you a complex. Joseph must have needed years of therapy. Hopefully he worked as a union carpenter and had health benefits.

I don't know, Stephen. Jesus looks like he could have been a Welsh tin miner to me. Nothing especially non-white about him.

great post!

corvus9, it doesn't take a whole lot of "otherness" for people to be called ragheads or greasers and such, by certain other hateful people. there are different shades of "white". [my son has been called both. he is 1/4 armenian, and inherited a lovely rich skintone.]

No doubt, kathy a., although I don't really see how I implied otherwise. I doubt that Jesus was "white," at least as long as I assume that Jesus was an ancient Semite, and thus probably looked Arab by our present standards, and they usually are seen as "non-white," in that arbitrary way that we have of determining such things.

But this representation of Jesus doesn't even fit those blurry distinctions, at least not to me. He really does look quite a bit an ancient Britannic Celt to me. I suppose you could argue that such people were thus, not white, but if the people who constitute the majority of the ancestry of Briton aren't white, then really, who is?

kathy's right: my boys are half me, half Sicilian, and Robert spends most of his days outdoors, so he's quite a deep brown and has jet-black hair and eyes. More than a few times, our employee's wives, who are Latina, have quietly said things to me like, Ooh, you're lucky--the baby turned out nice and white (the lads all have brown hair and brown or hazel eyes, plus olive skin that isn't quite as brown as their father's because they're indoors more, at least until the end of this week...*sigh*). The othering even goes on in, well, among other ethnicities, too--who knew?! By the third "white" son, I wasn't as taken aback by the comments, but yeah, some people are very aware of it when someone's melanin departs from the standard-issue White Dude's quota.

if the people who constitute the majority of the ancestry of Briton aren't white, then really, who is?

Corvus, you made me think of that scene in Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven, wherein George dreams of a world where there is no more racism and prejudice, and when he awakens, everyone is the same shade of gray.

England is heavy on the Celt DNA, but we've also got lots of ancient Norse, Norman, Roman, and of course Anglo-Saxon blood coursing around the island.

Only when we had some immigrants from India, Pakistan, and the Caribbean--beginning in the 1960's, if I recall correctly--did any of the food begin to taste like something, though.

good question, corvus9.

i didn't mean to suggest your comment was misguided in any way. the thought in the back of my mind was that all the pictures of jesus that i saw as a kid depicted him with fairer and more delicate features, for no good reason that i can imagine besides a certain cultural bias -- that fair and fine is good, and people who do not fit idealized cultural images are bad.

the US has such a weird history of ethnic/racial biases, especially for such a huge land of mostly-immigrants. obvious and lingering evidence includes the shameful legacy of slavery; discrimination against latinos, native americans, asians, and anyone else you can think of; and outright hatred of anyone suspected of having middle-eastern origins. we all know of racial/ethnic stereotypes and mistrust, even in these modern times when many of us celebrate diversity.

at times [and sometimes still], these have included hatred of plainly "white" people -- irish, germans, jews, mexicans, as a few examples. and armenians, who are traditionally christian, but middle-eastern-looking -- they are among many peoples from the caucasus region, which engendered the term "caucasian" to describe white people.

a good friend, an excellent lawyer who is latina, told me a few years ago about her frustration in shopping for a doll for her young daughter. nearly all the dolls were blue-eyed and blond-haired. "and then i remembered, Maria has blue eyes and blond hair!" but she really wanted her daughter to identify also with the side of the family of deeper tones.

i've also heard dozens of stories from african-american families about skin tones. seriously. even within families, there might be ranking based on lighter or darker skin. breaks my heart.

Jesus Had Two Daddies . . . He turned out okay.

Okay? Okay you say? Let's review. Jesus:
1) Didn't go to college, then . . .
2) Leaves a nice steady job to . . .
3) Wander around with a bunch of fishermen (you know how they can be), but . . .
4) Does not actually fish (which would require work, and might lead to a paycheck), and . . .
5) Hangs with prostitutes -- lets not forget the prostitutes -- when not with the fishermen (or with the fishermen, who knows with fishermen?), and of course . . .
6) Never earns another honest buck, but still finds time to . . .
7) Attack -- physically attack! -- honest hardworking bankers and sundry money changers (and right in front of the Temple, too!), and if this is not enough blasphemy, also . . .
8) Blasphemes, and . . .
9) Gets himself executed as an enemy of the state.

I'm sure I'm leaving some things out. But even so . . . any father would be proud.

But C.S., he got really famous. He's even more famous than Paris Hilton! Surely that counts for something.

C.S., he also had a reputation for partying with tax collectors (ie., Jews who collected taxes for Rome), human vermin if ever there were such!

Point taken, oddjob, but . . . at least they had a job. Not like the others. And Stephen, you make a good point --- I have no doubt that a father would be exactly as proud of Jesus' fame as Paris Hilton's father is of her fame.

Only when we had some immigrants from India, Pakistan, and the Caribbean--beginning in the 1960's, if I recall correctly--did any of the food begin to taste like something, though.

I remember boasting in front of some Brits about we had avenged centuries of British occupation in India with our culinary domination of their native cuisine.

One of them told me that the Indian dishes came not as occupiers, but as liberators.

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