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This is a poor example of Americans deliberately influencing culture overseas. On the topic of the historical wise men who are said to have visited Jesus - the

This is a poor example of Americans deliberately influencing culture overseas. On the topic of the historical wise men who are said to have visited Jesus - they came from the east (Asia), not the west (Africa). While it is true that in some parts of Europe one of the wise men has come to be portrayed as black, it's absurd to say that blackface must be applied in order to preserve the authenticity of the portrayal. If historical authenticity was the goal, the entire nativity should be portrayed by people with Middle Eastern features. And if the goal is merely symbolic - a way of showing that Christianity can appeal to people from all over the world - that can easily be communicated through dialog. Zwarte Piet has a different history and has nothing to do with early Christianity. If anything it has to do with pagan traditions around winter demons that relatively recently morphed into a black sidekick for Sinterklaas, coincidentally exactly around the time that blackface minstrel shows and human zoos were popular. But I suspect you know this, and are trying to loop in American "culture wars" as a way of not dealing with something that Afro-Europeans find at least racially insensitive if not outright offensive. This, in fact, is exactly how Americans end up getting shoehorned into every topic everywhere in the world, because even when people claim to want to discuss topics in the local context, they tend to spend more time derailing the conversation into some whining about American cultural hegemony instead.

creshal 3y ago
> And if the goal is merely symbolic - a way of showing that Christianity can appeal to people from all over the world It's not just that it could appeal to the whole world, but that early Christianity was not just an European affair. > that can easily be communicated through dialog. All the counter suggestions so far have been vague and ineffectual. If racism could be solved through dialog, we wouldn't even be here. > But I suspect you know this, and are trying to loop in American "culture wars" as a way of not dealing with something that Afro-Europeans find at least racially insensitive if not outright offensive. I would suspect that Afro-Germans rather find it offensive that Germany keeps dodging its responsibility for its colonial war crimes and tries to silence critics of its incredibly dubious 2021 "settlement", after 70+ years of attempts to solve this situation. But Americanisms are dominating the public discourse so hard that these topics aren't even on the radar. (Similarly, we can get massive Floyd protests country-wide on a moment's notice, but none against Germany's police giving guns to and covering for Nazi terrorists shooting Turkish migrants.) So, sorry, I'm not some insidious white supremacist trying to silence critics, I'm just extremely disappointed in our local problems being ignored in favour of doing whatever the Americans are doing.
- alisonatwork 3y ago
  The point about early Christianity is just silly. When Jesus was born, Christianity did not yet exist. If it is historically accurate that wise men actually did visit Bethlehem bearing gifts (which many scholars don't believe is the case), they were not on a Christian pilgrimage, or any kind of pilgrimage related to Abrahamic religion. There is no evidence or scripture implying thus. Certainly, early Christianity arrived in North Africa around the same time it arrived in Eastern Europe, but that's hardly controversial. It's not only geographically and politically obvious, but also a well-documented history, literally going back to the time that the New Testament was canonized - in Roman Africa, no less! There is no need to have 21st century children in Germany apply blackface during the nativity play to show that Christianity existed in Africa several hundred years after Jesus died. I don't know why you are bringing up being an "insidious white supremacist" (an Americanism you imply other people are using, and yet nobody on this thread is). The issue is that this whole argument that blackface is an earnest celebration of African Christianity is totally contrived, based not on fact, but on the unwillingness to acknowledge that in the modern world doing caricatures of other races is generally seen as culturally insensitive. Majority of Europeans are not crying "racism" (once again - your words), but they still appreciate that this sort of stuff does offend some people and is not something that is a big enough deal to be worth clinging onto. There is no cultural heritage being lost by letting kids perform the nativity play without blackface. And no need to whatabout back around to colonial history in Namibia as if that's some kind of gotcha. Sure, that's bad too. But once again, nobody was saying to ignore the genocide of the Herero and Nama. There can be two bad things at the same time. The current German government refusing to take responsibility for crimes that happened during colonial times, and also individuals in present-day Germany not wanting to give up a "tradition" that has no educational benefit, no historical accuracy and really does bother some individuals of the minority it allegedly is honoring.

creshal 3y ago

> And if the goal is merely symbolic - a way of showing that Christianity can appeal to people from all over the world It's not just that it could appeal to the whole world, but that early Christianity was not just an European affair. > that can easily be communicated through dialog. All the counter suggestions so far have been vague and ineffectual. If racism could be solved through dialog, we wouldn't even be here. > But I suspect you know this, and are trying to loop in American "culture wars" as a way of not dealing with something that Afro-Europeans find at least racially insensitive if not outright offensive. I would suspect that Afro-Germans rather find it offensive that Germany keeps dodging its responsibility for its colonial war crimes and tries to silence critics of its incredibly dubious 2021 "settlement", after 70+ years of attempts to solve this situation. But Americanisms are dominating the public discourse so hard that these topics aren't even on the radar. (Similarly, we can get massive Floyd protests country-wide on a moment's notice, but none against Germany's police giving guns to and covering for Nazi terrorists shooting Turkish migrants.) So, sorry, I'm not some insidious white supremacist trying to silence critics, I'm just extremely disappointed in our local problems being ignored in favour of doing whatever the Americans are doing.

alisonatwork 3y ago
The point about early Christianity is just silly. When Jesus was born, Christianity did not yet exist. If it is historically accurate that wise men actually did visit Bethlehem bearing gifts (which many scholars don't believe is the case), they were not on a Christian pilgrimage, or any kind of pilgrimage related to Abrahamic religion. There is no evidence or scripture implying thus. Certainly, early Christianity arrived in North Africa around the same time it arrived in Eastern Europe, but that's hardly controversial. It's not only geographically and politically obvious, but also a well-documented history, literally going back to the time that the New Testament was canonized - in Roman Africa, no less! There is no need to have 21st century children in Germany apply blackface during the nativity play to show that Christianity existed in Africa several hundred years after Jesus died. I don't know why you are bringing up being an "insidious white supremacist" (an Americanism you imply other people are using, and yet nobody on this thread is). The issue is that this whole argument that blackface is an earnest celebration of African Christianity is totally contrived, based not on fact, but on the unwillingness to acknowledge that in the modern world doing caricatures of other races is generally seen as culturally insensitive. Majority of Europeans are not crying "racism" (once again - your words), but they still appreciate that this sort of stuff does offend some people and is not something that is a big enough deal to be worth clinging onto. There is no cultural heritage being lost by letting kids perform the nativity play without blackface. And no need to whatabout back around to colonial history in Namibia as if that's some kind of gotcha. Sure, that's bad too. But once again, nobody was saying to ignore the genocide of the Herero and Nama. There can be two bad things at the same time. The current German government refusing to take responsibility for crimes that happened during colonial times, and also individuals in present-day Germany not wanting to give up a "tradition" that has no educational benefit, no historical accuracy and really does bother some individuals of the minority it allegedly is honoring.