The Invention of Whiteness

It was a hot Saturday afternoon, I was roaming the streets of Mexico City, dropping in and out of art galleries and museums indulging the last few days of my time there. My friend and I walked through Soumaya Museum enthralled by the expansive collection of 66,000 pieces of art – the majority of which are 15th to 20th century European works. She turned and asked me "why is Jesus white in all of these paintings?" 

I'll attempt to explain. Otherwise scroll down to the TLDR.

What is White and Whiteness and where did it come from?Whiteness as we know it today is a social and political construct designed to keep lighter complexion folks in economic power at the expense of darker complexion folks. We are often sold the idea of our racial groups being a biological truth, whether you are white, black or of any other ethnicity, but if you study history, you’ll discover this to be untrue. The whole concept of white people as a race is in fact very recent in human history. Whiteness didn’t exist prior to the 17th century.

The idea of whiteness as we experience it today (in all its supremacy) was literally invented in direct correlation to the Atlantic Slave Trade in the late 1600s. Do not misunderstand me – there has always been people of different complexions, hair textures and phenotypes, but these were not differentiators to the intrinsic human value we each possess as it has been for the past few centuries. When the Portuguese realized there was wealth to gain in the Americas, they needed labor – so the Europeans began human trafficking.

To normalize immoral behaviour, you must codify it. Thus, whiteness and white as a race was invented to be legally superior through human rights laws. This was first introduced in the English Caribbean colonies through a series of legislation known as slave codes which first showed up in Barbados, and then Jamaica, and then Brazil, and then Virginia. And then it went viral. These slave codes literally quantified the value of a human life based on your complexion and proximity to whiteness or blackness. So folks became racialized as white being valued more and racialized as black being valued less.

To understand what being racialized as white means let me introduce you to a little-known fact that many “white people” today weren’t always considered “white” in this system. For instance, the Irish (visibly and socially white today) were also indentured labor in the English colonial Caribbean. Specifically in Barbados, they looked just like the colonial master – but they were not CODIFIED BY LAW as white. In fact, there was much oppression and they, along with the enslaved Africans viewed the “white” colonial master as a common enemy. This led the way for uprisings and rebellions. In Trinidad – and other parts of the Caribbean – there were indentured labourers from the Indian subcontinent. Now they are racialized as brown and eventually the Irish became racialized and codified as white, following mass migration to the US in the 18th century due to famine in Ireland.

Being racialized distinguishes you from your proximity to blackness. Being codified controls your access to material gains, social movement, and political protection. They work hand in hand. Hence, when we speak of global white supremacy and racism as systemic – it’s literally a legal, political, economic, social system. It’s much more than dislike or prejudice for others, it’s specifically that your very own racial identification, is also part of this constructed system. Whiteness was specifically invented, to enshrine the notion of white superiority and to justify black subjugation – so they could get rich.

So why is Jesus white in all those paintings?I bolded black subjugation for a reason. To make this system work long term, you’ve got to brainwash folks. We should all show caution to idolize anyone, because a large part of control lies in who we worship. The slave trade stripped away the religious and spiritual beliefs of enslaved Africans and replaced it with….

wait for it…..

white Jesus!

Growing up in Catholic school, all the Jesus statues on the convent grounds were Eurocentric, but the bible we were reading described that the hair on his head was white like wool. [Revelation 1:14-15]

A bit odd.

The point is that back in the 15th century King Charles Ⅱ founded the Royal African Company along with his brother James Ⅱ, Duke of York,(who led the company) for the sole purpose of trading gold, silver, ivory and humans straight outta West Coast Africa. It's documented that RAC was transporting about 5000 humans to the Caribbean and English colonies in North American markets per year. The company is known for shipping more enslaved Africans to the Americas than any other single institution during the entire period of the transatlantic slave trade. The investors were fully aware of all activities and intended to profit at all costs.

While British royalty was busy colonizing a whopping 25% of the world’s land mass (that’s ruling over about 500 million inhabitants at that time), art was being commissioned by the church, who coincidentally, the British monarch also oversaw as the sovereign is the Supreme Head of Church of England, binding together the religious and political. This period of art is called Renaissance Art and was rooted in Italy but swept across Europe.It was patronized by the wealthy, concerned with immortalizing their high societal status and of course the church, concerned with spreading Christianity by providing visual stories that even the illiterate could understand. Renaissance Art worked in a particular way – the client could be very particular about what they wanted. Artists really didn’t have much say in what to produce. There were expectations and contracts. As for the church… they were really specific with creating Jesus in the likeness of the European man.

RAC and other human trading companies shipped out their religion, religious images and idolatry to their African subjects in far flung lands that they didn’t have to come face to face with. Jesuit missionaries established painting schools that taught new converts Christian art in a European mode. So, the Amerindians and Africans born into slavery (who weren’t taught how to read or write), can still look up to white Jesus to save them, who coincidentally resembles the same person oppressing them. Projection at its finest is labelling the people you rape, pillage and subjugate as "savages", while likening yourself to godliness and worthy of worship.

This is the sly logic of empire and how it continues to exist.

Do not misunderstand me – I speak nothing of Christianity’s content, scripture or faith. I understand ancient Christian text pre-colonialism very well. I’m referring solely to the visual representation of this religion and how it was mishandled. This representation of European likeness by the way, now has a legacy. Renaissance Art may only be accessible in museums today, but its productive qualities exist in media. Every single major film produced in the last few decades perpetuates renaissance art in motion picture. The Passion of the Christ grossed $612 million in the box office. That’s about $1 for each of the 500 million the British empire colonized, plus a little extra for their troubles.

The TLDR about the invention of whitenessWhiteness was created to benefit a select few wealthy Europeans who wanted to get wealthier but were too lazy to work for themselves and felt they had the right to take what wasn’t theirs. They created an elaborate global caste system and then made up laws to protect themselves. They upheld their bereft ideology of greatness and goodness by visually mass producing a belief system in their likeness and sanctifying it by aligning themselves with the church to indicate godliness. And then they refined this system by creating degrees of separation between them and those they subjugated and eradicated (Africans were/are brutalized, Amerindians were/are erased), via the illusion of inclusion for those who are racialized by their proximity to whiteness.

This system continues to thrive every single time someone chooses to:(1) identify with their whiteness/proximity to whiteness or, (2) reject blackness or lean into something not white but definitely not black without recognizing that these racial identities we grasp to, and religious idolatry we bind to, are socio-political constructs. To be in on the great joke is to see the fallacy of it all.

til next Sunday!Z.