Possibly racist statue?

[followingtheway]

Hello, everyone, before I post this let me just say I am Catholic and very devoted to St. Michael and not easily offended but what I saw startled me…

I was shopping around for things when there was a Catholic section, the images were beautiful and there was a lot of St. Michael statues but one caught my eye it was Michael crushing on the devil but there was something about the devil.

It had no horns, no tail, it just had brown skin. I thought that was kind of racist wasn’t it? That the devil was portrayed as having brown skin, while the angel had Caucasian features. Associating brown or black skin with darkness and bad stuff while associating white skin with good stuff.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Road2Damascus]

I think there is a famous painting like that that has been around for hundreds of years. When it was painted, were the Europeans that aware of other people in this world? One could say that the difference between night and day is likewise racist but that is part of life. The Devil is the Prince of Darkness after all. Man evolved in a way that associates darkness with more unseamly elements. Any web image search will bring up plenty of images of St. Michael the Archangel fighting the devil and you see different colored ones. Do we want the Devil to be red??

 

[followingtheway]

You bring up a good point, thank you for your thoughts.

God bless :byzsoc:

David

 

[SwizzleStick]

I think there is a famous painting like that that has been around for hundreds of years. When it was painted, were the Europeans that aware of other people in this world? One could say that the difference between night and day is likewise racist but that is part of life. The Devil is the Prince of Darkness after all. Man evolved in a way that associates darkness with more unseamly elements. Any web image search will bring up plenty of images of St. Michael the Archangel fighting the devil and you see different colored ones. Do we want the Devil to be red??

Yep. Case in point: What color was devil’s food cake? Angel food cake? (I haven’t seen the term “devil’s food cake” in years, so I’m not even sure if it is used anymore.) I think it is just a reflection of an archaic and simplistic way of thinking. Good guys wearing white hats and bad guys wearing black hats is the same kind of thing.

 

[followingtheway]

Yep. Case in point: What color was devil’s food cake? Angel food cake? (I haven’t seen the term “devil’s food cake” in years, so I’m not even sure if it is used anymore.) I think it is just a reflection of an archaic way of thinking.

True true…

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

Why is it not considered racist to even notice what ‘color’ the devil is?

Does racism only go one way?

 

[Catholic90]

Yep. Case in point: What color was devil’s food cake? **Angel food cake? ** (I haven’t seen the term “devil’s food cake” in years, so I’m not even sure if it is used anymore.) I think it is just a reflection of an archaic and simplistic way of thinking. Good guys wearing white hats and bad guys wearing black hats is the same kind of thing.

I make a mean chocolate angel food cake!

 

[Tallguy88]

Yep. Case in point: What color was devil’s food cake? Angel food cake? (I haven’t seen the term “devil’s food cake” in years, so I’m not even sure if it is used anymore.) I think it is just a reflection of an archaic and simplistic way of thinking. Good guys wearing white hats and bad guys wearing black hats is the same kind of thing.

I work in a bakery and all of the chocolate cakes and cupcakes we get in say something along the lines of “1/2 sheet cake - Devil” but when we package and label them, we call them chocolate.

 

[SwizzleStick]

Yep. Case in point: What color was devil’s food cake? Angel food cake? (I haven’t seen the term “devil’s food cake” in years, so I’m not even sure if it is used anymore.) I think it is just a reflection of an archaic and simplistic way of thinking. Good guys wearing white hats and bad guys wearing black hats is the same kind of thing.
Tallguy88;8285120:

I work in a bakery and all of the chocolate cakes and cupcakes we get in say something along the lines of “1/2 sheet cake - Devil” but when we package and label them, we call them chocolate.

Guess I don’t get out much, since the term is still in use and I didn’t know it.

 

[centurionguard]

Why is it not considered racist to even notice what ‘color’ the devil is?

Does racism only go one way?

I would have thought in similar lines. How about people who depict images in cloud formations.

Sometimes we see what our imagination wants us to see or reminds us of as in comparisons.

 

[Beth_Cecilia]

duncanhines.com/products/cakes/moist-deluxe-devils-food-cake-mix

They also sell a variety of other chocolate cake mixes. Being a cook from scratch kind of gal, I have no idea what the difference is, if there is one.

That said, I do think the statue reflects an archaic way of thinking that itself was often entwined with racism. There have certainly been people who thought the darker the skin, the more evil a person was. If I happened to encounter such a statue, and it was quite old, I would not bat an eye. If it was recently made, I would wonder a bit at the apparent lack of sensitivity. It may reflect a racist attitude on the part of the artist, but more likely reflects an outdated artistic aesthetic that did equate dark skinned with darkness. I’d not want such a statue in my house.

 

[Road2Damascus]

I would have thought in similar lines. How about people who depict images in cloud formations.

Sometimes we see what our imagination wants us to see or reminds us of as in comparisons.

And on doing an image search, I see solid colored often all white statues… and in the images, I see Satan portrayed as a “Caucasian” as well.

And if we ourselves were to get a solid colored statue, ivory colored for example and we were able to paint him ourselves…it would be interesting what each of us would do. In some images I found, I still think the Satan figure still appears to have Caucasian features. Might we think that this is racist too??? No, because probably for me, I would think another Caucasian type painted it. Now this is getting a bit on the delicate side, so I don’t mean to do that.

I think finding what is probably one very old painting of this, I would paint Satan as just a Caucasian like in the painting though, while Michael is close to being white as snow, the Devil seems very fleshy, close to a sun tan type color.

 

[larsenl1]

just a point on racism here, should I be offended because I am white skinned and my great grandparents are from Germany and yet every picture of Hitler shows him as a white man who is evil?

I mean why do people have to read symbolism into so many things. The artist that created that sculpture was creating something about God, not about whether a man from the island of St. Thomas is good or bad. I mean, people with very dark brown or sometimes even blueish black skin come from so many islands and countries it is not even appropriate to call them all African Americans. What do you call a person who is Irish, Mohican and Carribean? I have friend who appears to be black but has more Irish blood in her than I do.

What is a person of dark skin called in Scotland? Do they still want to be called African American? What do the brown people living in Australia think when they come to this forum and some of the American members say African-American? Are they insulted? What do the black people living in Madagascar think?

Can we let go a little of this tight grip we have on anti-discrimination and politically correct words? I am not opposed to the idea of no insulting a person and some sensitivity, but at the same time, how can I possibly avoid accidentally offending someone somewhere in the world because of my own geographical language peculiarities?

BTW I am one of those people who like to color the sky green and the grass blue or make a pink horse just because it is different. it is called art.

 

[larsenl1]

And I also see statues all in onyx of Jesus Christ.

There are multiple images of a Black Madonna, they are in Spain and France. They are revered as wonderful, I don’t think anyone with light skin is offended that the Blessed Virgin is not pure alabaster white.

 

[followingtheway]

yet every picture of Hitler shows him as a white man who is evil?

But Hitler was white. Do we do know the devil’s color?

I mean why do people have to read symbolism into so many things.

I don’t WANT to think it’s racist, I’m light skinned myself, I just happened to see the statue Michael was light skinned (which didn’t bother me) but he was crushing a devil without horns and a tail, he looked like a regular angel except with black hair, black wings, and brown skin, and I thought that was kind of odd.

And I also see statues all in onyx of Jesus Christ.

There are multiple images of a Black Madonna, they are in Spain and France. They are revered as wonderful, I don’t think anyone with light skin is offended that the Blessed Virgin is not pure alabaster white.

And that’s great, I’m light skinned and those images of Mary are beautiful but lets say there was black Madonna crushing a light/apicrot-skinned devil. Wouldn’t that be odd as well?

 

[larsenl1]

My point about the Black Madonna was this
is the artist saying that black is good? Is black really better than white? Is black better than pink?

Personally I prefer the art that depicts the persons in the Bible with a middle eastern olive skin with dark eyes and dark hair.

I don’t care what color the devil is because he is not an actual human. He is supernatural. We can’t accurately depict God the Father or the Holy Spirit in art either, no matter how hard we try.

 

[Beth_Cecilia]

People all over the world have depicted Mary and Jesus (and various Saints of course) to look just like themselves. When Mary appears, in different places, she does not always look the same. She looks like the local people. When people want to use art to picture Jesus or Mary as ‘same’ there is no offense- though it cannot be historically accurate. Historical accuracy in this case, IMO, being as impossible as it is irrelevant.

But what of picturing the devil as ‘other?’ That seems different, and also theologically flawed. Certainly, it is easy to read too much into things. I doubt that the artist, if contemporary, had any intent to equate dark-skinned with evil. But in religious art, traditionally, every detail does matter. Who is looking where? What are they holding? Who do they look like? It is disingenuous to say, simply, that it is an irrelevant detail. Good art holds up to such analysis.

How should the devil be pictured? It is an interesting question, posed in the first response here. A little red man with a pitchfork? A serpant? A man? A beast? A dark cloud? A strange ghostly demon figure conjured up by the artist? An artist can answer in any of these ways, or in any other way he can imagine. But if the only difference between the angel and the devil is that the angel looks like the artist or the intended audience, and the devil is a caricature of another race, that is a poor portrayal and it is not irrational to take offense. I would not display such a piece in my home.

 

[followingtheway]

That said, I do think the statue reflects an archaic way of thinking that itself was often entwined with racism. There have certainly been people who thought the darker the skin, the more evil a person was. If I happened to encounter such a statue, and it was quite old, I would not bat an eye. If it was recently made, I would wonder a bit at the apparent lack of sensitivity. It may reflect a racist attitude on the part of the artist, but more likely reflects an outdated artistic aesthetic that did equate dark skinned with darkness. I’d not want such a statue in my house.

How should the devil be pictured? It is an interesting question, posed in the first response here. A little red man with a pitchfork? A serpant? A man? A beast? A dark cloud? A strange ghostly demon figure conjured up by the artist? An artist can answer in any of these ways, or in any other way he can imagine. But if the only difference between the angel and the devil is that the angel looks like the artist or the intended audience, and the devil is a caricature of another race, that is a poor portrayal and it is not irrational to take offense. I would not display such a piece in my home.

There a very good comments Beth, I like these posts in particular because they evaluate my point. Well done. :clapping: :clapping: :clapping: :clapping:

God bless :byzsoc:

David

 

[larsenl1]

There a very good comments Beth, I like these posts in particular because they evaluate my point. Well done. :clapping: :clapping: :clapping: :clapping:

God bless :byzsoc:

David

So it appears that you are prejudiced in favor of people who agree with you.

 

[TimothyH]

The statue probably had nothing to do with racism.

In the Bible, black is often used to symbolize death, error, fear, and uncertainty in the Bible. Black is even used to symbolize judgement.

I looked, and there was a black horse, and its rider held a scale in his hand. (Revelation 6:5)

Jesus is betrayed in the dark of night and Jesus even asks the captors why they have to come out at night like robbers.

Day after day I was with you in the temple area, and you did not seize me; but this is your hour, the time for the power of darkness.” (Luke 22:53)

White symbolizes truth, freedom from error, confidence, victory, magesty, cleanliness, purity and purification.

**Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. ** (Psalm 51:7)

I looked, and there was a white horse, and its rider had a bow. 3 He was given a crown, and he rode forth victorious to further his victories. (Revelation 6:2)

He said to me, “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (Revelation 7:14)

-Tim-