Did you know ‘God is black’?
God often appears in movies when the role of a god is necessary to the plot. But not many actors dare to play the divine role. So in many movies, God appears only as a voice.A survey was taken on which actors play the voice of God in movies. Many of them are African-American actors and Morgan Freeman has played the part multiple times. In the Book of Genesis, “God created man in his own image,” so an American media outlet claimed, “God must have been black.”
In fact, Jesus must have been dark-skinned, as the Semitic people were characterized to have dark hair, brown eyes and an olive complexion. However, in many medieval Christian art works, Jesus is depicted as a Caucasian man with blond hair and blue eyes. It is a trick of sensitive racism. Last month, a white supremacist went into a church and fired at the congregation, killing nine people. Even when the president is an African-American, racism still exists in the United States.
But racism is not just a foreign problem. Three years ago, Swedish scholars surveyed racial discrimination in 85 countries, and India, Jordan, Bangladesh and Hong Kong were ranked as the worst. Korea was just above them. But Korea was the only country with severe racism among those with a high level of education and stable economy. Sam Okyere, a television personality from Ghana appearing on the talk show “Abnormal Summit,” said that his black friends were afraid to come to Korea.
But race relations are improving. Recently, Misty Copeland became the first black principal dancer at the prestigious American Ballet Theater. In a ballet scene dominated by white dancers, her promotion is almost as significant as Barack Obama’s election victory. Her performance in “Swan Lake” would be a black swan at a different level.
In 16th century England, certain theories were compared to a black swan. Since people believed that all swans were white and the existence of a black swan would have been an absurd claim. But in the late 17th century, Dutch explorers couldn’t believe their eyes when they landed on the west coast of Australia and spotted black swans.
Now, the “black swan” concept is widespread. Seemingly impossible things can always become reality. As the black swan fallacy illustrates, racism and discrimination could rapidly disappear from Korea.
The author is an editorial writer of the JoongAng Ilbo.
JoongAng Ilbo, July 6, Page 30
by NAM JEONG-HO
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.
Standards Board Policy (0/250자)