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There’s a strange history of white journalists trying to better understand the Black experience by ‘becoming’ Black

The article critiques white journalists who try to experience Black life by pretending to be Black, arguing these efforts are superficial, reinforce stereotypes, and trivialize systemic racism and the Black experience.

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Since the mid-20th century, a handful of white journalists have tried to understand the complexity of the Black experience through donning a costume. Reg Burkett/Express/Hulton Archive via Getty Images

Alisha Gaines, Florida State University

A peculiar desire seems to still haunt some white people: “I wish I knew what it was like to be Black.”

This wish is different from wanting to cosplay the coolness of Blackness – mimicking style, aping music and parroting vernacular.

This is a presumptive, racially imaginative desire, one that covets not just the rhythm of Black life, but also its blues.

While he doesn’t want to admit it, Canadian-American journalist Sam Forster is one of those white people.

Three years after hearing George Floyd cry “Mama” so desperately that it brought a country out of quarantine, Forster donned a synthetic Afro wig and brown contacts, tinted his eyebrows and smeared his face with CVS-bought Maybelline liquid foundation in the shade of “Mocha.” Though Forster did not achieve a “movie-grade” transformation, he became, in his words, “Believably Black.”

He went on to attempt a racial experiment no one asked for, one that he wrote about in his recently published memoir, “Seven Shoulders: Taxonomizing Racism in Modern America.”

For two weeks in September 2023, Forster pretended to hitchhike on the shoulder of a highway in seven different U.S. cities: Nashville, Tennessee; Atlanta; Birmingham, Alabama; Los Angeles; Las Vegas; Chicago and Detroit. On the first day in town, he would stand on the side of the road as his white self, seeing who, if anyone, would stop and offer him a ride. On the second day, he stuck out his thumb on the same shoulder, but this time in what I’d describe as “mochaface.”

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Since September is hot, he set a two-hour limit for his experiments. During his seven white days, he was offered, but did not take, seven rides. On seven subsequent Black days, he was offered, but did not take, one ride. He speculated that day was a fluke.

Forster is not the first white person to center themselves in the discussion of American racism by pretending to be Black.

His wish mirrors that of the white people featured in my 2017 book, “Black for a Day: White Fantasies of Race and Empathy.” The book tells the history of what I call “empathetic racial impersonation,” in which white people indulge in their fantasies of being Black under the guise of empathizing with the Black experience.

To me, these endeavors are futile. They end up reinforcing stereotypes and failing to address systemic racism, while conferring a false sense of racial authority.

Going undercover in the South

Black, white and yellow book cover with the bold text reading 'In the Land of Jim Crow.'
Journalist Ray Sprigle’s 1949 memoir wasn’t well-received. Burnside Rare Books/eBay

The genealogy begins in the late 1940s with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ray Sprigle.

Sprigle, a white reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, decided he wanted to experience postwar racism by “becoming” a Black man. After unsuccessfully trying to darken his skin beyond a tan, Sprigle shaved his head, put on giant glasses and traded his signature, 10-gallon hat for an unassuming cap. For four weeks beginning in May 1948, Sprigle navigated the Jim Crow South as a light-skinned Black man named James Rayel Crawford.

Sprigle documented dilapidated sharecropper’s cabins, segregated schools and women widowed by lynching. What he witnessed – but did not experience – informed his 21-part series of front page articles for the Post-Gazette. He followed up the series by publishing a widely panned 1949 memoir, “In the Land of Jim Crow.”

Sprigle never won that second Pulitzer.

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Cosplaying as Black

Sprigle’s more famous successor, John Howard Griffin, published his memoir, “Black Like Me,” in 1961.

Like Sprigle, Griffin explored the South as a temporary Black man, darkening his skin with pills intended to treat vitiligo, a skin disease that causes splotchy losses of pigmentation. He also used stains to even his skin tone and spent time under a tanning lamp.

During his weeks as “Joseph Franklin,” Griffin encountered racism on a number of occasions: White thugs chased him, bus drivers refused to let him disembark to pee, store managers denied him work, closeted, gay white men aggressively hit on him, and otherwise nice-seeming white people grilled him with what Griffin called the “hate stare.” Once Griffin resumed being white and news broke about his racial experiment, his white neighbors from his hometown in Mansfield, Texas, hanged him in effigy.

For his work, Griffin was lauded as an icon in empathy. Since, unlike Sprigle, he experienced racist incidents himself, Griffin showed skeptical white readers what they refused to believe: Racism was real. The book became a bestseller and a movie, and is still included in school curricula – at the expense, I might add, of African-American literature.

Smiling Black man wearing a tie sits on a bed while talking to a young white man with a camera hanging from his neck.
John Howard Griffin, on the left, darkened his skin through tanning and applying skin creams. Christina Saint Marche/flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

Griffin’s importance to this genealogy extends beyond middle-schoolers reading “Black Like Me,” to his successor and mentee, Grace Halsell.

Halsell, a freelance journalist and former staff writer for Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration, decided to “become” a Black woman – first in Harlem in New York City, and then in Mississippi.

Without consulting any Black woman before baking herself caramel in tropical suns and using Griffin’s doctors to administer vitiligo-corrective medication, Halsell initially planned to “be” Black for a year. But after alleging someone attempted to sexually assault her while she was working as a Black domestic worker, Halsell ended her stint as a Black woman early.

Although her experiment only lasted six months, she still claimed to be someone who could authentically represent her “darker sisters” in her 1969 memoir, “Soul Sister.”

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Turn-of-the-century ‘race switching’

Forster writes that his 2024 memoir is the “fourth act” – after Sprigle, Griffin and Halsell – of what he calls “journalistic blackface.”

However, he is not, as he claims, “the first person to earnestly cross the color barrier in over half a century.”

In a 174-page book self-described as “gonzo” with only 17 citations, Forster failed to finish his homework.

In 1994, Joshua Solomon, a white college student, medically dyed his skin to “become” a Black man after reading “Black Like Me.” His originally planned, monthlong experiment in Georgia only lasted a few days. But he nonetheless detailed his experiences in an article for The Washington Post and netted an appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

Then, in 2006, FX released, “Black. White.,” a six-part reality television series advertised as the “ultimate racial experiment.”

Two families – one white, the other Black – “switched” their races to perform versions of each-otherness while living together in Los Angeles. While the makeup team won a Primetime Emmy Award, the families said goodbye seething with resentment instead of understanding.

A masterclass of white arrogance

Believing it would distract from the findings of his experiment, Forster refuses to show readers his mochaface.

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Even after confronting evidence forcing him to question his project’s appropriateness, like the multiple articles condemning “wearing makeup to imitate the appearance of a Black person,” he insists his insights into American racism justify his methods and are different from the harmful legacies of blackface. As he stands on the side of the road, sun and sweat compromising whatever care he took to paint his face, Forster concludes that racism can be divided into two broad taxonomies: institutional and interpersonal.

The former, he believes, “is effectively dead,” and the latter is most often experienced as “shoulder,” like the subtle refusal to pick up a mocha-faced hitchhiker.

Forster’s Amazon book description touts “Seven Shoulders” as “the most important book on American race relations that has ever been written.”

Indeed, it is a masterclass – but one on the arrogance of white assumptions about Blackness.

To believe that the richness of Black identity can be understood through a temporary costume trivializes the lifelong trauma of racism. It turns the complexity of Black life into a stunt.

Whether it’s Forster’s premise that Black people are ill-equipped to testify about their own experiences, his sketchy citations, the hubris of his caricature or the venom with which he speaks about the Black Lives Matter movement, Forster offers an important reminder that liberation can’t be bought at the drugstore.

Alisha Gaines, Associate Professor of English, Florida State University

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This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Bridge is a section of the STM Daily News Blog meant for diversity, offering real news stories about bona fide community efforts to perpetuate a greater good. The purpose of The Bridge is to connect the divides that separate us, fostering understanding and empathy among different groups. By highlighting positive initiatives and inspirational actions, The Bridge aims to create a sense of unity and shared purpose. This section brings to light stories of individuals and organizations working tirelessly to promote inclusivity, equality, and mutual respect. Through these narratives, readers are encouraged to appreciate the richness of diverse perspectives and to participate actively in building stronger, more cohesive communities.

https://stmdailynews.com/category/the-bridge


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Campus diversity is becoming difficult to measure as students keep their race and ethnicity hidden on college applications

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More students are listing ‘race unknown’ on their college applications. Ariel Skelley/DigitalVision via Getty Images

Karly Sarita Ford, Penn State

When the Supreme Court struck down race-based admissions at American colleges and universities just over a year ago, many predicted U.S. campuses would become much less diverse. But in part due to students who decide not to disclose their race or ethnicity, coupled with universities’ selective use of statistics, it is not clear how much the decision has affected diversity on campus.

As higher education institutions begin reporting the racial makeup of the class of 2028 – the first to be affected by the 2023 decision – the data is hard to interpret, confusing and inconclusive.

As a sociologist who has studied how institutions of higher education collect and report data on race and ethnicity, I have identified some factors that contribute to this lack of clarity.

Students don’t identify with choices given

Some students may not select a racial or ethnic category because they don’t believe any of the categories really fit. For example, before multiracial students could select “one or more,” an option that became widely available in 2010, they were more likely to decline to identify their race or ethnicity. Some even boycotted checkboxes entirely.

Other students don’t view their race as important: 67% of the students who choose “race and ethnicity unknown” are white. Of these students, 33% say race and ethnicity are not a relevant part of their identity, a researcher found in 2008.

The number of students who don’t respond to questions about race or ethnicity – and are listed in the “race unknown” category – is increasing. At Harvard University, for example, the percentage of “race-unknown” undergrad students doubled from 2023 to 2024.

As the number of “race unknown” students grows, it not only becomes harder to determine a student body’s ethnic and racial diversity but also the impact of the ban on race-conscious admissions.

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Five college students in blue caps and gowns sit on a bench on campus.
Some students may not view race as an important part of their identity. John Giustina/The Image Bank via Getty Images

Fearing discrimination, students don’t disclose race

Some students believe their race or ethnicity will harm their chances of admission.

This is particularly true at many selective institutions, which have higher nonresponse rates than less selective institutions, about 4% compared with 1% to 2%.

My research shows that students are even more likely to pass on identifying race or ethnicity at selective law schools, where race and ethnicity could be used among a variety of criteria for admissions before the Supreme Court ruled against that practice. An average of 8% of students at those schools chose not to identify, compared with 4% at less selective law schools.

‘We’re very diverse’: University decisions distort statistics

What a university chooses to report will also affect the student body demographic data the public sees. Harvard, for example, does not report its proportion of white students.

Some institutions use statistics strategically to appear more diverse than they are. These strategies include counting multiracial students multiple times – once for each race selected – or including international students as a separate category in demographic pie charts. The greater the number of different-colored slices on the chart, the more demographically “diverse” an institution appears to be.

Impact of Supreme Court ruling: Clearer picture coming soon

While universities may not all report their student demographics the same way in their own materials, they all have to report it the same way to the federal government – namely, to its Integrated Post Secondary Education Data System, better known as IPEDS. The next IPEDS report on characteristics for the 2024 enrollment class is expected to be released in spring 2025. Once that data is available, a better picture of how the Supreme Court’s decision has affected diversity in college enrollment should emerge.

That clearer picture might not last long. In 2027, the federal government will require colleges and universities to make changes to how they report student race and ethnicity. Among the changes is the addition of a Middle Eastern and North African category. Under the current standard, Middle Eastern and North African students are counted as white. As a result, white enrollment at some colleges and universities will appear to decline after 2027.

The new standards will also change the way universities treat Hispanic or Latino ethnicity on enrollment forms. Today, if students self-identify as Hispanic and white, they will be categorized as Hispanic. If students select Hispanic and white in 2027, they will be categorized as multiracial. The revised categories will muddy the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision. A drop in the number of Hispanic students reported could be due to the court’s ruling. Or it may result from the new way students will be counted.

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Until universities and colleges adjust to the new guidelines about collecting and reporting race – and as long as students decline to provide their racial identities – the full effect of banning consideration of race in college admissions will remain a cloudy picture at best.

Karly Sarita Ford, Associate Professor of Education and Sociology, Penn State

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Bridge is a section of the STM Daily News Blog meant for diversity, offering real news stories about bona fide community efforts to perpetuate a greater good. The purpose of The Bridge is to connect the divides that separate us, fostering understanding and empathy among different groups. By highlighting positive initiatives and inspirational actions, The Bridge aims to create a sense of unity and shared purpose. This section brings to light stories of individuals and organizations working tirelessly to promote inclusivity, equality, and mutual respect. Through these narratives, readers are encouraged to appreciate the richness of diverse perspectives and to participate actively in building stronger, more cohesive communities.

https://stmdailynews.com/the-bridge

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Populist podcasters love RFK, Jr., and he took the same left-right turn toward Trump as they did

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., once a Democrat, endorsed Trump and aims to lead Health and Human Services, symbolizing a notable shift in populist political dynamics.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a one-time Democrat, endorsed Trump on Aug. 23, 2024, after ending his independent presidential bid. AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Rachel Meade, Boston University

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services in the new administration. The idea of Trump, a Republican, appointing Kennedy to his cabinet would have been surprising just a few months ago.

After all, Kennedy began his presidential run last year as a Democrat and is the scion of a Democratic dynasty. Nephew of former President John F. Kennedy and the son of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Kennedy spent most of his career as a lawyer representing environmental groups that sued polluting corporations and municipalities.

Yet Kennedy, 70, has long held positions that put him at odds with the Democratic mainstream. He pushes public health misinformation around vaccines and HIV/AIDS, opposes U.S. military involvement in foreign wars, including in Ukraine, and claims that the CIA assassinated his uncle.

Kennedy’s ideologically mixed politics are hard to categorize in traditional left-right terms.

My political science research finds that Kennedy’s journey from left-aligned skepticism into Trumpism is part of a broader trend of contemporary left-to-right populist transformations happening across the United States.

Rise of the populist alternative media

Populism is a political story that presents the good “people” of a nation as in a struggle against its “elites,” who have corrupted democratic institutions to further their own selfish interests. It cuts across the ideological spectrum, often combining left-wing economic critiques with right-wing cultural ones.

Based on my research, I find that Kennedy uses a populist style of speech that matches the rhetoric of today’s online alternative media, also known as the “alternative influence network.”

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If populism cuts across the ideological spectrum, so does the alternative media.

This network of politically diverse independent podcasters, YouTube hosts and other creators connects with young, politically disaffected audiences by mixing politics with comedy and pop culture, and presenting themselves as embattled defenders of free thinking – in opposition to mainstream media and mainstream parties.

Top-rated shows include “Breaking Points,” “Stay Free with Russell Brand,” “The Joe Rogan Experience,” The Culture War with Tim Pool“ and ”This Past Weekend w/Theo Von.“

While many of these shows have been around since the 2010s, the network expanded throughout the Trump era. Their popularity skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, when public distrust in government, anger over pandemic restrictions and vaccine skepticism surged.

These shows hosted Kennedy frequently throughout his presidential run in 2023 and 2024. He was particularly focused on a class of male-dominated alternative shows sometimes called the ”manosphere.“

Kennedy finds his audience

I analyzed a set of Kennedy’s appearances for this story. Both Kennedy and alternative media hosts claim to care about “the real issues” facing Americans such as war, corporate and political malfeasance and economic troubles. They condemn the “mainstream” for promoting frivolous “culture war” topics related to race and identity politics.

Kennedy and the alternative media hosts also combine left and right arguments in a typically populist way. They claim that corporations control the government and that liberals and corporations censor free speech.

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For example, on a May 2024 episode of “Stay Free with Russell Brand,” Brand asserted that corrupt institutions are backed by the “deep state.” He asked Kennedy how he would fight these powerful interests.

“The major agencies of government have all been captured by the industries they’re supposed to regulate and act as sock puppets serving the mercantile interests of these big corporations,” responded Kennedy. “I have a particular ability to unravel that because I’ve litigated against so many of these agencies.”

My research found that Kennedy often bonded with his alternative media hosts over his perception that liberal media sources – allegedly controlled by the Democratic National Committee or the CIA – were censoring his campaign.

Like Kennedy, alternative media hosts often identify as former or disaffected Democrats. Many used to work at mainstream left news sites, where they say they experienced censorship.

‘This little island of free speech’

In a June 2023 episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Rogan explained that he no longer identifies as a liberal because of the “orthodoxy it preaches” around issues like vaccines. He then cited YouTube’s removal of some of Kennedy’s vaccine-related videos for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policy.

Kennedy had just spent 90 minutes outlining his journey toward vaccine skepticism, which started with meeting a mother who believed vaccines caused her son’s autism.

“If a woman tells you something about her child, you should listen,” he said.

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Kennedy also described being convinced by a set of studies that public health officials had ignored.

“Trust the experts is not a function of science, it’s a function of religion,” he said. “I’ve been litigating 40 years; there’s experts on both sides.”

Afterward, he thanked Rogan for maintaining “this little island of free speech in a desert of suppression and of critical thinking.”

Kennedy reiterated this point in the Aug. 23, 2024, speech that ended his presidential campaign. The “alternative media” had kept his ideas alive, he said, while the mainstream networks had shut him out despite his historically high third-party poll numbers of 15% to 20%.

“The DNC-allied mainstream media networks maintained a near-perfect embargo on interviews with me,” Kennedy said.

Speaking directly to the reporters in the room, he added, “Your institutions and media made themselves government mouthpieces and stenographers for the organs of power.”

Kennedy ended that speech by endorsing Trump for president, a move that reportedly prompted Trump to promise his former rival a role overseeing health policy in his administration.

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Left-to-right pipeline

Trust in a range of U.S. institutions is at historical lows. Americans on both the right and the left are skeptical of power. As the 2024 election results showed, they crave radical change.

Alternative media hosts tapped into this desire, helping to push some disaffected listeners rightward. The same left-to-right pipeline landed Kennedy in Trump’s orbit.

Trump and his allies were adept at harnessing the power of the alternative media ecosystem. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump appeared on male-centric shows like “The Joe Rogan Experience,” and “This Past Weekend w/Theo Von,” and many media critics see this as a big factor in Trump’s success winning over young, male voters. Both Rogan and Von were personally thanked by name at Trump’s victory celebration.

Trump and his inner circle even form part of the alternative media themselves. Trump founded the alternative social media platform Truth Social and his adviser Steve Bannon hosts an influential podcast called the “War Room” on another MAGA alternative media platform, Rumble. Known for its fiery populist rhetoric, the “War Room” broadcasts live for an astonishing 22 hours a week.

Bannon, who was briefly jailed for contempt of Congress in mid-2024 and now faces trial in New York for financial fraud, used his show as a soapbox to promote Trump’s candidacy. He also praised Kennedy on the air, boosting the Democrat’s profile among his far-right listeners.

For Kennedy, aisle-crossing is part of the solution to partisan polarization.

“Step outside the culture war!” he tweeted in July 2024. “Step outside the politics of hating the other side!”

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This story has been updated to reflect the outcome of the 2024 election and Kennedy’s likely nomination to Trump’s cabinet. It was originally published on Oct. 29, 2024.

Rachel Meade, Lecturer of Political Science, Boston University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

STM Daily News is a vibrant news blog dedicated to sharing the brighter side of human experiences. Emphasizing positive, uplifting stories, the site focuses on delivering inspiring, informative, and well-researched content. With a commitment to accurate, fair, and responsible journalism, STM Daily News aims to foster a community of readers passionate about positive change and engaged in meaningful conversations. Join the movement and explore stories that celebrate the positive impacts shaping our world.

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Americans use the Book of Revelation to talk about immigration – and always have

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A French tapestry depicts Saint John the Evangelist gazing at the New Jerusalem. Octave 444 via Wikimedia Commons

Yii-Jan Lin, Yale University

During a campaign speech in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 19, 2024, Donald Trump promised to save the country from immigrants: “I will rescue every town across America that has been invaded and conquered, and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in a jail or kick them out of our country.”

Depicting immigrants as a threat has been a pillar of Trump’s message since 2015. And the types of terms he uses aren’t just disparaging. It might not seem like it, but Trump is continuing a long tradition in American politics: using language shaped by the Bible.

When the former president says those at the border are “poisoning the blood of our country,” “animals” and “rapists,” his vocabulary mirrors verses from the New Testament. The Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, says those kept out of the city of God are “filthy”; they are “dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.”

In fact, Americans have been using the Bible for centuries to talk about immigrants, especially those they want to keep out. As a scholar of the Bible and politics, I’ve studied how language from Revelation shaped American ideas about who belongs in the United States – the focus of my book, “Immigration and Apocalypse.”

The shining city

The Book of Revelation describes a vision of the end of the world, when the wicked are punished and the good rewarded. It tells the story of God’s enemies, who worship the evil Beast of the Sea, bear his mark on their body and threaten God’s people. Because of their wickedness, they suffer diseases, catastrophes and war until they are finally destroyed in the lake of fire.

God’s followers, however, enter through the gates of the walls surrounding the New Jerusalem, a holy city that comes down from heaven. God’s chosen people enter through the gates and live in the shining city for eternity.

A black and white engraving of a huge tree in the middle of a shining, walled city, with a crowd outside.
18th century evangelists like the English preacher John Wesley urged sinners to take the path of righteousness, toward the New Jerusalem. Photo 12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Throughout American history, many of its Christian citizens have imagined themselves as God’s saints in the New Jerusalem. Puritan colonists believed they were establishing God’s kingdom, both metaphorically and literally. Ronald Reagan likened the nation to the New Jerusalem by describing America as a “shining city … built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace,” but with city walls and doors.

Reagan was specifically quoting Puritan John Winthrop, one of the founders of Massachusetts Bay Colony, whose use of the “city on a hill” phrase quotes Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. But Reagan’s detailed description closely matches that of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21. Like God’s heavenly city, Reagan’s picture of America also has strong foundations, walls and gates, and people from every nation bringing in tribute.

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Barring the gates

If people imagine the U.S. as God’s city, then it’s easy also to imagine enemies who want to invade that city. And this is how unwanted immigrants have been depicted through American history: as enemies of God.

In the 19th century, when virtually all politicians were Protestant, anti-Catholic politicians accused Irish immigrants of bearing the “mark of the Beast” and being loyal to the “Antichrist”: the pope. They claimed that Irish immigrants could form an unholy army against the nation.

At the turn of the century, “yellow peril” novels against Chinese immigration imagined a heathen horde taking over the U.S. At the end of one such book, China itself is depicted as a satanic “Black Dragon,” forcing its way through “the Golden Gate” of America.

A faded green and yellow cartoon shows a menacing plague of insects with human faces.
‘Uncle Sam’s Farm in Danger’: an 1878 cartoon by G. F. Keller depicts Chinese emigrants fleeing famine. The Wasp via Wikimedia Commons

And all immigrant groups who were unwanted at one time or another have been accused of being “filthy” and diseased, like the enemies of God in Revelation. Italians, Jews, Irish, Chinese and Mexicans were all, at some point, targeted as unhealthy and carrying illness.

In political cartoons from the turn of the 20th century, Eastern European and Jewish immigrants were depicted as rats, while Chinese immigrants were portrayed as a horde of grasshoppers – echoing imagery from Revelation, where locusts with human faces swarm the Earth. During COVID-19, an event itself considered apocalyptic, xenophobic fear has focused on Asian Americans and migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

This constellation of labels from Revelation – plague-bearing, bestial, invading, sexually corrupt, murderous – has been reused and recycled throughout American history.

An Uncle Sam figure playing a pipe leads rats with human faces into the ocean, away from Europe's shores.
A 1909 political cartoon by S.D. Ehrhart. Library of Congress

‘Heaven has a wall’

Trump himself has described immigrants as diseased, “not human,” sexual assaulters, violent and those “who don’t like our religion.”

Others have more explicitly used images from Revelation to talk about immigration. Pastor Robert Jeffress, who preached at Trump’s 2017 inauguration church service, told viewers on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” “God is not against walls, walls are not ‘un-Christian,’ the Bible says even heaven is going to have a wall around it.” The Conservative Political Action Conference held a panel in 2017 titled “If Heaven Has a Gate, A Wall, and Extreme Vetting, Why Can’t America?” There are even bumper stickers that say, “Heaven Has A Wall and Strict Immigration Policy / Hell Has Open Borders.”

Revelation 21 indeed describes the heavenly New Jerusalem with a massive shining wall, “clear as crystal,” with pearls for gates. Trump, similarly, talks about his “big, beautiful door,” set in a “beautiful,” massive wall that also has to be “see-through.”

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The city of God metaphor has long been a tool for American leaders – both to idealize the nation and to warn against immigration. But the concept of a walled-in city seems increasingly outdated in a digitally connected, global world.

As migration continues to rise around the world due to climate change and conflict, I’d argue that these metaphors and the attitudes they drive are not just obsolete, but exacerbating crisis.

Yii-Jan Lin, Associate Professor of New Testament and Public Voices Fellow, Yale University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

he Bridge is a section of the STM Daily News Blog meant for diversity, offering real news stories about bona fide community efforts to perpetuate a greater good. The purpose of The Bridge is to connect the divides that separate us, fostering understanding and empathy among different groups. By highlighting positive initiatives and inspirational actions, The Bridge aims to create a sense of unity and shared purpose. This section brings to light stories of individuals and organizations working tirelessly to promote inclusivity, equality, and mutual respect. Through these narratives, readers are encouraged to appreciate the richness of diverse perspectives and to participate actively in building stronger, more cohesive communities.

https://stmdailynews.com/the-bridge

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