Page 73 of Bless This Hot Mess

“Obviously, but I prefer you alive, just in case,” Ronald said, smoothing down Japheth’s features in both an agreement and a friendly warning.

“The Ferraris, Rino included, have probably had a reallyhard time fitting into Greater Napanee,” Japheth went on. “This is a pretty White small town.”

“Uh, yeah,” Ronald said, smiling without humour. “As one of the only Black families in Napanee, I did notice it’s awfully White around here. But the FerrarisareWhite.”

“They’re Italian,” Japheth corrected, helpfully.

“White.” Ronald remedied with a tight smile.

“Mmm… Italian.”

Carrington set down their drumstick on a napkin in their lap, “Shall I call Rino?”

“I don’t think we need to bother him,” Rebekkah said quickly. “It’s dinner time. I think that’s pretty rude, especially for Italians.”

“You’re joking right now, right?” Ronald asked, looking from one face to the next.

“Hmm?” Japheth said, innocent as one of the dandelions bobbing their heads in Ronald’s backyard.

“With all the… the...” Ronald exhaled. “You’re serious?”

“About what?” Japheth blinked.

“Oh, my goodness! You’re all so…” Ronald gestured broadly at the world. “Rino freaking Ferrari didnothave a hard time growing up in this town! His parents own two car dealerships! He looks like… like…”

“Antonio Sabàto Jr.?” Carrington offered, unabashedly cultured by way ofUs Weekly.

“David Gandy?” Rebekkah suggested, hands framing an imaginary cologne ad.

“John Stamos?” Japheth tried hopefully.

“Sure, like any of thoseWhiteguys!” Ronald shot back.

“John Stamos is Greek,” Rebekkah corrected.

“Rino didnothave it tough. He still doesn’t have it tough. He’s likely eating homemade rigatoni for dinner tonight that you so kindly don’t want to interrupt. So, I’m just gonna lay itout for you all nice and simple. Italians areWhiteand so are Greeks!” Ronald said, his half-dipped nugget midair like a punctuation mark.

Carrington dried their fingers on a paper napkin, this date was getting heated, but not in the way that they’d hoped. “Ronald, I understand your frustration right now. But some Italians don’t consider themselves White. And others do. So, it could be either or neither.”

“Seriously?” Ronald said, throwing his hands up and accidentally over boarding the nugget into the yard. Its sacrifice only served as an exclamation point in his argument. “See,anotherway White people can bend the rules and do whatever they want.”

“Rino didn’t choose to be Italian, and you didn’t choose to be Black and Jesus didn’t choose to be White,” Rebekkah said, as if placing a warm blanket over the smouldering argument to extinguish it.

“What?” Ronald blinked.

“Rino didn’t choose to be Italian, and you didn’t choose…” Rebekkah began again, then paused as Ronald’s expression settled between baffled and amused.

“I heard what you said,” Ronald sighed, “but first Rino isn’t White and now Jesuswas?”

“Is,” Rebekkah corrected, though her choice to digress into a semantic discussion was ill-timed. “And before you ask, not just because he’s a ghost.”

“I’m just gonna jump in here,” Japheth said, palms raised, showing no weapons but his words. “No disrespect Rebekkah, but I don’t think Jesus was orisWhite.”

“Thank you!” Ronald exclaimed, relief breaking like sunshine through stormy skies across his face. He sat back, thankful that finally someone, his new best friend,was on his side.

“Most of the biblical artwork I’ve seen, from late antiquity through the Renaissance, was created by Europeans. And the artists tended to portray biblical figures resembling the people around them–either the models they would hire from the streets or members of the rich dynastic families who could afford to patronize the artists and have paintings of themselves created. So, the fact that White faces in this artwork have been pervasive doesn’t mean it should be persuasive.

Through colonial expansion, these images of a White Jesus became almost universal when really, they were just a reflection of a visual language rooted in convenience. But that convenience poses a problem for religious expansionism because it presents God as an idol and that idol having European features that were meant to be universal but are in fact hyper-local,” Japheth theorized.