AggieD, you wrote:

"Azizi whilst I understand your point that children need good role models, I still cannot understand why you press the point that Jesus was black.

The point I was trying to make was that as Jesus was a Jew, he was just as likely to have 'woolly' hair & be dark skinned, but it was very unlikely that he was black. Dark skinned, certainly as he would have spent a good deal of his time in the hot sun."

Here is my response:
AggieD, the main point that I was trying to make was that the racial referent "Black" is [now] mostly a social construct...it may mean [and usually does mean] different things depending on the society, time & place it is used. I particularly limited my comments about who is considered "Black' to historical and contemporary USA. I also briefly mentioned that the nation of South Africa has a different definition of who is considered Black...There are also different criteria for who is "Black" in other nations such as Brazil...

In these nations there were legal determinants of who part of the 'Black race'. But in addition to that people in those societies used [and still use] skin color, facial features, and hair texture [ans sometimes clothing such as a sari] as visual clues to determine a person's racial 'category'.

Given these visual clues, it is my contention that people in the United States would have classified Jesus as black...This does not mean that he had immediate African ancestry [I say immediate for science now says we all descend from Africans...]

I do not pretend to be knowledgeable about genetics..Nor do I know enough about the Bible and the anthropology of peoples back then to say where Jesus' descendants originally came from, or what they physically looked like...I leave that for those who have that expertise..

However, I would doubt that the only reason that Jesus {and others living in his area during his time on earth] was dark skinned was because they worked in the sun. Certainly working in the sun would make their skin get darker-just as I and other African Americans who get tanned in the summer months..However, it is my belief that melanin in Jesus' skin was what caused its probably dark color.

And as to your comment about 'intermarriage' [I suppose that you meant with other light skin Black people and with Whites] being the reason why African Americans are such a mixed race people...I would say yes and no...

Firstly I would add that the reason why we are such as mixed race people [not forgetting the mixture of various African ethnic groups]is because we are the product of marriages but also involuntary and vloluntary sexual relationships between [Black] Africans and and White [European]..In addition, many of us have [and some can trace]Native American and/or Asian ancestry..

Also, AggieD I gathered from your comments that you believed that all continental Africans had dark [black] skin complexion...This is not true...Besides those Africans who are albinos, some African ethnic groups are naturally brown skinned [and not because of their gene pool being mixed with Europeans].

Finally, AggieD, with regard to your last comment, I'll insert my responses:

You-"However if you push the point that Jesus was definitely black, wouldn't it be just as hard for people of lighter colour to accept him as a role model? [Disregarding the fact that I am not 'pushing' this point, my response is "No, why should it be?"]


You-"Surely the point is that as a Christian you should teach children that they should love Jesus, no matter what his colour?? [Me: Yes, and ditto for all people..]