Whose Responsible for the Interpretation?

The month is getting away from me - wonder why they make the shortest month Black History Month? Hmmm....could it be White Privilege? Gotta Wonder.....

Anyway, there have been few people who have been comfortable enough to write something that I can put on the blog. I have received emails about things - even a sweet letter about things, but most people want to share their experience just with me - not on the blog. I am being good about listening to that request. One person I heard from said that I can share, but not to use their name. Since I hardly know this person and am pretty sure no one else does either it isn't that big a deal, but you just never know. Therefore I will listen.

This persons story stems around a picture similar to the one below.


This person is in a predominantly white church. I can't remember her talking about any families of any color belonging - although they might. There are families who are African American attending the school, but less then a handful. This person has mentioned that they wish there was a committee to work on creating more diversity and structuring things so that they will be more welcoming to people other then whites. This has not happened, but the suggestions made by my friend have been listened to and taken in a positive light. There are no outwardly obvious prejudice acts made at the church.

Now, a few years ago her parish school commissioned an artist to come in and do a large mural of the Last Supper on one of their school walls. People were excited about it. The artist was hired. The painting was worked on - and as it was taking shape this person began to notice something. No one in the picture was of color. My friend knew that the church was thinking they should reach out to other groups other then white people. My friend also knew that the fact that God and the Disciples were white in the mural was a false representation of what it "really" should have looked like.

My friend mentioned this to the schools principal. My friend stated that this was not a true representation and that perhaps the school would be better off is some of the people in it were of color. The principal said it was not for him to say how it was created because it is the artists interpretation.

Hmmm............if you pay a person to do a mural for you don't you get to say what you want it to look like?

Is it White Privilege to believe that the people who are in the Last Supper portrait are white - when we know that geographically there is no way they would have been?

Is it passing the buck to say that it was the artists fault that everyone in that mural was white - when in reality it could not have been that way?

My friend stood up for what they believed - the principal did not. Why wasn't it changed? Why wasn't it specified in the original order?

Not that the people at the Last Supper would have been African, but they would have had much more pigment in their skin then Charleton Heston. Why can't we, as white people, acknowledge that?