I think whoever designed that book cover is to be pitied, rather than condemned. I literally can't think of any white lie (no pun intended) that I could tell someone if they showed me that as a piece of their own work.
I get what you're saying, but I think the real problem with racism is that it harms human beings. Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't exactly see how this is relevant to anything I've said or the book described in the OP, since I did in fact do these things, and we have no idea if it's even relevant to the book or how much research the OP's friend did or didn't do.
http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/mary-motherofjesus.htmlJesus was divinely conceived (according to mainstream Christian tradition.) The Bible genealogies are only for Joseph, who is not his biological father, and there are many different traditions about Mary, whom I don't think Christians consider a biological parent, either. If Jesus received no DNA from his earthly parents, why should he look like them? Maybe he did, just because it would have been inconvenient not to. Or maybe he looked completely different. (Even if he was just a normal guy, having one ancestor generations back from place FOO does not determine what you look like. Inheritance doesn't work like that.)
Hinduism, look up incarnation. Try again.That's the thing about gods. They (very often) don't have human DNA. Yahweh is not a Jew. Allah is not an Arab. Vishnu is not, as far as I can tell, an Indian. And for most religions, their followers can also be of any ethnicity. The Christians I know wouldn't care if you depicted Jesus as a Jew, an Egyptian, a Japanese person, or an Aborigine... (And the ones who would care aren't Christians I'd care to know.)
No... Noble Savages, refers to an idealized outsider. Someone with superior culture to be preserved.Frankly, this is "noble savages" thinking in which Europe is demonized as the great big evil while everyone else is good and moral and above doing terrible things like conquering other countries. Europe is not special in this regard, and all groups, throughout history, have attempted to conquer their neighbors and adopt the useful or interesting bits of their cultures. It's an enormous jump to go from 'Europeans did (and still do) a lot of cultural appropriating' to 'therefore, a Hindu deity manifesting as an English person is racist'. It might be. It might not be. It depends on the way it's handled in the story. Maybe the deity wanted to convert the English to Hinduism, and saw this as the best way.
Reductive, yet again. How many times do I have to tell you that India is quite diverse.India, by contrast, is the world's second biggest country. It is a nuclear superpower. It is not a tiny ethnic group in danger of being overrun. Hinduism is not being destroyed by English folks writing urban fantasy about its deities. If someone says something racist, stupid, or incorrect about India/Indian culture, by all means, let's all stand up for what's right. But this is not cultural appropriation.
Which is why India feels the need to teach English. And in fact the de-facto Lingua Franca is English. From 2 empires--the British and American Empires.European super-dominance of the planet is, for the time being, basically over. India and China are the new super-powers.
If you want to check it out yourself, It's called the "N Word." Worth the watch, in general.(I'm pretty sure those racist Japanese depictions of black folks are actually racist, not just accidentally racist. All things considered, the Japanese probably knew about black people long before they heard about Americans, much less American depictions of black folks.)
Despite that, there is no history of racism against blacks in Japan before the importation. (Importation came after the US settling troops in Japan and Korea) There is a systemic abuse of Koreans and Ainu in Japan. The documentary, BTW, systematically shows (which was made and produced by African Americans) that it was imported by American television, kinda like American television caused anorexia in Samoa.
You need those three ingredients in order to get it to hurt. (reduction, time, and governmental power)
On 1. Do you have a counter source? I gave you mine. "The "N word" film. Before the American occupation,spurred by 2 white men (Perry and MacArthur) who were the epitome of imperialism came in, there wasn't a black population in Japan at all. (Or nothing on record)Wait, what? If you're claiming that Americans introduced the Japanese to the concept of racism, that's so wrong it's not even funny.
I'll give you Europe/North America as currently dominating global culture, to much detriment of others, but Europe/North America as the current, let alone historical, sole purveyors of racism... umm, no.
Language gains power with tradition (repeated practice over time). So I disagree, because in order for a word to gain power, it needs a population to both agree it is hurtful and to agree on that definition, which takes time. Power also takes time to gain. Also that prejudice gains power exponentially over time.Also, this:
is wrong. I am familiar with the equation "racism = prejudice + power" and for the sake of argument I will accept it as the definition we are using here, but even under that definition, hurtful racism does not require a pervasive, institutionalized legacy.
On 1. Do you have a counter source? I gave you mine. "The "N word" film. Before the American occupation,spurred by 2 white men (Perry and MacArthur) who were the epitome of imperialism came in, there wasn't a black population in Japan at all. (Or nothing on record)
With Japanese denying any connection to Korea, every chance they could get, despite arcaheology contracdicting that. (Attitudes have sharply reversed these days due to free importation of media between all three East Asian countries). Imperialism rose after Perry arrived in Japan. (Mostly against China, Philippines and Korea--all three populations still exist within Japan as well). Japan, then, started to attack Korea, which was now opened by the US, China, which also was opened by the US, and the Islands...
Korea, also has a history of racism as well... though you wouldn't recognize it from television.
And that India *did* suffer imperialism from GB, which was disputed up there (rather weakly). And still sees some of the effects of that. (Will you dispute that?)
Language gains power with tradition (repeated practice over time). So I disagree, because in order for a word to gain power, it needs a population to both agree it is hurtful and to agree on that definition, which takes time. Power also takes time to gain. Also that prejudice gains power exponentially over time.
And I would say racism is a type of prejudice. (Square is a type of parallelogram logic.)