Man Sues 'the Met' for Making Jesus White
One of New York City's most iconic museums, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is being sued by a Manhattan man for portraying Jesus as white in "racist" paintings.
According to a report in the New York Post, the man, Justin Renel Joseph, 33, argues in a lawsuit filed in the Manhattan Supreme Court that the museum is committing sacrilege by portraying Jesus as an "Aryan" male, and is demanding the whitewashed depictions be removed.
Joseph claims he suffered "personal stress" after viewing masterpieces such as "The Holy Family with Angels" by Sebastiano Ricci; "The Resurrection" by Perugino; "The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes" by Tintoretto; and "The Crucifixion" by Francesco Granacci.
The paintings, he argues, are "offensive aesthetic whitewashing" of Jesus who was a native of the Middle East with "black hair like wool and skin of bronze color." Joseph, who is acting as his own lawyer, said he was deeply offended by the white depictions of Jesus because he has "black hair like wool and skin of bronze color."
"The implication that someone who possesses physical features like the plaintiff could not be the important historical and public figure of Jesus Christ ... caused the plaintiff to feel, among other things, rejected and unaccepted by society," notes court documents.
Responding to the suit, the museum said the paintings reflecting a white Jesus are important pieces of art history.
"When they were painted, it was typical for artists to depict subjects with the same identity as the local audience. This phenomenon occurs in many other cultures, as well," explained museum spokeswoman Elyse Topalian.
Joseph said, however, that the inclusion of the whitewashed paintings of Jesus at the museum is "an extreme case of discrimination."
"They completely changed His race to make Him more aesthetically pleasing for white people," he told the Post.
