Monday, July 7, 2025

Jesus, Zoroaster, Fables, and the Roots of Racism


Have you ever seen a white savior? A white Malcolm X? A white Dr. King? A white Mandela? No, because such a figure has never existed... nor has it ever been necessary. The myth of the white savior persists, most famously symbolized by Michelangelo’s portrait of Jesus, which itself was derived not from any historical figure of Palestine, but from Zoroastrian iconography... an ancient Iranian spiritual prototype that predates the biblical Christ. The white Jesus was not born of historical truth but of European imagination and supremacy.

The reason there has never been a white savior is simple: white Europeans and Americans have never needed one. For the past 400 to 500 years, they have ruled, conquered, enslaved, and dominated by force. Salvation is not a concept they were ever required to cling to, because they made themselves gods on Earth. Meanwhile, Black people (particularly in America) were handed a theology of suffering, told to endure centuries of pain for a promise in the afterlife, while white society reaped the earthly rewards of our unpaid labor. We were told to pray while they took the land, the labor, and the legacy.

Even worse, many Black Christians continue to fund this system. We pour billions into organized religion... into a global enterprise whose origins trace back to the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican, institutions that sit atop unimaginable wealth while preaching humility and sacrifice to the poor. Our tithes and offerings don’t buy salvation; they sustain a financial empire. Mega-churches flourish, ministers live lavishly, and a portion of that wealth flows back to the Vatican through mechanisms like Peter’s Pence. You may want to look into it. Peter’s Pence is not just charity—it’s a pipeline of power.

And still, there is no white savior. There never was, and there never will be... not because one isn't willing, but because one is not required. Black Christians in the United States alone contribute between $7 and $8 billion dollars a month to religious institutions, keeping the gravy train rolling, funding a system that has long abandoned our liberation. Until we stop financing this deeply corrupt, global religious machine, we will remain trapped... as second- and third-class citizens, spiritually sedated and economically drained. We are teetering on the edge of a new form of enslavement, and if Donald Trump and the Heritage Foundation are not stopped, that edge will become a cliff.

If Jesus Christ were truly the universal savior he is claimed to be, would Black America satill be fighting for justice centuries after slavery? Would Africa still bear the scars of colonialism? Instead, Black communities are told to wait for their reward in the afterlife while white supremacy reaps the benefits of stolen labor... 400 years of free toil that built empires. The promise of heavenly justice is a distraction from earthly exploitation.  

Black congregants today finance the very system that oppresses them. Through tithes and offerings, mega-churches and traditional congregations alike funnel wealth back to the Vatican, the heart of an institution that has hoarded power for millennia. The Catholic Church, one of the wealthiest entities in history, thrives on these contributions... funded in part by the very people it has historically marginalized. Research "Peter’s Pence," the Vatican’s financial apparatus, and you’ll see how global donations sustain its empire. Every dollar placed in the collection plate reinforces a cycle of exploitation disguised as salvation.  

The Heritage Foundation’s agenda and Donald Trump’s open embrace of dictatorship reveal the fragility of democracy, particularly for Black Americans. 

The U.S. Constitution, once held up as a sacred document, has been exposed as a brittle framework... one that was always selective in its protections, always exclusionary in its language. Now, even many white Americans are beginning to realize its hollowness in the face of authoritarianism. Trump openly declared he would be a dictator, and now he moves like one... unfazed, unchecked, and dangerously emboldened. This Frankenstein monster, created and nurtured by white America, is now turning on everyone.

If this trajectory isn’t reversed... if Trump, the Heritage Foundation, and their theocratic allies are not confronted... then Black Americans may once again have to consider migration. Just as our ancestors fled north during Reconstruction and Jim Crow, we may find ourselves looking to Canada, the Caribbean, or beyond. The stakes are existential. The time for illusions is over.

To my Christian brothers and sisters: 

"You been had! You been took! You been hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Led astray!" 
     ~ Malcolm x

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