Mary's Hair

When my Nana died my dad got a statue of hers. A woman with long blond hair as she brushed her hands through it. For years I thought it was Rapunzel. It's a favorite of his. When we were on vacation in Arizona one year he got one of a Native American woman with the same long hair brushing her hands through it.

Recently, my dad told me the blond woman was Mary.

 I responded, "that Native American woman you have looks a lot more like Mary looked then the blond woman!"

He responded, "That blond woman is what people thought Mary looked like in Nana's day."

Two beautiful statues. Two very different women. Both spiritual in their own way. Yet, they speak volumes politically too. The racism is normalized. Assuming Mary was white and blond. Completely ignoring the region she came from. She had to be white and blond. In the eyes of Catholics decades ago it was assumed she looked like them.

But, she didn't. She had dark skin and dark hair. When we think of her, we picture her with a wrap covering the top of her head. If that is true, then one of the most important Christian figures looked like a Muslim woman. Dark skin, dark hair, a beautiful wrap on her head.

Mary looked more like actress Anna Khaja who plays Amina Salah in Madam Secretary (CBS Sundays 10pm). Amina was in the Afghan government until negotiations with the Taliban kicked her out in the name of peace.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0451039/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t17

Growing up, the image of Mary I was raised with looked more like me. She was white with brown hair. I don't know why the hair color changed. But, the assumption that she was white still remained strong.

The racism wasn't intended. The image of Mary was meant to be someone Christian women could connect with. Someone that looked like them. My Nana was Irish with Scandinavian ancestry. There were a lot of blond and white Catholic women when this image of Mary was used. My guess is the approach was "connect with Mary and with Catholicism because she was like you."

But, we can't keep hiding from the truth. We need to embrace the true likely appearance of Mary and Jesus. We also need to overall overcome racism. Because we don't connect to Mary because of how she looks. We connect to her for the woman she was. So what if she looked more like Anna Khaja then me. That doesn't take away from everything she was. Brave, nurturing, intelligent, accepting, and giving.

Two statues. One is supposed to represent Mary the other actually does. I will never be able to see them as just pretty statues. I have decided to stick with that the blond statue is Rapunzel. That's a lot closer to realist then Mary!