Why Is Everything White? Unmasking Whiteness in Media, Religion, and Culture
A White-Washed World
Why is toothpaste white? Why are angels white? Why does the media equate whiteness with purity, virtue, and beauty — while portraying Blackness as its opposite?
These are not cosmetic questions. They’re foundational. They affect our identity, our spiritual beliefs, our media, and our value systems. To ask, “Why is everything white?” is to begin unmasking the invisible hand behind global imagery, history, and power.
Light vs. Dark: Biblical Symbolism and Its Misuse
The Bible begins with a famous line:
“And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.”
— Genesis 1:3–4
This passage is often misunderstood. God created both light and dark — and called the light good. He didn’t call the dark evil. Yet throughout history, the metaphor of light as good and dark as bad has been taken literally, racialized, and weaponized.
From Metaphor to Myth: How Christianity Was Misused
During European colonization and the transatlantic slave trade, Christianity was distorted. One of the most infamous examples is the Curse of Ham (Genesis 9), which was used to justify Black enslavement — even though it never mentions skin color.
“Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.”
— Genesis 9:25
This misinterpretation birthed a theological lie: that Blackness was cursed and servitude divinely ordained. European theologians and slaveholders fused metaphor with biology to make racism sacred.
The Invention of Whiteness: A Historical Construct
As historian Theodore W. Allen writes in The Invention of the White Race, “white” as a racial category didn’t always exist. It was invented in colonial America to divide poor European settlers from enslaved Africans and prevent class unity.
White privilege was engineered — not earned. It functioned to:
Secure loyalty from poor white workers
Enforce a hierarchy with whiteness at the top
Create a false sense of racial superiority
Whiteness became a default setting — in law, in media, in religion, and in consciousness.
Whiteness in Media: The Center of the Frame
Hollywood played a major role in constructing the visual myth of white virtue. Consider:
Jesus portrayed by white men (despite being a Galilean Jew)
Tarzan, a white man ruling the African jungle
The Ten Commandments casting white actors as Middle Eastern figures
Even children’s media is saturated with “light is right” cues:
White princesses = innocent
Dark villains = evil
White protagonists = saviors
Black characters = sidekicks or stereotypes
This is not diversity — it’s ideological colonization.
White as Clean, Black as Dirty: Marketing the Myth
Early 20th-century ads promoted products with slogans like:
“Whiter than white”
“Clean is white”
“Darkness removed with our soap”
One soap brand featured cartoons of Black children becoming “clean” (i.e., white) after washing. Such images reinforced the subconscious message: whiteness = purity, Blackness = dirtiness.
In common speech:
White lie = harmless
Black mark = shame
White magic = good
Black magic = evil
These associations are not accidental — they are cultural programming.
Christianity: Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?
While Christianity was used to uphold white supremacy, it was also used to resist it. Black enslaved people reclaimed the faith — making the Exodus story a rallying cry for freedom:
“Let my people go.” — Exodus 5:1
Black theology, born in the fires of oppression, emphasized:
God’s presence with the oppressed
Justice as a divine mandate
Liberation as holy work
And in Revelation 1:14–15, we read:
“His hair was like wool, white as snow, and His feet like bronze refined in a furnace.”
This description of Christ challenges the whitewashed images dominant in Western Christianity. Wool-like hair? Bronze skin? That sounds far more African or Middle Eastern than European.
Psychology and Identity: The Doll Test
In the 1940s, Kenneth and Mamie Clark conducted a famous study known as “The Doll Test.” Black children overwhelmingly preferred white dolls and described them as “good” or “nice,” while viewing Black dolls as “bad” or “ugly.”
These children weren’t born with those ideas. They were taught — by media, language, toys, and the environment.
Even today:
AI beauty filters lighten skin
Professionalism is coded as Eurocentric
Black features are exoticized, but not normalized
Representation is not just about fairness — it’s about identity formation.
Blackness as Divine, Not Defective
African traditions view darkness not as void, but as origin. In many African cosmologies:
The dark womb is sacred
The night sky is a map of ancestral wisdom
Blackness is generative, not destructive
Contemporary movements like Afrofuturism flip the narrative — recasting Blackness as the future, not a footnote.
Artists like Kerry James Marshall, authors like Octavia Butler, and filmmakers like Ryan Coogler are reshaping the lens. They are saying: Blackness is not lack — it is legacy.
✝Toward a Theology of Color: The Truth About God
Let’s be clear:
God is not white
Jesus was not European
Spiritual light does not equal literal skin color
“I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.” — Isaiah 45:7
God created both light and dark. Any theology that demonizes Blackness is a false theology.
The Light AND the Darkness
Why is everything white?
Because power made it that way. Because systems encoded it. Because media reinforced it. But it’s time to unravel that.
Light and dark are not enemies. They are part of the same divine fabric. To celebrate both is to see fully. To acknowledge Blackness as beautiful, holy, and central — not as “other” — is to heal a deep cultural wound.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” — John 1:5
Maybe, just maybe, when we stop fearing the dark, we’ll finally start seeing the truth.