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Under the Master’s Table: An Anti-darkness and Caste Interpretation of the Canaanite Woman

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Embodying Antiracist Christianity
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Abstract

This chapter will probe and tease out the nuances between caste, religion, and color that are intricately intertwined to construct an anti-darkness sentiment that emerges in the Indian context and successfully travels across borders, and finally settles within South Asian immigrant communities. Using anti-darkness as a lens, my essay will interpret Matthew 15:21-28 to illustrate the ways in which past narratives, learned behaviors, and ingrained attitudes towards others passed down from generations are duplicated, institutionalized, and created into stringent systems that seek to effectively discriminate and dehumanize entire communities and peoples.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    B. R. (Bhimrao Ramji) Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste: An Undelivered Speech (New Delhi: Arnold Publishers, 1990), 174–175. Also cf. Arundhati Roy, The Doctor and the Saint: Caste, Race, and Annihilation of Caste: The Debate Between B. R. Ambedkar and M. K. Gandhi (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2017).

  2. 2.

    Sonja Thomas, Privileged Minorities: Syrian Christianity, Gender, and Minority Rights in Postcolonial India (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018), 69. She writes, “‘Aryan’ signals both a Brahmin caste identity and lighter skin. In other words, ‘Aryan’ and ‘Dravidians’ are not just linguistic divisions but markers that intersect in profound ways with color and caste as well.

  3. 3.

    Thomas notes that, “The very idea of Aryans in India begins with the Aryans migration theory. In colonial histories, the Aryans were depicted as a superior, fair-skinned, racially homogenous group that came from Iran and migrated to both Europe and India.” Thomas, Privileged Minorities, 71. Thomas further notes in the book that the Aryan migration was quickly changed to the myth of Aryan conquest that helped support the supremacy myth of fair skinned Aryans over the dark-skinned Dravidians.

  4. 4.

    Romila Thapar, The Aryan: Recasting Constructs (Gurgaon, India: Three Essays Collective, 2008), 33.

  5. 5.

    Nikki Khanna, Whiter: Asian and Asian American Women on Skin Color and Colorism, ed. Nikki Khanna (New York: New York University Press) 17.

  6. 6.

    Alice Walker, “If the Present Looks Like the Past, What Does the Future Look Like?” in In Search of Our Mothers Gardens: Womanist Prose. (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983), 290.

  7. 7.

    Kaali, karupu, kaalu, and kari are words often used in local Indian languages to describe dark skin individuals. These names are often used as first labels to describe an individual even before their names or other identity markers, thereby illustrating disdain and derision for dark skin individuals.

  8. 8.

    I use the term “casual racism” to depict the almost matter of fact ways in which derogatory comments on dark skin are made in Indian contexts. For example, during my own growing years, I was often discouraged from playing outside in the sun, asked to wear dark color clothing, constantly advised to keep my coarse hair braided and oiled, and advised to consume milk or yogurt and apply lightning creams. As a dark skin girl, I too have succumbed to the addiction of bleaching creams in the hopes of becoming light. Also cf. Barkha Dutt, MOJO STOR, episode “Masaba Masaba Racism|Viv Richards, Neena Gupta|Feminism, Fashion, Films,” November 21, 2020, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJCqivYcGXw.

  9. 9.

    Staff Writer, “Racism is Embedded in Bollywood: It’s Time to Change That,” Madras Courier, June 24, 2022, https://madrascourier.com/opinion/racism-is-embedded-in-bollywood-its-time-to-change-that/. Also cf. Khanna, Whiter, 6. She writes, “lighter-skinned characters are depicted as intelligent, while those with darker skin are portrayed as ‘clownish’ and ‘less intelligent’.”

  10. 10.

    Isha Aran, “Bollywood’s shameful history of blackface,” Splinter, April 14, 2016, https://splinternews.com/bollywood-s-shameful-history-of-blackface-1793856198. She observes, “Darker-skinned people, if they’re even included in films, almost exclusively portray villains or sidekicks that provide comedic relief, or are generally subservient minor characters.”

  11. 11.

    Sakshi Venketaraman, “‘Kamala auntie’ prompts examination of anti-Blackness for South Asians,” NBC News, August 19, 2020, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/kamala-auntie-prompts-examination-anti-blackness-south-asians-n1237339.

  12. 12.

    Neha Mishra, “India and Colorism: The Finer Nuances,” Washington University Global Studies Law Review 14, no. 4 (2015): 732.

  13. 13.

    Mishra, “India and Colorism,” 737. She writes, “Skin colour, therefore, was also viewed as related to financial and social status of a person. This automatically incorporated ‘caste factor’ into it because Sudras were expected to do manual labor, which made their skin darker than upper caste.”

  14. 14.

    Mishra, “India and Colorism, 737. She writes, “Therefore, it can be concluded that while the desirability of a person gets affected by their skin color, caste as a variable is intertwined with it and has to be seen together to understand the status and desirability, viz., higher caste with a darker skin tone may be acceptable more when compared to a lower caste and having a darker skin tone.

  15. 15.

    Thomas, Privileged Minorities, 70.

  16. 16.

    Hira Singh and M. A. Kalam, “India’s Race Problem: Ignorance and Denial,” Social Scientist 45, no. 9/10 (September/October 2017): 75. Singh and Kalam write, “India has a race problem made up of a combination of ignorance and denial. A case in point would be that the Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Rajya Sabha member, Tarun Vijay’s statement to a television channel that Indians could not be racist as they lived with ‘black’ South Indians is symptomatic of ignorance of race, and he is not alone. See “Tarun Vijay Lands in Trouble with ‘Black People’ Remarks, Later Apologises on Twitter,” The Hindu, April 7 2017, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/if-we-were-racist-why-would-we-live-with-south-indians-tarun-vijay/article17866698.ece.

  17. 17.

    Abhishek Mishra, “India’s Racial Prejudice is Jeopardizing Ties with African Nations,” Observer Research Foundation, July 28, 2020, https://www.orfonline.org/research/indias-racial-prejudice-is-jeopardising-ties-with-african-nations/. Mishra writes, “In the light of recent attacks against foreigners in India, such as the one in Roorkee, the question of racial prejudice and biases has once again come to the forefront. Racial bias is the single most important challenge facing Africans living in India. With all our democratic values and internationalist outlook, the core Indian society is still overwhelmingly traditional, and stereotyping of African nationals creates difficulties. Also cf. Khanna, Whiter, 126. Khanna refers to this incident, which took place in 2017 where a group of African students were beaten by an Indian mob.

  18. 18.

    Staff Writer, “Black is blemish in India,” Aljazeera, October 7, 2003, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2003/10/7/black-is-blemish-in-india.

  19. 19.

    A very common question posed in discussions of Caste is how one determines a person’s caste. As I have noted in my discussion, dark skin and caste are not always correlated. Thus, the next layer to determine a person’s caste origins is levied in the form of last names. Meanwhile, Christians and Muslims are viewed with suspicion and distrust because they are often assumed to be of the low caste until and unless they can prove that they have high caste origins in their lineage. See Amrita Ghosh and Arun Kimar, “Casteism continues to thrive among Indians abroad –through surnames,” Scroll.in, August 28, 2020, https://scroll.in/global/970262/casteism-continues-to-thrive-among-indians-abroad-through-surnames.

  20. 20.

    Hilary Mayell, “India’s “Untouchables” Face Violence and Discrimination,” National Geographic, June 2, 2003, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/pages/article/indias-untouchables-face-violence-discrimination.

  21. 21.

    Thomas, Privileged Minorities, 75. Thomas writes, “The Hindu Right has tried to claim that the Aryans did not migrate to India but were indigenous to South Asia. If the authors of the Hindu Sanskrit texts were indigenous to India, then all others who migrated to South Asia at later dates—namely Christians and Muslims—could be painted as racially different and foreign.”

  22. 22.

    Sharon Jacob, “Neither Here nor There! A Hermeneutics of Shuttling: Reflections from a Postcolonial Biblical Critic,” in Asian and Asian American Women in Theology and Religion, ed. Kwok Pui Lan (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillian, 2020). I have written in length about the ways in which Christian women in the Indian context are overtly sexualized given their description as women with western sounding names and wearing western clothes.

  23. 23.

    Deborah Grey, “The Stereotypes I live with as an Indian Christian woman,” Youth Ki Awaz, December 12, 2016, https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2016/12/stereotypes-about-indian-christian-women/. Grey writes, “Try renting a house and they respond with a volley of questions based on strange stereotypes, “Oh. So you are Christian. That means you are allowed everything. Like boyfriends and short skirts?” Now while I do have a boyfriend and wear short skirts, I wonder how that is an exclusive Christian privilege? Potential landlords would often gather these neighborhood aunties for my ‘trial’ before deciding to rent their homes to me. They have asked me the strangest questions like“Why do your parents allow you to date? This is against Indian culture! How can they be so careless with you?”

  24. 24.

    Ryan D’Souza, Representations of Indian Christians in Bollywood Movies (Ph.D. diss., University of South Florida, 2019), 50, https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/7772. D’Souza writes, “Bollywood movies, in particular, conflate Anglo-Indian and Christian with “Christian names” such as Julie, Mary, Monica, and Rosie. These characters drink alcohol, dance in bars for the pleasure of a predominantly male patronage, unsuccessfully seduce the Hindu protagonist who is committed to a Hindu woman, and, in general, are sleazy women” (50).

  25. 25.

    Nivedita Mishra, “Sandra from Bandra to Oh Fanny re: the Changing Face of Christians in Films,” Hindustan Times, September 12, 2014, https://www.hindustantimes.com/bollywood/sandra-from-bandra-to-oh-fanny-re-the-changing-face-of-christians-in-films/story-wH9aE6IymtNFJkllEViSUJ.html. She writes: “Here was a film that was a superhit but it had all the possible stereotypes one could imagine. An Anglo-Indian Christian girl falls for a Hindu boy and in a moment of passionate encounter gets pregnant. While many will argue that it is work of fiction and such plots work, it’s hard not to miss the stereotypes - girl with ‘easy morals’, unwed mother, Hindu boy with can have sex but take no responsibility for his act, the film was as clichéd as it gets.

  26. 26.

    Thomas, Privileged Minorities, 86.

  27. 27.

    Thomas, Privileged Minorities, 86.

  28. 28.

    Khanna, Whiter, 131.

  29. 29.

    Schuyler Kropf, “Nikki Haley, Bobby Jindal explain their faith during the Response prayer meeting Saturday,” The Post and Courier, June 12, 2015, https://www.postandcourier.com/politics/nikki-haley-bobby-jindal-explain-their-faith-during-the-response-prayer-meeting-saturday/article_c48ab132-a0df-5044-a86f-97f32bd64e37.html.

  30. 30.

    Glena S. Jackson, “Enemies of Israel: Ruth and the Canaanite Woman,” Hervormde Teologiese Studies 59, no. 3 (September 2003): 786. Jackson writes, “While all four women are enemies of Israel (Canaanites Tamar and Rahab, Moabite Ruth, and Hittite Bathsheba) and get pregnant through unorthodox ways (Tamar poses as a prostitute for Judah’s pleasure, Rahab is a harlot, Ruth seduces Boaz, and Bathsheba is seduced [or raped] by King David…”

  31. 31.

    Grant LeMarquand writes, The woman of Matthew 15, then, is the only person in the New Testament who is explicitly called a ‘Canaanite.’” Grant LeMarquand, “The Canaanite Conquest of Jesus (Matthew 15: 21-28)” Arc: The Journal of the Faculty of Religious Studies 33 (2005): 238.

  32. 32.

    Melanie S. Baffles, “What Do We Do with This Jesus? A Reading of Matthew 15:21–28 through the Lens of Psychoanalytic Theory,” Pastoral Psychology 63 (2014): 249–263. Baffles observes, “The story appears also in Mark 7: 24–30, presumably the source of Matthew’s version. But the author of Matthew has altered key elements of the story: (1) the woman, named in Mark as “Syrophoenician,” is here called “Canaanite,” most likely to heighten her marginalized status by associating her with the traditional enemy of Israel; (2) in both versions, the woman addresses Jesus as “Lord,” yet only in Matthew does she refer to him as “Son of David,” a title Matthew uses frequently to describe the “earthly” Jesus” (250).

  33. 33.

    See, Exod 23:20-33; Lev 26:3-45; Num 14:39-45; 21:1-3; 31:1-20; Deut 7:1-5, 17-26; 9:1-5; 12:1-3; 13:12-18; 20:10-18, as well as the narratives (especially in the book of Joshua) in which the Canaanite genocide is, to a greater or lesser degree, carried out.

  34. 34.

    Kanad Sinha, “The Question of Aryan Identity,” The Telegraph, Jan 28, 2023, https://www.telegraphindia.com/culture/books/the-question-of-aryan-identity/cid/1696499. Sinha writes, “An ‘Aryan invasion’ was offered as a possible reason for the Harappan decline, facilitating a political interpretation which claimed that the Dravidians/South Indians/lower castes were sons of the soil and the upper-caste Hindus were invaders. However, no such massive invasion is attested to by archaeology. On the other hand, the Hindu nationalist claim portraying Aryans as the original inhabitants of India and originators of a ‘uniform, continuous Hindu culture’ tries to push back the dates of the Rig Veda to present the Vedic and Harappan civilizations as identical. But Jaya Menon shows that the archaeological cultures of North India in the period 2000-500 BCE depict multiplicity and movement, not uniformity and continuity.”

  35. 35.

    Guy Nave, “Challenging Privilege through the Preaching and Teaching of Scripture,” Currents in Theology and Mission 47, no. 3 (July 2020): 17. Nave writes, “The author’s identification of the woman as “Canaanite” is significant because in the version of the story found in Mark (which is widely considered to be older than Matthew), the woman is identified as “Syrophoenician.” He continues, “The author of Matthew invokes the memory of this violent historical past between Jews and Canaanites by identifying this woman as a Canaanite.”

  36. 36.

    Charlie Trimm, The Destruction of the Canaanites: God, Genocide, and Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2022),32. Trimm makes a similar case writing, “During the early first millennium the term “Canaanite” dropped out of use and became a historical term rather than a way to refer to contemporary inhabitants of Canaan. The use of “Canaanite” in Matthew 15:22 is most likely designed to force the reader to think in Old Testament terms as this would be an unnatural way to refer to someone in New Testament times.” Also cf. Musa Dube, Postcolonial Feminist Interpretations (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2000), 146.

  37. 37.

    LeMarquand, “The Canaanite Conquest of Jesus (Matthew 15:21-28),” 242. He writes, “Clearly, although it views the land of Canaan as good, the Old Testament sees Canaanites themselves as evil. Matthew’s use of the term ‘Canaanite’ to describe the woman known from Mark as a Syro-Phoenician highlights the nature of this woman and her daughter as the worst of outsiders. Canaanites are the quintessential enemies of Israel, the ones God had commanded them to exterminate because their sins were so extreme that contact with them, especially through intermarriage, would lead Israel into idolatry and immorality. The Canaanite woman is not merely a gentile, therefore, but a representation of those peoples who are God’s, as well as Israel’s, enemies.” Also cf. Glenna Jackson, ‘Have Mercy on Me’: The Story of the Canaanite Woman in Matthew 15:21-28 (JSNTS up 228; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 80; In fact, as James Treat notes, if it were not for this story readers of the New Testament might assume that the genocide had been completely ‘successful’; see “The Canaanite Problem,” Daughters of Sarah (Spring 1994): 23; cf. Robert Allen Warrior, “A Native American Perspective: Canaanites, Cowboys, and Indians,” in Voices From the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World, ed. R. S. Sugirtharajah (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1995), 277-85.

  38. 38.

    Nave, “Challenging Privilege through the Preaching and Teaching of Scripture,”18.

  39. 39.

    Staff Writer, “An Email Interview with Arundati Roy,” Dalit Camera, June 8, 2020, https://www.dalitcamera.com/indian-racism-towards-black-people-is-almost-worse-than-white-peoples-racism/.

  40. 40.

    Stephenson Humphries-Brooks, “The Canaanite Women in Matthew,” in Feminist Companion to Matthew, ed. Amy-Jill Levine (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2001), 142.

  41. 41.

    Thomas, Privileged Minorities, 81.

  42. 42.

    John Dominic Crossan, “Roman Imperial Theology,” in In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance, ed. Richard A. Horsley (London: Westminister John Knox Press, 2008), 73.

  43. 43.

    <IndexTerm ID="ITerm214">For more discussion on this please see. Kwok, Pui Lan. Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology (Louisville: WJK, 2005), 83. Also cf. Surekha Nelavela, “Dare Not! Or Fear Not! Reimagining the Story of the Canaanite-Noisy Woman (Matthew 15)” in Mission and Context, edited by Jione Havea, (Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2020) pp. 116. Nelavela drawing on the work of Pui Lan points out that, “the Canaanite is a woman of another faith, and her story is inscribed within the master discourse of the Christian canon and interpreted primarily to justify the mission to the Gentiles.”

  44. 44.

    Mishra, “India and Colorism: The Finer Nuances,” 731.

  45. 45.

    Khanna, “Anti-Blackness,” 131.

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Jacob, S. (2023). Under the Master’s Table: An Anti-darkness and Caste Interpretation of the Canaanite Woman. In: Pae, Kj.C., Lee, B. (eds) Embodying Antiracist Christianity. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37264-3_11

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