Why isn't Catholicism associated with nonwhites (esp "brown people") the way Islam is?
I found these texts in argument about Spain's identity in the United States and about the controversy about whether Spaniards are white Europeans or brown people. An argument which was taking place in a thread complaining why many olive skinned white Americans get accused of being Mexican/Latino/Hispanic and also Arabs/MidEastern Brown people/Muslim (terrorists).
>PLUS I even seen people accuse the Roman Catholic Church for supporting Islam, Anti-American, and terrorism.......... All simply because they have a "Muslim woman wearing a Hijab" in Church.......... Don't they know the woman wearing a white veil and blue cloth is the HOLY MOTHER VIRGIN MARY?!!!!
>If many Americans can't even recognize practically the BIGGEST feminine symbol of Western (and Christian) culture and think holy statues are Muslim Arab terrorist girl, do you expect most mainstream middle class or lower Americans to recognize that the Spanish were one of the mightiest white colonial superpowers?
>If so many Americans think Mother Mary statues are art symbolizing oppressed Hijab women that shows how sexist Islam is (and they don't even realized the veiled statue is the Holy Mother of God, the most holy virgin), do you expect them to know something as basic as the fact that most brown skinned Mexicans have white blood in them? I mean so MANY MANY Americans can't even recognize the white veil in a blue dress is a traditional Catholic/Lutheran/Anglican artistic representation of the Holy Virgin and think its Islamic art repressing women! You expect them to know Spain was a white colonial superpower? There was even a local vandalism against a local Roman church because some punks thought it was an Islamic prayer center because it had "veiled women" statues!
In addition I saw this post.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/451igp/being_a_catholic_in_the_bible_belt/czurhy8
>Catholic here, born and raised in the South. My mother's Italian Catholic family moved here before she was born, and she married a Protestant whose family has been here for generations.
>Like others have said, Irish, Italian, Czech, whatever, is all white here. It seems to be fading as I get older, but there are still many people in this part of the country who will be surprised upon learning that you are Catholic because they think that all Catholics are Mexican. Mexican immigrants have heavily influenced the local Catholic flavor, and images of Our Lady of Guadalupe will be found in many parishes. Few people will guess or assume that you are Catholic until you tell them, even if you wear or do something that seems overtly Catholic. There are tons of Christians, but they just don't know what Catholics are.
>You'll mostly find two kinds of parishes down here: English-speaking parishes and Spanish-speaking parishes. A typical parish has most or all of its Masses in one language or the other. Occasionally you find a parish where both are just as common. In an area with few Catholics (or on weekday solemnities in a bilingual parish), expect to run into the bilingual Mass, where some parts are in English and some in Spanish. Go to enough of these and you'll learn all the Mass responses in Spanish. I really don't see a lot of animosity between these two groups: it just seems to be the language barrier that keeps them apart. In fact, bilingual Mexicans often eventually make their way into bilingual and English-speaking parishes and are highly valued parishioners for their tamale-making skills.
>I usually don't let people know I'm Catholic right away because they'll accept it more easily once they get to know you. I don't find a lot of people who hate Catholics anymore, but they sometimes make weird assumptions about who Catholics are. After they've known you for a while, they'll ask you what church you go to (because all white Southerners are members of some church in their minds, and if you aren't, then they will invite you to theirs), and you can be honest. Of course, attitudes are changing as more people move here from other places, so folks are surprised by less and less.
>Knowing your faith is very important down here. You will be called upon to defend it from common evangelical misconceptions about Catholicism such as idol worship and works-based salvation. They also have a few Bible verses that they like the lob at you, so it helps to know Scripture on some level, too.
>We have very fertile ground here for evangelization where many have heard the Gospel but have not entered into full communion and received the sacraments. The anti-Catholic misconceptions of the past are fading, and Protestants are seeing rapid changes in the churches that their families have been part of for generations, so there's a lot of searching for something permanent. Converts make up a large percentage of many parishes down here. Welcome to mission territory!
>None of what I said applies in Louisiana, by the way. Catholic culture abounds there.
I was pretty shocked people actually think Mother Mary Statues are "Islamic art" and that there are people who think "Catholics are Mexicans!"!
However do does lead me to a question-why did Islam become associated with brown backwards people while Roman Catholicism didn't? I mean for years I always seen the media criticize Mexicans as superstitious (which I find hilariously ironic since some of the Mexican "superstitious customs" Fox News attacks are the same customs my family consisting of German ancestry does). I did see comments before complaining Lady of Guadalupe is "liberal propaganda and brainwashing", a symbol of anti-whiteness in some white supremacy newspaper and other similar stuff.
Nowadays at least half of the total Catholic population in America and Canada are from Spanish speaking countries. So I have to wonder why Catholicism is still attacked as a white man's religion (despite criticizing Mexican customs of incense and other Catholic-based cultural rituals as superstitious and attacking Latino Christian art as not just anti-white, but anti-American)?
I mean Islam today is attacked as a brown people religion DESPITE the fact there are many places dominated by light skinned, even white looking peoples that are Muslim majority such as Albania (which is in Europe) and Chechnya. Hell not just that but some MidEastern places have pretty European looking Arabic speaking peoples and most Muslims in the world live in Asia particularly Indonesia and India, not the MidEast anyway.
Yet Islam is so associated with "brown people" that your average North American pictures a Muslim as a Mexican dressed in a turban and its gotten ridiculous enough that arguments about Islam often devolve to racism against brown people on both the leftist and rightist politics.
How come Roman Catholicism did not get branded as a "nonwhite religion" despite anti-Latino sentiments in the US and frequent criticism from Fox News, white supremacist newspaper, and other conservative publications towards Mexican/Hispanic customs as superstitious (despite many of these customs being basic sacraments in the Church such as incense and carrying blessed medals)? I mean there are already people like int he two quoted texts who don't even understand Mexicans practise Christianity, not a "pagan religion", and that the veiled statues in Catholic Churches is mother Mary, not Islamic art.
Yet Catholicism is gets comments not just by liberals but even some conservatives as a "white man's religion" and there always seems to be some ignorant attempts at treating Latino culture as non-Christian and Catholicism as a European white religion (and not even deliberate propaganda- many white supremacists literally do believe the Vatican is a white man's institution but also somehow literally believe Latino dominated Churches are evil pagan stuff and not Christian)!
How come Islam got mainstream perception as non-white anti-European religion while Catholicism still remains solidly white in the majority of the world (even though in some places like Alabama ignorant people think you must be Mexican or have Mexican blood if you're Catholic)? Even among white supremacist, outside of the most isolated most racist and most Low Church regions like Alabama, your average Neo Nazi and modern KKKlansman sees Catholicism as a 100% white European religion and would not deny a white non-Iberian Catholic joining nowadays because they believe he is 100% European and his practise of Catholicisms European conservatism at its finest.
Where as if a white Swedish man decides to convert to Islam from Lutheranism and tries to join a KKK coven or Nazi skinhead gang, he would be denied and possibly even beaten on the spot because he would be accused of having "brown blood in him" as the reason for converting (or at best be seen as an Al Qaeda/ISIS sympathizer and traitor to the West)!
How come Catholicism despite nowadays half of the world's members being South American (and majority of USA and Canada being of Mexican descent) does not get the reputation as a "brown religion" the way Islam and to a lesser extent Judaism does?
