Talk:Jacobus Capitein

His skin is black but white is his soul

[Disclaimer: I am not saying that the poem could not be racist or that racism did not exist or whatever. I am only saying that, based on the image and what the poem says, it seems inaccurate to me to read racism into this particular poem.]

It seems inaccurate to me to only display this part of the Dutch poem under his portrait, or at the very least misleading, because modern readers will read His skin is black but white is his soul as meaning he's not really a black man, he's an Oreo. At least that's how I intuitively read it, i.e. as just another racist poem which fitted nicely with the overall narrative of the article that does not hesitate to connect Jacobus' defence of slavery with him being influenced by (white) Europeans. But this reading is clearly wrong, because white in the poem does not refer to skin colour, for two reasons:

The first reason is the Dutch language, which knows two words for the English white, one referring to skin colour ('blank'), and one referring to the actual colour of clouds and blankets ('wit'). The poem uses the latter word (wit), making it clear that the writer of the poem did not imply skin colour with Jacobus’ soul being white.

The second reason is because of the context of the poem, which leaves little doubt to what its writer implied to through a 'white soul'. The poem makes it obvious that it refers to the Christian trope of washing away sins through baptism in Jesus (i.e. when the white dove of the holy spirit descends into a person's soul). The poem clearly states that 'Now that Jacobus is being guided by Jesus, he will go back to Ghana and make his fellow Africans white and praise the Lamb of God.' He does not write make them 'blank' but make them 'wit', because it would be ridiculous to suggest that by 'making his fellow Africans white' he would somehow be changing their skin colour. 'To make white' obviously refers to Jacobus 'washing away the sins of his fellow Africans' in Jesus' name and teaching them faith, hope, love etc.. It is a very common, Christian trope going back to the Latin dealbare, 'to whitewash'. The trope applies to anybody, independent of skin colour.

A third reason becomes clear from the image itself: Jacobus is dressed like a minister, holding the Bible and depicted in front of a library of Christian works.

Now, although white in the poem does not refer to skin colour, it obviously is a pun on his black skin, as in: 'his (to contemporary Europeans unusual) physical appearance may be black, but as a minister guided by Jesus, Jacobus' sins have has been washed away.' Obviously this is considered racist by modern standards, because we pretty much consider any pun on skin colour racist. But we forget that this is mostly due to us being so used to seeing black people. Most Europeans back then had never seen a black person in their entire life, so the image of Jacobus' physical appearance would probably have surprised them at best, and at worst elicited racist reactions.

But the poem explicitly seems to dissuade racist readers of seeing Jacobus as inferior merely on the basis of his physical appearance, warning readers to look past physical appearance and placing Jacobus on an equal, spiritual footing with any other Christian. If anything the poem seems to emphasise Jacobus' common humanity shared with any other Christian through Jesus, whatever their skin colour.

Warm regards from a vegan atheist. Accusations of racism in 3...2...1... x) Artaynte (talk) 12:09, 8 August 2020 (UTC)