I am greek and anyway i don’t really mind the race bends but i hate when people attack me when i say there is no case i will ever see the gods anything rather greek-mediterranean like looking people. No i wont see them as black,mixed race,asian or looking like nordic european. It isn’t anything personal it’s just how i imagined them since i was a child and i don’t get if I don’t offend anyone why do they get offended?
Hello! I understand that you and I disagree on some matters but maybe we can find some common ground, as I believe our problems have the same root.
The reason they get offended is probably the same reason they do the race bending in the first place. They may think you are racist because you don't "expand your horizons" and see them as other races too. The same way I am supposedly a white supremacist for wanting the Greek gods to express the Greek people (aka looking like the overwhelming majority of Greek people and be depicted like they our ancestors chose to depict them in antiquity). In reality, our concerns don't come from a place of superiority, but from the personal connection we have with our culture.
Also a lot of foreigners think "how dare you seeing them as only white! That's boring because it has no diversity and white people are evil cause they colonized a lot of places and I don't want the Greek gods to be white!"
This way of thinking reeks of foreign entitlement. If you were an Indian and imagined Vishnu as an Indian man, would they tell you the same? If you were a Nigerian and imagined one of the Nigerian Orishas Black, would they accuse you? Of course not, because those races face some discrimination *in the West* and that, in the eyes of foreigners, makes them sacred in a way. ((Let me note that only westerners usually do this, because they only care of what happens in the West. If you ask a Chinese or a Ugandan how the Greek gods should be depicted, they will have the same opinion as most of Greeks.))
It's good that westerners have lots of respect for the aforementioned cultures. I am not saying those cultures don't deserve the respect of not race bending their native gods. I mean that woke Westerners don't extend that courtesy to our own culture cause our skin is light. They accept a homogeneous pantheon when it's full Brown or full Black because then this homogeny seems like diversity to them. (While it isn't because you only have one race in the pantheon. But it is like that for Americans because of their political situation).
I haven't heard any person in this site saying "the Nigerian Orishas are spirits so you can depict them in whatever race you want!" or "The old Mexican gods can be whatever race you like because they don't have an actual human body and everyone can worship them!". The offense they take when they see the Greek gods as only north Mediterranean comes from a purely American-centric point of view. Foreigners who have this pov shouldn't influence how we see our heritage figures or how our heritage figures are shown in the world. When it comes to other cultures they stay in their lane but when it comes to ours "it's free real estate!"
I took some time to explain my position, too, because some new followers may not have seen it. If you want to discuss or add something, feel free to send another ask.