His words also fit the popular short-hand definition of racism: prejudice + power. Jesus is prejudiced against the Syrophoenecian woman; and he holds in his hand the power to free her daughter, or not, as he chooses. So if Jesus’s rebuke is not technically racist, in the historical sense, we can still reasonably understand it as a fore-type of racism. Having delivered this disclaimer, for the sake of convenience, and to communicate the urgency of this passage, I hope you will forgive me if I call Jesus’s behavior “racist” going forward.
The second disclaimer is this: given that my stated purpose is to consider the story of the Syrophoenecian woman in light of DiAngelo’s “White fragility,” and given that I’ve identified Jesus’s rebuke as a fore-type of racism, a reader might infer that I am attributing something like Whiteness to Jesus.
To be clear, Jesus is neither historically nor theologically White. Ethnically, he did not belong to any of the diverse groups that have been assimilated into Whiteness. Sociologically, he was a working-class Israelite living under Roman occupation, from a town of ill-repute: he did not have the social capital of Whiteness. Theologically, Jesus’s clear orientation is toward the margins, thus Whiteness cannot be his subject. As James Cone famously noted: “He is Black, because he was a Jew.”6 Whiteness has no part in him.
That said, we must also acknowledge that at various points in his ministry, Jesus wields significantly greater social power than those who surround him: as an able-bodied man, as an Israelite within Israelite lands, as a respected and educated teacher, as a renowned healer, and as an adult. Though he is not White, the way he conducts himself in these moments can be instructive for those of us who participate constantly in the social power of Whiteness.
Disclaimers aside, what can DiAngelo teach us about Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman? And how will it help us listen for Black lives? DiAngelo identifies a number of defenses that White people deploy when confronting the issue of racism. Among them is White solidarity, which is the unspoken agreement among Whites to protect White advantage and not cause another White person to feel racial discomfort by confronting them when they say or do something racist.7
At the first sign of racial trouble, we circle the wagons to defend other White people from charges of racist conduct, or even from confrontations with simple facts regarding the racist institutions of our society. As regards Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman, it seems that we transfer this same impulse onto Christ.
If you make a search of sermons and biblical commentaries on the story of the Syrophoenician woman, you will notice very quickly how White scholars and pastors seem intent on circling their wagons around Jesus. Though he is not White, perhaps we recognize in his power and in his prejudice the same racist dynamics that surround us. Or, perhaps, we imagine him to be White. Either way, we feel compelled to defend him from the charge of racism before it is even stated. What does this look like in practice?
DiAngelo notes that one of the most prevalent defensive responses of White fragility is to prioritize intent over results.8 We assert that so long as our conscious intentions were not racist, then we are absolved from the racist effects of our actions.
This seems to be the preferred defense of biblical commentators. One way or another, they will declare that Jesus does not intend the racism that we hear. In my review of these commentaries, I find three versions of this argument.
The first notes that in the Greek, when Jesus uses the word “dog,” he is using the diminutive form (κυνάριον), in contrast to the standard (κύων) that Jesus uses to describe the dogs who lick at the poor man Lazarus’s sores (Luke 16:21). Thus, according to this argument, when he calls the Syrophoenician woman a dog, he is describing her not with contempt, but rather affection.9
The absurdity of this argument comes clear if we simply read his words again, replacing “dogs” with the diminutive, and more affectionate, “puppies”: It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the [puppies.]
This is, of course, no less offensive, only more patronizing. And regardless, this reasoning still leaves the woman’s daughter to suffer and die.
The second line of argument emphasizes Jesus’s declaration, “Let the children be fed first.” From here, the commentators assert that Jesus’s intention is not to deny the Syrophoenicians needs; but rather, to defer them. Essentially, these commentators argue, he is simply telling the woman to wait her turn.10
There are two problems with this line of argument. The first is that the statement “Let the children be fed first,” appears only in Mark’s version of the story, not Matthew’s. For Matthew, at least, this detail is irrelevant. More fundamentally, this line of interpretation is uncomfortably reminiscent of the court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson. It would be akin to telling those who had to go to the back of bus that they were not being denied, only deferred. After all, in the end, the bus is still going to the same destination. And once again, his reasoning leaves the woman’s daughter to suffer.
The final version of this argument is a favorite of White interpreters with liberationist aspirations. I regret to say, I have preached it myself on one occasion. This argument states that by denying the woman in a racist fashion, Jesus provides her the opportunity to speak for, and claim, her own justice. Thus, he empowers her.11
This argument requires such contorted mental gymnastics that it is remarkable it does not cause aneurysms. Imagine a potential employer who tells an applicant, “We’re not hiring you because you’re Black.” When the applicant protests, the employer says, “You’re hired. I just wanted to give you the chance to speak up for yourself.” One can only hope that a civil rights lawsuit would follow.
Another defensive mechanism DiAngelo identifies is focusing on the messenger, rather than the message.12 That is, we invalidate criticism based on the method of its delivery rather than its content, colloquially: tone-policing. A particular favorite is the assertion that criticism must be delivered privately, or it is invalid.13 DiAngelo notes the absurdity of this rule, in that the racist behavior being critiqued is frequently public. Thus, the public space is preserved for racism, and antiracism is regulated to private spaces (where it is generally ignored anyway).
In reading the story of the Syrophoenician woman, I was surprised to notice how I engaged in that kind of tone-policing within my own mind. Through decades of reading this exchange, I had always imagined it as a private encounter. The witness of Mark’s account is unclear, though his statement “yet [Jesus] could not escape notice” at least suggests there might have been others present. Matthew, on the other hand, is very clear about the fact that the Syrophoenician woman had an audience.
By imagining the scene as a private one, I effectively moved the woman’s criticism to a venue I deemed more appropriate, and thus, allowed Jesus to save face (at least in my sight), which is to be expected: the defenses of White fragility operate even in the absence of external criticism, sabotaging the healthy parts of our own minds, so we cannot see for ourselves the structures of White supremacy that shape our lives.
Here, in all these various interpretations of the passage, we see the defensive reactions of DiAngelo’s White Fragility deployed to protect Jesus against the charge of racism. This is