Various religious people are upset today because Google put Cesar Chavez’s photo, on what would have been his 86th birthday, onto its iconic “Google Doodle.” They think that the Google should instead have honored Easter, about which I suppose they think that other people might otherwise have forgotten. (Bing gave us easter eggs in its intro photo, which under other circumstances — like if anyone really cared about what they did might have called forth a “taking the Jesus out of Easter” rant. For those who want to complain of not being properly honored, there’s generally always a way.)
Would Google’s thus honoring Jesus on its doodle have been an improvement? Part of OJB’s graphics arts team took a flier at “correcting” the situation, to see how it would look.
Nahhh, I don’t think so. Travel with me to the counterfactual world where Google had instead used something like the bottom image rather than top one and let’s consider the likely criticisms.
1. “Appropriating Jesus’s image for promotion of commerce is irreligious.” Yes, that argument could be made, especially given a website that one can use to find, among other things, porn and socialist events.
2. “Pushing a specific religion in people’s faces alienates other religious (and non-religious) traditions.” This may be the argument that the religious critics would expect to see people others making, which may one reason for the preemptive attack.
3. “Thou shalt not make graven images.” Huh? What? Where did you get that idea? From the Muslims? (Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. — Exodus 20:4-6. Note: this also prohibits printing photographs taken at gay weddings.)
4. “Hey, it’s Cesar Chavez’s 86th birthday? How come you don’t honor him?” Of course, this complaint would probably be viewed as churlish.
In our universe, though, Google honored Chavez today, leading to objections on the grounds of disrespect of religion, despite that Chavez himself was deeply religious and exemplified the best Christian tradition of fighting for the poor, overturning the table (grapes) from the temple (kitchen) — and, yes, healing the sick, mostly by fighting for better regulation of pesticides that are still today sprayed on farm workers, leading to their own forms of grisly death. Some of those objections seem to be grounded in complaints along the lines of:
1. “He was too political/divisive.” Of course, none of his contemporaries ever said that about Jesus.
2. “He was too pro-union.” I leave this one as an exercise for the reader.
3. (Generally not stated out loud): “He was brown.” Yeah — well, if it matters, so was Jesus. I could color-correct the photo if anyone really cares.
4. “He was a brutal Anti-American dictator.” Yes, judging from comments, some people are apparently mixing up Cesar Chavez with Hugo Chavez. Jesus wept.
One thing that Jesus and Chavez (arguably both Chavezes), as well as the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr., have in common is the only arguably legitimate argument (although personally I don’t buy it) that I could imagine against Google’s appropriation of Chavez’s image on this occasion, 20 years and 23 days before the anniversary of his death: that it denatures him. Look at that image: nice and clean, somber and almost beatific expression. You don’t really see the scrapper in Chavez, no more than you see the tenacious fighter in similar portrayals of King or the splendid strategist and tactician in Gandhi or Mandela. They all seem so nice, gentle, inoffensive tame.
But that denaturing of them is a mistake — as it is with many remembrances of Jesus. Nice is nice, and it has its place, but we should resist the straining of these powerful and fighting men through the cheesecloth of pious memory to the point where all that remains of them is flavorless curds.
Chavez was an exemplary fighter for justice — and, for many politicians, both a great ally and a frequent unyielding pain in the butt. That’s worth celebrating — but that can be a matter for future doodles on future birthdays. For today, I’m glad that Google rendered into Cesar what, today, was his — and I doubt that Jesus himself would mind.
I thought my laptop crashed again when the above picture showed up…then I realized…
I think the picture of Jesus is incorrect and I will be politically incorrect by saying…if Jesus came from Bethlehem, he probably did not look anglo but would be of the darker skinned persuasion…if you get my drift. And see I was right those fundamentalists think everyday is all about them and what they want.
Greg, I guess your done being polite?
This is me being polite.
They should have just shut the google thing down for the day with the exception of Porn sites so that we could all meditate and self medicate in a non-socially violent peaceful manner.
Cesar’s work was deeply informed by his Christianity, and his particular strain of Catholic mysticism.
Later in his life though, his own internal demons, and the top-down, hierarchical structure of the UFW he had created, led to a period when Chavez turned to Synanon, a cultlike drug treatment program, as a transformational mechanism to revive the union and forced staffers to play the “Synanon game,” which involves brutal, relentless targeted criticism of individuals.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Chavez-source-of-UFW-s-success-and-decline-3291833.php#ixzz2PBRPadLO
Organizing, and union membership, dropped like a stone in a well. The UFW today is irrelevant in the agricultural labor market.
I canceled google because they put Chavez before Christ
That’ll show ’em! Way to stand up against alphabetical order!
I unfriended Vern on facebook on account of a highly disrespectful (and that is putting it mildly) post he made there concerning Jesus Christ.
Who me? I’m the biggest Christian there is!
My pal Jesus said the last shall be first, so Britt should be pissed if Google swung the other way.
Could you share the highly disrespectful post with the rest of us?
Inquiring retired Catholics want to know what offended the Skally.
Nah, it was a Theo-Hirsch type joke on Theo Hirsch’s page, and I didn’t think a buncha busybodies from skally to my parents were gonna be sitting and looking at it and getting all scandalized. So I took it down.
i think it’s remarkable that anyone would consider Google’s decision not to honor a Christian holiday the equivalent of dishonoring that holiday. basically, if you’re hacked off at Google for not showing an Easter bunny or a Jesus, then you are getting mad at somebody for not being a Christian. what does that say about you?
OOPS!
I posted an unedited version here is the correct version (sorry) ~
As an real, but a bit non-traditional/non-Orthodox Rev, still, I am a real reverend that subscribes to the basic tenets of Christianity i.e. that Jesus Christ was a Deity/Man. I feel many non-Christians etc are missing the real reason many Christians are distressed about the ‘Google doodle‘. I can say confidently say the majority of Christians are disgruntled/upset over the Easter Google doodle for the reason of insensitivity, not because of Chavez’s political or views or other reasons. Of course all he is an anti-American/ Anti-Christian Marxist Socialist. The primary reason Christians are upset with Google‘s decision to use Chavez‘s image instead of a Christian or secular Easter image/ Icon is that the display was blatantly insulting. That fact would be brutally obvious to any neutral unbiased observer. The only question I have for Google was this; who in Google approved such insensitivity?
And I think you have no idea how off the wall you sound to most Americans when you call this Christian man “of course” an “anti-American/ Anti-Christian Marxist Socialist” – simply because he created and led labor movements.
What kind of “anarchist Reverend” steps right out of the McCarthyite 1950’s?
Just to clarify things — what was the first name and occupation of the “Chavez” you are criticizing in your above comment?
AHHH – you’re probably right, haha!
Wasn’t Hugo Christian too though? I’m not sure…
He certainly presented himself (and was generally received) as such.
I think that the Rev. Greg (we have a new Greg and new Ryan checking in now on the “Chavez doodle” — can a new Vern be far behind?) was talking about Hugo. Not many people would bother attacking the long-departed Cesar as “anti-American” these days. (I think.)