Yeah, no. The Samaritans were absolute pariahs in jewish society at the time.
Think "The Good Protestant" at an IRA meeting. "The Good Muslim" maybe, but even that doesn't really go far enough. That's what the skit is about. The joke was turning that on its head and making the listeners NOT racist.
I'm trying to say, that in order to preach AGAINST racism... Jesus created a parable, a fictional story, about "A Good Samaritan". A 'magical negro' type character who was fully wise and perfect and helpful within the context of the story to illustrate that it was the content of people's character and the summation of their actions NOT their race which matter.
Which is something writers do all the fucking time today as well, and WHEN they do it today, it often comes across a little racist and heavy-handed to those who aren't the targets. This was 2000 years ago we're talking about!
Or, to put it another way: How racist was Uncle Remus in Song of the South? TODAY many people say very, at the time of its release, the NAACP came out in full throated support of the film and the character. Context matters!
...and at this point the joke has been completely analyzed to death. I really thought just watching the skit would be enough for anyone who'd actually read the Bible... since in fairness, if you read the entire thing it DOES do an "ok" job of explaining the context of Samaritan relations historically.
Sure, like you said, today the story would kinda weird since racism/tribalism is less of an accepted ideal. But when you're fighting against something that may have never been fought against, it made sense.
I get what you're saying, just not sure how it proves that the person above had a point.
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u/BlackBoiFlyy 20d ago
Meh, I don't think the name of the parable "Good Samaritan" is meant to hold that much weight.
It wasn't as if Jesus was implying that the Samaritan was an outlier. But that the Samaritan was someone they should aspire to be.