#okay? it does not matter. whitewashing is a different thing and its complicated and its good to be aware of

[incomingalbatross]

despite the fact that DC whitewashes Damian more often than they don't, he *does* have arab ancestry and would be Muslim if he had ties to any religion. making him devoutly catholic, especially if via conversion, reeks of religious colonialism.

Hm. Okay. This is a complicated subject, but I’m going to try and give a decent answer here. I think what it boils down to is that I don’t think Damian has a personal religious heritage which this idea contradicts, and I don’t believe that a story in which he followed his father into the Catholic Church would erase or disrespect his ethnicity or his cultural heritage.

First of all, if Damian were Muslim, I would not write or headcanon him as Catholic! Actively writing out an established part of a character just because one feels like it—especially in something like religion, which matters deeply to many fans—seems to me to be, at best, rude to the rest of the fandom. (And, side note, it’s why I’m not totally sure what I want Tim to be—I have a vague impression that there is evidence of him having a religious heritage, but I don’t know if it’s true? Comics canon is a terrible thing.)

However, as far as I am aware, there is zero evidence that Damian is or ever has been Muslim. And... I don’t feel like “would be Muslim” is a meaningful hypothetical here? Having Arab ancestry doesn’t automatically give him a Muslim culture or heritage—although it’s a reasonable assumption for characters we don’t have contradictory information on, like Ra’s—and in Damian’s case, a world in which he was raised Muslim would make his formative years significantly different than canon.

Damian is a mixed-race kid of Arab, whatever-Talia’s-mother-was-(because-DC-won’t-be-consistent), and white American descent. Culturally, he’s—well, he’s League of Assassins, which is its own thing, but it’s reasonable to say that the League’s culture at the very least has strong Arab elements. These are all important aspects of Damian’s character, and I don’t want to erase or overwrite them!

However, religion is not ethnicity or culture. A religion may have strong ties to those things (and will often have a culture of its own, which then mixes with the non-religious culture of its believers), but it is not identical to them. And religiously, Damian is a second-generation cult member raised in a cult that worships his grandfather. He has no personal connection to Islam. In fact, in a world where Bruce is a practicing Christian, I’d say Damian has a more immediate Christian heritage than a Muslim one.

But the last thing I want to say, and I think the most important, is that—as I said above—I don’t see religion as a matter of culture. I see religion as a matter of faith and worship, which encompasses a set of beliefs about the most important, essential, life-defining truths of existence. And it is my firm conviction that the Catholic religion is objectively true. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be Catholic.

I don’t want to overwrite Damian’s culture or heritage. I want to write him finding healing from all the pain and trauma Ra’s put him through and all the twisted ideas Ra’s raised him to believe. And being Catholic, I believe the truest and fullest healing can be found in Christ and His Church, and I love the idea of Damian finding his way to that healing because I love Damian. It’s for the same reason that I like headcanoning characters as Catholic in general—because I believe the Catholic Faith is the quickest and easiest path humans have to becoming the happiest, healthiest versions of themselves, and I like imagining my faves as their happiest and healthiest selves.

I hope this explanation makes sense.

(And if you don’t think it does, at least you can take comfort in the fact that all my posts that actually talk about Catholic Damian are currently very old and have probably twenty notes apiece? This is niche, it’s not going to have any actual impact on the fandom.)