Why are there no black cherubs?

A couple months ago, I got a tattoo to add to my collection of impulsive, cute and chaotic pieces.

Naturally I spent little time thinking about what I wanted, so I requested the artist’s flash sheet and picked what stood out to me the most: a cherub. The act would be considered to be sacrilegious by some, but generally interpreted as cute by many.

It was almost perfect, but something wasn’t quite right. Then it clicked.

“Could you make the cherub look more black?”

Plea granted. My request wasn’t meant to be some kind of grandiose statement. I just knew that if I was going to get something human-esqe tattoo’d, I’d at the very least want it to resemble me.

I went to Google to find images to show the artist some references of black cherubs, mostly to avoid forcing them to draw something that was overtly stereotypical. There were, like, 6 images max and the majority of them had Eurocentric features with dark skin at best or culturally ambiguous at the worst. Ignored it, and just briefed the artist.

Fast forward to more recently, I got a tablet and started to look at myself, apartment and body as reference points to start drawing. I was looking at my thighs, saw my cute afro-centric cherub and decided I wanted to digitally immortalise it. Once done, I posted it onto my feed and was met with a comment that shook me.

“This made me realise I’ve never ever seen a black cherub. Not even religious in the slightest but this made me so happy”

What is that about?

In all the years that Abrahamic religions have existed in black communities, pre and post colonisation, was no one interested in seeing these sweet little babies in a way that mirrored them? These official guardian angels, delivering messages to and from God, a high ranking, revered job, and we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for representation? Seems symbolic.

I hate to make everything overtly political, but I’m also bored of having to be made aware of all the ways that people who look like me aren’t seen or accounted for. 

In 2020 I want more black cherubs, more media with black people that doesn’t highlight their blackness and more positive associations with black people.

In 2020 I also want people to read this with the intention to understand and not invalidate. 
I’m hopeful.