Was Jesus a blue-eyed blonde "white" man?

In Britain and the USA, practically every image you see portraying Jesus Christ shows him with light hair and very pale skin - a white man. I have seen pictures from African countries that show Jesus as a black man.

Obviously, culture has a lot to do with it. Each country would like to show Jesus as a native of that country, after all, nobody wants their Lord and Saviour to be some Johnny Foreigner, now do they?

Jesus was born at the East end of the Mediterranean, in the region of what is now Israel. It is a very hot area, and people native to that region have quite dark skin - they are certainly not caucasian (or "european white"). Many Christian groups would have us believe that Jesus was a blue-eyed blonde white boy, who probably spoke English as well. If you don't believe me, just start up a conversation along those lines in alt.atheism or a similar USENET group.

Racist Christian organisations (a tiny minority, but there, none the less) like to portray Jesus, and indeed God as a white man to further their own agenda - if God is white, then surely the white races are God's Chosen Children, and all others are inferior? (eg. the "Children Of Ham" myth, which says that God turned their skin black as punishment).

The facts are these (assuming Jesus actually existed, of course ;) :

Jesus' skin was not white, it was a good healthy dark brown.
Jesus did not speak English.
It is extremely unlikely that Jesus had blonde hair or blue eyes.
God is not white, or a man - it is completely absurd to even try to describe a multi-dimensional, universe-spanning, spiritual being with those characteristics. How can God have skin? Why would he have a penis? What would he do with it? It makes no sense at all.