This is a genuine question, my catholic grandparents couldn’t give me a straight answer

Well, for one thing, you're asking a Catholic. Catholics probably have a more difficult time answering this. Christianity spread to the west, where artists with light skin painted Jesus. Since they themselves were white and lived in white communities, they would imagine Jesus as white.

Rasism

Why does skin color mater for the king of kings?

The problem with making objectively inaccurate statements about Jesus is that it will harm religion and suggests that the religion has other false parts.

Migration from the middle east to the north. Jesus was Caucasian, as are modern europeans, who are dubbed as such because they originated in the Caucus Mountains, after the flood anyway.