Your understanding of the Norse gods as symbols is very correct, however suggesting they be anything other than white is synonymous to them imagining a new color. Their religion didn't magically appear when they began raiding.

You are correct.

Let us look at the example of Odin (who appears in some variant in almost all branches of historical Heathenry), throughout time, to illustrate the point.

Was there a version of Odin (or a precursor) in PIE religion? If yes, then those people were most likely (by all evidence) not “white” (as we understand it today).

If no, then when do we arbitrarily decide that Odin (or his precursor) first “existed”?

- hedendom