Then there was the Santa in my family’s household, in the form of ornaments, cards, and holiday figurines. A near-carbon copy of the first one—big belly, rosy cheeks, long white beard: check, check, check. But his skin was as dark as mine.By Aisha Harris for Salon
Seeing two different Santas was bewildering. Eventually I asked my father what Santa really looked like. Was he brown, like us? Or was he really a white guy?
My father replied that Santa was every color. Whatever house he visited, jolly old St. Nicholas magically turned into the likeness of the family that lived there.
In hindsight, I see this explanation as the great Hollywood spec script it really is. (Just picture the past-their-prime actors who could share the role. Robert De Niro! Eddie Murphy! Jackie Chan! I smell a camp classic.) But at the time, I didn’t buy it. I remember feeling slightly ashamed that our black Santa wasn’t the “real thing.” Because when you’re a kid and you’re inundated with the imagery of a pale seasonal visitor—and you notice that even some black families decorate their houses with white Santas—you’re likely to accept the consensus view, despite your parents’ noble intentions.
Two decades later, America is less and less white, but a melanin-deficient Santa remains the default in commercials, mall casting calls, and movies. Isn’t it time that our image of Santa better serve all the children he delights each Christmas?
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Slate: "Santa Claus Should Not Be a White Man Anymore"
"When I was a kid, I knew two different Santa Clauses. The first had a fat belly, rosy cheeks, a long white beard, and skin as pink as bubble gum. He was omnipresent, visiting my pre-school and the local mall, visible in all of my favorite Christmas specials."
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73 comments:
When I lived in Cleveland in the 80's, the white neighborhoods had lawn jockeys that looked like this; the black neighborhoods had lawn jockeys that looked like this. Same difference.
The left's obsession with skin color is exhausting. I can't do it anymore.
For the sake of unity, Santa Claus should now be a penguin. Great idea. What a relief.
Saint Nicholas was no more black than Cleopatra.
The fun part is Megyn Kelly is giving the Lefties the vapors by telling Slate to take a hike.
Can't wait for President Selfie to insert himself into this one.
Santa Claus' name derived from Dutch as Sinterklaas which itself came from Saint Nikolaas. If you say Saint Nicholas very quickly as a child might, you get to Santa Claus. Curiously, the traditional, European Saint Nick was a rather slender individual and wore blue rather than red. Coca-Cola intentionally rebranded him as an obese flyover state type using Coca-Cola red which also used to be the Deep South color before the red/blue switch was imposed by a TV network.
I suppose that we could decide on a racially ambiguous Santa Claus but I doubt that would serve all the children. Certainly there are people who you just can't even guess (like Vin Diesel)... is he black? is he white with a tan? is he Hispanic? does he have an asian grandpa?
But if you're wanting children to identify with the "real" Santa, it's not going to work anyway. Santa will just look *not* you, whatever you are.
(And lets not spend too much time thinking about how well small children understand the world. When I was young enough to believe in Santa Claus (never did, but when I was that age) I thought that a "dead end" was some horrible and inescapable trap at the end of some roads. Little kids are *stupid*... but entertaining.)
How about a brown Santa Claus as a compromise? Most of the kids out here in CA are brown. Blacks never were a significant minority and whites pretty much stopped having kids or stopped at 2.
I think a Chinese Santa would be more conciliatory to the racial make up of the world Santa covers.
Neither black, white, nor brown.
As we learned from that tragic Christmas shopping story.
Asian Santa is the way to go.
Asian Santa is the way to go.
They're not exactly fecund either. I say he should be brown -- for the children!
Yellow is much more aesthetically pleasing than brown.
Yellow has yellow pages... informative, useful, whereas, brown... brown paper bag, where drunks hide beer and liquor from the authorities patrolling the neighborhoods.
FACT: Brown is waste byproduct. period
FACT: Brown is waste byproduct. period
OK beige then.
Wait a minute, pollo, you are supposed to talk me into accepting brown... you could point out... for example that I'm brown... or I might be brown, and, having a brown Santa would be good for my ego or whatever.
You are not good at this.
Like Mandela said..
We need to learn the language of the enemy.
Beige takes its name from the French word for the color of natural wool. This is freshly-sheared wool from the Royal Winter Fair.
on the other hand...
btw.. Wikipedia is on fundraising mode.
I sent the minimum... color me bragging.
Saint Nicolas was a real person, but sure it's time, and lets make Saint Patrick black, and the Virgin Mary a male Korean lounge singer. It shouldn't matter who they actually were, it's all about us and our feelings.
Personally, I'd like to be considered from now on as a very hot young lesbian, 5'2' very athletic and nimble, blonde with a trust fund, but also a high-functioning heroin addict. Let's do that, shall we? I think we would all feel better.
Lem, I've only spoken to you on the phone. Your voice did have a "Speedy Gonzalez" lilt but we've never actually met.
On the other hand, I tutor brown, black and white kids twice a week in chemistry at the local HS. The browns win in numbers. Curiously, there are no Asians. They must be too good for Oceanside?
I like them all equally, but I really like to see the poorer kids succeed. Today I spent 15 minutes on one kid explaining the importance of his copper oxidation experiment and how it related to Lavoisier and overthrowing the notion of phlogiston. I needle their brains until something clicks.
My guess is the left is using race to sting its political opponents... because it's the one thing, apparently, where they feel secure on.
The security blanket annoys some conservatives who see the idea of race relations toyed with like a fake deft translator purporting to be of service.
The security blanket annoys some conservatives who see the idea of race relations toyed with like a fake deaf translator purporting to be of service.
FIFY
Unless deft/deaf was a pun
That's a great analogy, Lem, on a couple of levels.
Andrew Sullivan pretty much gave it away (the toying) when he described what Obama does with the republicans in terms of the Road Runner cartoon.
Unless deft/deaf was a pun
Like the Bob Boyd comment...
But alas, I wish I could say it was a pun... it was not. I misspelled it.
This cynical way of using race to get under the skin of people... like this article for example.
How do we (as conservatives) combat this shit?
I mean, this thing, I don't know what to call it, is so tempting and alluring, I think Crack was doing some, for a while there. I think he is back to pointing out the perils of new age thinking again.
The left's obsession with skin color is exhausting. I can't do it anymore.
They don't get tired of it. Hoping that new generations will see past it is perhaps naïve?
I don't know.
That's a great analogy, Lem, on a couple of levels.
There is a great article evolving into an essay and then a book waiting to be written in connection with the fake translator and the fake race healer... once the writer gets past the fear of handling the race component.
It definitely says something is strange, out of sorts, when we may not fear the rapacious nature of mendacity, but the skin deep color of a person silences hear ye hear ye.
Lem, I've only spoken to you on the phone. Your voice did have a "Speedy Gonzalez" lilt but we've never actually met.
I was toying with you myself there pollo. a little bit, I apologize. I was going for levity but I'm not good at it either. at least not as good as Trooper. The whitest man I don't know ;)
I've lost my levity, Lem.
I am this: >-<- close to posting a bridge-burning FU post about Meadehouse unless they release some sequestered comments of mine on their Breaking Bad thread.
I cut and saved the comments and will publish them somehow (unless they appear), perhaps with comment. I only added to the discussion.
I guess it annoys me too that the left is successful at this game they play so adeptly. it annoys me because they use it to further their political agenda.
How else can you explain a president with a job approval in the low 40s', signature legislation that today would totally fail if it were put to a congressional do over, a legislation that threatens the health security of millions. We are talking about a big fucking deal to quote Joe Biden.
And still the republicans have apparent little to no leverage to negotiate minimal cuts in a runaway spending cluster-fuck of a mess everybody is so well acquainted with they don't even talk about it anymore.
If nothing can be done while Obama, under the conditions that he finds himself in, when?
Althouse is back on moderation again.
I'm not commenting there until she takes it down again.
I'm not going to be toyed with like that.
I should spend more time here, posting here, anyways. Perhaps she is inadvertently doing me a favor.
I dont know. Sometimes I think Althouse methodically sets out to do things with her blog, while making it appear that is all extemporizing or whats the world I'm looking for?
I think she meant to cull the herd.
Mission accomplish.
Anyway, What I'm I doing should I get back on my soap box again?
Am I annoyed. you bet you.
CSPAN is rearing J Carneys follies right now.
I watch a little bit and I'm thinking those guys sitting there asking him questions, after Obama repeatedly told those lies to the American people, and the lies became law... before they could any questions, move on or whatever... what do the reporters do with that elephant?
The only explanation I can fathom is that we hired a fake translator and we seemed to have made up our minds to keep him on until the end of the event.
Oh my look what time it is.
Thanks for hanging on pollo.
And thanks for posting. a big thank you to ALL the posters, guest posters and commenters.
I don't have the stuff that it takes to have a successful blog and yet we keep getting decent clikage. actually I don't know for sure what decent clikage is. I'm guessing we are getting decent clikage because of the efforts of all of you.
When I was a kid, I knew two different Santa Clauses.
I blame the author's parents.
If you can accept a 1000 lbs hairy orange cow as Santa, I can give it a shot...I just do not want to end up as smoked brisket going up and down those chimneys.
Mm, smoked brisket.
Racism is all they have. Without it they are nothing. So racism is everything. The political people, not the regular people.
(Except when it is sexism, classism)
It wears me out too. Dealing with straight up unapologetic sanctimonious racists all the time. So I don't.
Once I said to my dad, "...working my last good nerve" and he cracked up laughing at the phrase, not at the thing I was talking about, and there went my complaint right out the window because dad was laughing too much to care.
There is a young woman at the FRB who is beautiful. Something of a hard case. She looks exactly like Nefertiti, her profile does, minus the exaggerated headdress, and I mean exactly and I said so. She liked that. I told her that I would like to paint her sometime if she was up to that and she liked that too. We conversed at length. She opened up. Through all that she posited Cleopatra was black. It must be. Egypt is north Africa, after all. Everyone forgets that. See? Cogent right there.
I didn't have the heart to disabuse her Cleopatra was Ptolomy and Ptolomy is Greek, the history shifts back and forth, there are indeed black pharaohs here and there, important ones too, but not during the Greek era when any of the seven ugly-ass Cleopatras lived. They were all white. White. White. White. Help!- the-sun-is-touching-me white. She needed a black Cleopatra, her own sense of history, so who am I to get all up in to that *flaps hand* just to make a point. Better to go, "Yeaaaaah."
Back when TV was entertaining... An episode of Santa
Twelve percent of all Santas should be black. No more, no fewer. There needs to be a federal commission established to ensure that is always the case.
And every television ad must have precise representations of every minority in the country. No, world. Once again, we need government intervention to oversee this oversight.
Lem said ...
I don't have the stuff that it takes to have a successful blog and yet we keep getting decent clikage.
Bah. YOu are doing much more than I ever could. Thank you for that.
I come here to visit and occasionally comment for one reason general reason...the people who also do so here, as well as Lem and the other contributors. I'd include ARM and Phx in that, and even Ritmo at times.
Sometimes I think Althouse methodically sets out to do things with her blog ...
NO sometimes about it, Althouse always is experimenting and playing with her blog and her readership. Seemed cool to me until the meltdown and uncalled for allegations that bordered on a demand for worship. Her manic spouse sealed the deal for me by his early behavior right here toward some participants...over a period of days so I presumed it was and is approved on high.
For the life of me I cannot figure out why anyone returns to the place they were so clearly unwelcome. But it a free country, etc...and none of my business.
Santa is from the North Pole! Of course he's white!
For the sake of unity, Santa Claus should now be a penguin. Great idea. What a relief.
Yeah, but now you are pissing off all the browns and yellows and reds (the skin, not the Democratic Party, which is always pissed off anyway).
The simple solution, favored by progressive shits everywhere, is to kill all the white people. Then there won't be any of these pesky problems.
And yes, Santa is white. Deal with it, or stop using Santa in your holiday celebrations.
Santa should be a space alien. How about one of th bugs from the Alien movies? Or maybe a Predator Santa!
And we could always get Lobo to take over for Crusher Cringle.
or I might be brown
I seem to recall seeing a picture of you on Althouse (an old avatar I believe) in which you looked somewhat like Bagoh's Latin cousin, complete with mustache. Or am I misremembering again?
and the Virgin Mary a male Korean lounge singer
How about a Thai lady-boy instead? We don't want to leave out transgenders....
Andrew Sullivan pretty much gave it away (the toying) when he described what Obama does with the republicans in terms of the Road Runner cartoon.
If you like your Acme anvil, you can keep it. Period.
If you can accept a 1000 lbs hairy orange cow as Santa, I can give it a shot...I just do not want to end up as smoked brisket going up and down those chimneys.
Put on the hat, and let's see how you look.
I sort of liked the idea of the Norse Yule Goat.
My adopted son is biracial, and it pretty much pisses me off that that dingbat would have me tell my son that he should sit on a different Santa's lap than the one his sisters do.
Fuck the fuck off, Aisha Harris.
Sadly, Aisha didn't take her father's flexibility on race to heart.
I don't have the stuff that it takes to have a successful blog and yet we keep getting decent clikage.
Who determines success and what's the measure used?
What I see here is a forum for interaction, humor, opinion, art and music; fostering the growth and exploration of levity. A whiteboard on which opinion is writ, drawings and illustrations are made, from which notes are taken taken and made, with something new added and happening on a daily basis.
Process, flow, challenge, affirmation and relational give and take are integral to dynamic communication. When such elements are present, I believe this definition applies: Success: from the 1530s, "result, outcome," from Latin successus "an advance, succession, happy outcome," from succedere "come after" (see succeed). Meaning "accomplishment of desired end" (good success) first recorded 1580s. from Online Etymology
Sixty:
"Twelve percent of all Santas should be black. No more, no fewer. There needs to be a federal commission established to ensure that is always the case."
lol absolutely right.
Lem, et al., I've thought since the beginning that the break-up was pre-meditated. A day or two before it happened, she posted the draining the hippo pool video, and then, bam, went off the rails.
To be fair, I don't blame her on the level that she got a lot of abuse from some. I think that must have been emotionally taxing. More than once I posted there that there was a certain abused spouse thing going on. She'd post something that would piss off some, and then the next day she'd try to be nice in order to keep the peace...and the clicks. But I guess it was too much for her, after all. She wanted a nice tea party, and she's doing well.
Anyway, whatever. Her latest move is to chat up her commentariat and LOL more. Catching more flies with sugar. She's a playa, yah boy. And not letting chick's post through...make the natives restless...she's a genius lol.
And here's the thing: There is no way to win. We enjoy talking about her. She, like my sister, loves being bathed in attention, good or bad.
Finally, she point-blank lied to Glenn Loury on Bloggingheads about the reason she turned off comments. She told him it was because of a disagreement over the Supreme Court same-sex marriage ruling.
Dudes, we are in her web.
One more thing. I don't hate her, she just gets on my nerves. I know she has her good points. She doesn't always go for the kill. She love her family, she is tender-hearted about some things.
Grrr, I've forgotten how you do the link thing.
Synova:
I love your suggestion of Vin Diesel as Santa Claus. Especially when you consider this story of St. Nick at the Council of Nicea.
(Did I do that link thing right?)
By the way, Saint Nicholas was from Myra, Asia Minor, and at that time, they were Greeks.
And, as for commenting at Professor Althouse...
Meade made it very clear here, early on, that commenters in general weren't wanted. I thought that was rude and said so back in July. While I've read some of Professor Althouse's blog since, I read far less of her work since being shown the door.
Which was entirely her right to do.
Racism is all they have. Without it they are nothing. So racism is everything. The political people, not the regular people.
Lol. That must explain the diverse demography of the right-wing.
Make me a sammich, Chippie!
Make me a sammich, Chippie!
And after accusations of racism, sarcasm.
After sarcasm, cutting personal remarks and name calling.
Followed by an elaborate pretense of pseudo reasonableness and rolling on the floor laughing.
Who or what the hell is a Chippie? And what kind of sammich are you hankering after and demanding here, Ritmo?
"...since being shown the door."
To be clear, the door was shown specifically to those who had expressed themselves and self-identified as crybaby losers over Windsor v. United States and bemoaned the loss of some of their powers to oppress gay people and other Americans who claim their equal rights under federal law.
I hope that helps explain it for you although I fully understand the old maxim: Never explain yourself. Your friends won't need it and your enemies won't believe it anyway. So I beg your pardons for wasting your time with the explanation.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all my friends and enemies who are here, continuing to learn levity at Lem's. May the new year bring you liberation, happiness, and love. And vice versa.
Windsor v. United States was a 5-4 decision was it not?
I wonder how much respect Meadhouse lost for the dissenters?
Zero. Were the 4 dissenters in Windsor crybaby losers? Did they come into the comment section at Althouse to whine and grouse over their loss of power to oppress gays? No.
Meade said...
Zero. Were the 4 dissenters in Windsor crybaby losers? Did they come into the comment section at Althouse to whine and grouse over their loss of power to oppress gays? No.
My chirbit from that era captured the mood.
You know damn well she should have a German accent.
You know damn well she should have a German accent.
I don't know why that should damn well be true, but then I don't qualify for the "Dudes, we are in her web." group either.
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