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| My Santa |
For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white. But this person is maybe just arguing that we should also have a black Santa. But, you know, Santa is what he is, and just so you know, we're just debating this because someone wrote about it, kids.--Megyn KellyKelly was responding to an article by Aisha Harris, a black writer, who proposes that in an America that is culturally, ethnically, and racially diverse, perhaps it is time that Santa's image as an old white guy gets a makeover.
Most of you appear to think Megyn Kelly is a flake, but I've read these lengthy discussions in which people dismiss Kelly as a nitwit but engage in serious debate that Santa is white or that there's no reason to mess with Santa's traditional appearance (white, fat, bearded guy).
Kelly is a twit, but her assertion of the whiteness of a fantasy figure does reflect white privilege at its overblown best, as do some of the comments that I've read on Facebook. As Santa is not real, he can be any color that we like, including purple with green polka dots and red stripes. So why should a little black child have to imagine that Santa Claus is white? I have more than one black Santa in my house. My favorite does a sassy dance to "Jingle Bell Rock." Declaring that Santa is white is just as nonsensical as declaring that the Easter Bunny is a white rabbit and everyone knows it.
We can adapt folklore and legend to reflect our own cultural identity. One of the biggest misunderstandings that I frequently encounter when it comes to white people interacting with black people is a failure by so many whites to step into the shoes of being black in a culture which has consistently and traditionally devalued blackness.
Imagine living in a country in which you see nothing that reflects your image. When I was a child, I remember very clearly the first time I saw a black doll in a store, a pretty black doll with brown skin and brown eyes and curly hair. I also remember having to reach adulthood before black dolls with kinky hair like mine became available. Our mother brought black dolls for me and my sister after we first spotted them in the store and I was in love with that bundle of plastic parts because she looked like me.
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| Look Megyn, I have a black angel! |
I also noticed that quite a few people seemed a bit confused as to the origins of Santa so I've provided a bit of clarity on that topic.
2. Santa is a fantasy figure cobbled together out of Nordic, Scandinavian, Turkish, Greek, and Germanic (includes English and Old English) cultures. The Catholic church does not recognize Santa Claus as a saint. There was a 4th century Christian Bishop, St. Nicholas of Myra who contributed to the concept of Santa Claus, but he is not Santa Claus.
3. In addition to St. Nicholas, Santa Claus is a mixture of the Norse God Odin, Father Christmas, Sinterklaas, and Christian beliefs in the Christ Child. The essential quality of the benevolent figure was as a gift-giver to children.
4. The image of Santa as the jolly guy in red with reindeer and a house at the North Pole emerged in the 19th century based on the poem, A Visit from Saint Nicholas (aka The Night before Christmas) by Clement C. Moore. Cartoonist Thomas Nast solidified Moore's description of Santa in an illustration for Harper's Weekly in 1863. Note, this image of a large white man with a beard and a bunch of elves is an American concept fabricated from old legends by Clement in his poem and Nast in his drawings.
5. I repeat, Santa is not real. The fantasy figure reflects American and European cultural norms, he is therefore depicted as white. The growth of media has made the image available worldwide but do not arrogantly presume that Santa Claus is eagerly awaited by children all around the world. Different cultures have different images of the gift giver. American traditions are not the traditions of the world. Santa does not fly around the world on Christmas Eve.
If you want more information on the origins of Santa Claus, follow this link to an informative history.
I think you misunderstand me. Yes, Santa Claus, is a fantasy figure based on Nordic mythology, but as he never existed any more than flying reindeer did, I see no problem with anyone dressing him up to suit themselves. He's a metaphor and I'm as irritated as you are about the arrogance of Fox News. I thought it was apparent I just prefer to laugh at the idiocy rather than get angry -- but of course I have to admit that even the Christian savior is to me a combination of Mithras, Attis, Osirus, apollo, the Roman Sol Invictus and even Gilgamesh. There may have been a real Jesus, but the real Christ isn't real to me at all.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes it irritates me when he's painted to look Danish as he always is. We don't know he wasn't beardless and bald and fat. Judas however is usually shown as a gross caricature of a hook nosed middle-easterner rubbing his hands together with greed. Trust me, I laugh at assertions of what Jesus looked like as much as I do of assertions of what Santa looks like and life as a non-Christian is as alienating in some ways as life as non-white.
I was only attempting to be humorous pointing out that in at least one country, there are two Christmas folk figures - and there is a fuss being made about the black one by white people attempting to speak for liberal principles. I'm asking if there isn't a bit of a catch 22 here and if we don't lose either way because of the contentious nature of modern life. I'm laughing, as I always do at our silly species - and because otherwise I'd have to cry.
Mythology has always been a make it up as you go along affair and to say that Santa is white is either silly or a Zen Koan. What color is something that doesn't exist? Whatever color you want it to be, grasshopper - and I fail to see how I disagree with you on this point.
As far as I'm concerned Santa can look like me - an old Jew with a white beard as much as he can look like anyone else. To my children, Santa was in fact me after all. Santa is a metaphor for kindness to children and nothing more. What is the color of a metaphor?
I'm sorry if the images of Santa make non-white people - actually any non-Northern European kids feel left out, It makes Jewish kids feel left out too - and Muslim kids and Chinese kids but I don't see what we can do about it except what is already being done. You either decide that Christianity and its attendant mythology was invented by Europeans and accept it or you don't. You either create your own Santa, your own folklore in your own image as we have long done with other mythological figures or you begin to question the folk beliefs, the fairy tales of your culture. Or both.
And for what it's worth, my daughter, who isn't much younger than you had a favorite doll who was black. I gave one as a Christmas present for someone else's daughter and seeing it she fell in love with it and I had to buy her one. Hey, we're all Santa sometimes.
I just wanted to add that the relatively minor holiday of Hannukah has been wildly inflated to importance simply because it's usually around December and observant Jews didn't want their kids to feel left out when Santa snubbed them. There is no Jewish Christmas equivalent. At this point it may be the only Jewish holiday most Americans can name and trust me, there are a lot of Jewish holidays.
ReplyDeleteHannukah doesn't include a Santa clone because until recently it never was a gift giving holiday until Christmas became so commercial so some Jews, feeling the need of one, joke about Hannukah Harry. I'm not sure what color he is.
To be perfectly blunt, I am angry this year. Angry with the GOP, angry with the Pee Tardy, angry with Fox News, angry with Egg-em-on Kelly and her sidekick Brillo. Every year, they ruin the spirit of the holiday season for everyone with their annual wars on Christmas, their arrogance and smug belligerence, their bigotry, and their callous disregard for people.
DeleteMy New Year's resolution will be their undoing.
(O)CT(O)PUS my friend, chill man. Ignore the Leprechaun, the fictitious War on Christmas , Ms. Kelly the defender of Christ and Santa Claus had to be white BS, and the whole make believe because it fits my paradigm BS. Focus on the real value of the "Spirit of Christmas (or the Holiday Season) and look into the eyes of the 3 year old, the 5 year old, the 8 year old, and realize their is alter all some hope for the species.
DeleteI thank my 5 year o;d grandson for this everyday of what is now likely the last 1/3 of my life..
Sheria, for me it matters not the skin color or shade of skin Santa or Christ had as their outer covering. What matters is the goodness that was to be found beneath the INSIGNIFICANCE of their skin, just as it is for all of us.
I must say however my favorite Elf was indeed a women of color. Or more scientifically accurate a woman absence of color.
Happy Holidays!
RN,
DeleteThe Human Genome Project taught us a few lessons about race. In a nutshell, the human genome is homogenous throughout the human population worldwide, and race does not exist biologically or genetically. In fact, characteristics such eye, hair and skin color are determined over eons of time by climate, geography and local conditions; our superficial traits are malleable and interchangeable. It means black can turn into white, and white into black, and every shade in-between.
Yet, race is an artificial social construct, and wishful thinking will not make bigotry and prejudice go away. We should ask: what is there about the human species that motivates one group to assert tribal superiority and hegemony over another group? Why should one drop of blood or skin color or a foreign-sounding surname privilege one group but disadvantage another?
Biology is color blind, but society is not. We will never know the difference until we place ourselves in the position of a discriminated person and experience first hand what it is like to be ethnically and racially profiled, to be regarded with suspicion every time you walk down the street or enter a store, to be denied credit or housing or the right to vote, to be treated as a second-class citizen.
Knowing what we now know, why do ignorant and malicious people such as Brillo, Glenn Dreck, or Egg-Em-On Kelly perpetuate these myths and shibboleths?
No, I will not chill. It angers me, and it should anger all of us.
(O)CT(O)PUS, you sum it up well. This is it exactly: "Biology is color blind, but society is not. We will never know the difference until we place ourselves in the position of a discriminated person and experience first hand what it is like to be ethnically and racially profiled, to be regarded with suspicion every time you walk down the street or enter a store, to be denied credit or housing or the right to vote, to be treated as a second-class citizen.
ReplyDeleteAll the non-white children who heard Kelly insist, with great authority that Santa is white and so is Jesus may have had questions for their parents or simply recognized that they were being once again left out of mainstream American culture. Kelly's words echo the philosophical underpinning of all the asses in the Tea Party who continually pontificate about wanting their country back. It's a rhetoric of exclusion and not a minor deal at all. It reflects a significant plank in American culture that not only has engaged in disenfranchising black Americans, whose history in this country is as old as any white Americans, but has persistently dismissed any complaints we dare raise about being left out, not counted as real Americans.
Kelly's words were stupid and grounded in ignorance but what disturbed me more was the dismissal of the post by Aisha Harris that elicited Kelly's comments. The characterizing of Harris as making too much out of nothing. She pointed out a cultural phenomenon of identifying the fantasy being of American children's Christmas dreams as white and suggested that it was about time to acknowledge that perhaps children would prefer to cast their Santa in an image that reflected them. She didn't say that Santa needed to be black but that there needed to be room for Santa not to always be depicted as white. Harris wasn't only talking about Santa. She wa addressing the larger cultural phenomenon that white is the default, the expected.
I and other little black girls didn't have a choice about what color doll to have. The stores didn't stock black dolls . That's a far cry from having a choice. Skin color doesn't matter when yours is the default color. Several years ago I visited New Orleans with a woman, who was white, and with whom I had been friends for five or six years. We were close, shared taste in books, movies, and music. Discussed the men in our lives in intimate detail. In NO we went to a nightclub to listen to jazz, the two of us and a male friend of ours, also white. The club was filled with back people. My two friends were the only white people in the place. No one paid any attention, our waitress was friendly and service was good. My female friend barely spoke a word fr the three hours we were thee except to repeatedly express how tired she was and could we go back to the hotel soon. She was clearly uncomfortable. My other friend and I were having a great time; the music was good and the people were friendly. He and I talked about it the next day and he said it before I did, that our mutual friend was uptight to be surrounded by black people. I could only think about all the times the situation had been reversed, where I had been the lone black person in some place that she wanted to go. I had always felt comfortable because I was there with my friend. We've never recaptured our closeness.
Just heard Bill O'Reilly, also an ass, insist that Harris made it a racial issue and that Kelly was just joshing us. Jerk.
Sister,
DeleteThank you. As a cephalopod with an uncanny ability to camouflage myself, I can blend into any population group and never know what it’s like to be treated with suspicion and scorn.
Nevertheless, I do recall an incident from childhood when my third grade teacher separated the class by religion during the holiday season. The J-kids were assigned to the back of the room and supplied with paper and crayons to busy themselves while the C-kids exchanged presents and sang songs in the front of the room. When my mother heard about this, she was irate and lodged a formal complaint with the school. I felt mortified.
I think all children have an innate need to feel a sense of belonging to their community, and I resented my mother’s intervention because it made me feel discrimination, and attendant social inferiority, for the first time in my life. In retrospect, I am now grateful. Having learned later in life of my ancestral history, I now know that I should remember and honor my ancestors for their suffering and never disavow my roots.
Since my Kafkaesque transformation years ago, I found life easier living with (adopted by) a humanoid who now cleans my aquarium and does my shopping. I repay him by serving as his avatar (which means eavesdropping on his telephone conversations and intercepting his email while he sleeps). A darn good thing too! If it weren’t for me, his girlfriend would have dropped him ages ago. On his behalf, I apologize every time he puts his foot in his mouth (or his hands in places where they don’t belong).
Telltale water droplets on his keyboard have not yet given away my secret. When he logs on in the morning, I sit right next to his computer disguised as a tape dispenser – silently LMAO!
Sheria,
ReplyDeleteI was born to a protective liberal family, grew up in the suburbs and didn't know about racism for an absurdly long time. It never occurred to me that the black people I saw working weren't content to shine shoes or hustle bags at the train station or be called 'boy' in hotel lobbies.
There were no black kids in any of my schools until I was in college and I got in with a blues and jazz crowd. My best friend in the old neighborhood was Japanese. It wasn't until I was 11 or 12 that I found out that some people found that suspicious even though his father was wounded at Anzio. I was amazed. Racism still surprises and confuses me and it saddens me when I'm not accepted or trusted because of some ethnic nonsense. Too often I'm unwilling to believe and I make excuses for them because it's still hard for me to believe.
Obviously I'm dense and a little bit slow, even now, and I'd probably think your friend was just a little afraid of crowds because I know I am - but unfortunately I wasn't there because I would have loved it - you were.
Even so, one doesn't have to experience being a second class citizen to know how ugly that kind of discrimination is, to be disgusted by racism and its arrogance We're all the same and we all feel pain from the same sort of thing to some degree and not to be too dramatic, but I do feel your pain and I care about it.
Although what serves me as a religion is all about compassion, the amount of disgust and anger and hostility I feel toward those Fox people, the skinheads, the Aryan Nation, the Klan, has no limit, but in a way it's easier to oppose them, to fight them and to win those big battles like voting rights and segregation and harder to deal with the subtle stuff, the every day stuff, the nice people with an ugly side hidden away that bites you in the ass, the smiling bigotry of Megyn Kelly -- but bitterness and distrust is a sign of victory for them. Keep the faith. Don't let them win.
Sheria, this was such a timely post. Instructive and wonderfully thought-provoking. I'd like to share it at my blog.
ReplyDeleteHi Sheria,
ReplyDeleteThank you for reminding us about what Aisha Harris said as well as sharing your own personal feelings. There were several mindless discussions about the probable races of these two wonderful rock stars out on the blogosphere, but really very little of any substance or sensitivity. We were jumping up to laugh at silly Megyn. As if the whole thing was just a big joke. But the story really wasn't about Megyn at all. I like your Santa. My neighbor had the white version that shook his hips to Jingle Bell Rock. It was one of the most important possessions that my wife and I wished we might have purchased after his death, had there been an estate sale. No. I can never truly imagine or feel what it must be like to be so shut out of a culture. But I have been aware of cruelty and exclusion since a very young age. My mother prayed that I might make a black friend after prejudiced children in La Jolla circa 1966 showed me how cruel that people can be. Two years later in London, my best friend was a little child named Michael Boyce. But back to the point, I will never really know what it feels like. To this day, I often feel that something is amiss every time I meet a black person in public. Usually both of us go out of our way to make the other person feel comfortable. Always painfully aware of the heritage that we share. The story by Octo is one of the saddest things I have ever heard. I think a more common experience that I witnessed would have been what Fogg described a couple of times about being forced to be around Christmas caroling, without any thought as to how he might have felt about it. I was also exposed to the chasm, if you will, between Jewish and Christian celebrations of the holidays at a fairly tender age. The little girl I had a crush on came to our house one day in December 1965, only to object to my explanation of a Nativity Creche with the infant Jesus. It was very interesting to me. La Jolla had always had a realtor's code to never sell or rent to Jews until the very early 1960s when the new University sought to add Jewish faculty to the new-born brain trust. Very enlightening indeed. All of my best pals were Jewish. Their influence lives within my heart and soul to this very day.
Lastly, as an afterthought, my reaction to Ms. Kelly's assertions. If one is to take Christianity seriously, and not simply wear it as a badge or lapel pin to bully other human beings as do O'Reilly, Kelly, Limbaugh and other assorted right-wing media personalities, one fact is very hard to miss. Kind of like being capable of missing the entire point of theSermon on the Mount, which should clearly disabuse most right-wing Christians of the majority of their judgments of others.
If Christ really was sent by the Father to help us understand how to worship in spirit and truth; and if Saint Paul told us all that in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free... What could possibly be more spiritually vacant and empty than to argue what race he was? Particularly to assign to him the white race. Those that asserted their superiority from Malaysia to Australia? From New Orleans to Johannesburg?
Well, not to be pedantic, but St Nicholas of Myra was from the southern portion of Turkey - a region not known for it's light-skinned natives.
ReplyDeleteRegardless of that, however, I must interject. Santa Claus is neither black nor white. He's obviously Chinese. It's simple logic: that's where the toys come from.
By George, he's got it!
DeleteEvery year I get all the Fox News crap about liberals destroying Christmas....I hear it from friends and family (yes, the vast majority of my friends and family are idiot conservatives) so I just keep going on saying "MERRY CHRISTMAS" as many times as I can. I say it to everyone...
ReplyDeleteI remind my friends and family that I am one of the wildest liberals they know and I still say Merry Christmas.
I have the exact same black angel posted in the picture of Sheria's post and I have another 3 black angels (out of a total of 27 angels that is not bad).
Every year I buy two new ornaments for my christmas tree, and I try to make them relevant to the year in general. I also have "rememberances" on my tree of people who have passed away and a couple of dogs, along with special events.
Its MY tree and its MY traditions....and I don't give a damn what Fox News says, or my idiot relatives and friends....I play Christmas songs all month long and my favorite is this one:
http://youtu.be/eCOz0p5_PTc
I think the Kenyan Boys Choir is awesome!
Being German I also listen to alot of German Christmas carols like this one:
http://youtu.be/8VcDms_tI40
Oh, then you have St. Nicholas Night, December 6th and of course the lighting of the advent wreath every Sunday before Christmas.
I love Christmas and I do it in a big way! Yeah, and I haven't been inside a church (except for weddings and funerals) in over 30 years (probably because I am buddhist).
Me and my hippie christmas tree and all my pagan rituals don't give a damn what Fox News or conservatives say one way or the other and I don't pay any attention to liberals or atheists for that matter...
So guess what....do Christmas anyway you want! JUST ENJOY IT!..
I will keep doing Christmas MY WAY and cherishing the memories and the spirit of the season!
Back when my kids were young, I made a Buddha to sit on top of the tree and some tin foil 6 pointed stars to hang from it. As you say, It's my tree and you're absolutely right, it's time to stop giving a damn.
ReplyDeleteI've smiled a lot as I've read all of your comments. All of you are why I share what I do about my experiences as a black person in America. It's not out of anger, nor bitterness. I realized ages ago that if I gave in to those feelings that those who perpetrate hate and bigotry would win. I share because I know that there are those of you who will hear me and think about what I've said and because we are all capable of making the effort to understand what it is to walk in another's shoes.
ReplyDeleteI share because it is worth making the effort to understand each other, to really know each other. I feel a closeness to the people here because of our discussion. One of the most influential books that I read as a child was The Diary of Anne Frank. I didn't know any Jews in my small southern town, but I fully connected with this young girl and wept over her death.
I believe that regardless of our differences that we are capable of understanding and appreciating each other. All of you prove that my belief is valid, over and over again.
From Anne Frank: “How noble and good everyone could be if, every evening before falling asleep, they were to recall to their minds the events of the whole day and consider exactly what has been good and bad. Then without realizing it, you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day.”