Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Specialized Santas

I never thought that I'd be delivering a lecture on Christmas Day, but when I read in the Drudge Report on Christmas Eve Day that Macy's, NY,  gets customers from all five boroughs because they offer  black customers a black Santa, I became incensed.  But, the article warns, you have to know about Black Santa and special order him. 

My first thought was, "No wonder, racism is rampant in this country!  Can you start any earlier teaching kids to discriminate?  The '60s Q and A would go like this:  "Mommie, why is Santa not white?"  "Oh, he's for the coloreds, dear."

My second thought was, "A black Santa is historically incorrect."  Santa in the Western hemisphere has been white since the 1823 poem "A Visit From St. Nicolas" and cartoonist Thomas Nash's drawings which illustrate it.  

And in the full spirit of fairness, if history is going to be corrupted by have a non-Caucasian Santa, then there should be Mexican and Asian Santas as well.

I add my chorus to Rodney King's "Can't we all just get along?"  

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