Black? White? Brown? Santa Claus is any color you want to make him

By David McElroy · December 14, 2013

Are we really arguing about what color Santa Claus is? Has anyone broken the news to the people arguing that he’s just a fictitious character?

That’s right. Santa doesn’t exist. But that hasn’t stopped culture warriors from trying to turn him into a cause. On Fox News this week, anchor Megyn Kelly started the ball rolling.

“For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white,” Kelly told viewers. “Santa is what he is…. I wanted to get that straight.”

Other people have struck back, arguing that to claim Santa is white is “oppressive.” In the Los Angeles Times, there was a piece about why “we deserve a Santa for the people, not just white folks.” Over at the progressive left website Think Progress, they were writing about “Megyn Kelly’s fear of a black Santa.” And a blogger at the conservative Washington Times was defending Kelly and writing about “why Santa Claus’ skin color matters.”

One of my friends reports that a very intelligent friend of his believes that “having a white Santa is just cultural dominance over a disenfranchised and unempowered race and we might want to consider transitioning to a less-white Santa and for me to insist that a character keep his image just because said character is and always has been depicted as a white male is oppressive in nature.”

That’s right. Our culture has been reduced to arguing about whether a fictitious character’s ethnicity is “cultural dominance” over “disenfranchised” people and what kind of Santa “we deserve.”

To all of the combatants, I simply say, “Who cares?”

Santa Claus didn’t start in his present form. He’s culturally created and that’s fine. I’m not going to bore you with all of the historical background that led to the current character, but he’s a mixture of bits and pieces of different things — St. Nicholas, Odin, Father Christmas and half a dozen other things. Various people in various places have blended the stories. Different people swear that their version is the real version. The advertising people at Coca Cola have even had a lot to do with our present view of Santa, as have countless Hollywood movies over the years.

At this point, Santa Claus is simply a broad cultural character in the public domain that can be modified (or not) at the whim of the person telling the story. You can make him whatever you want.

Yes, Santa was traditionally a white guy, because he was created by white cultures. In the same way that other fictitious characters can be transformed into something else, Santa can be transformed further, too. As far as I’m concerned, Santa will remain a white guy who looks like someone out of a Coke ad. If someone else wants to show the guy as black or Hispanic or Chinese or whatever, I don’t care, as long as he doesn’t insist that I’m required to conform to his ideas of what the character ought to be.

Stories and characters can survive just fine as they’re transplanted from one culture to another. There’s no need to make it into anything political. It’s not oppressive if Santa remains white for me, but I’m not threatened if you make him a gay African albino with rides a giant yellow banana pulled by miniature unicorns.

Hamlet is sometimes staged with a black Hamlet. Or a gay Hamlet. So what? Santa’s no different. (Former First Lady Nancy Reagan didn’t have any problem with Mr. T as Santa.) Whoever wants to tell the story can tell it as he pleases. You can have a black Santa if you want. Just don’t whine if I don’t go along with your political agenda about it.

For the people who are screaming — on both sides of this issue — Santa isn’t the real issue. The real issue is that they’re angry when other people won’t believe what they want them to believe and act as they want them to act. Santa is just another symbol in a long-running culture war.

I’m a non-combatant in this idiotic culture war. I think other sane and honest people should ignore it, too.

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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