Why Is Santa White? Who Cares?

I am so tired of ignorant, monosomic cretins posing as the enlightened. The latest example of this imbecility comes by way of Curtis Sails III a teacher in Milwaukee who opined “Why is Santa always white?” I wish this person were in front of me so we could have this conversation mano y mano, but he isn’t, so I’ll truncate my thoughts to fit within my self-constrained space limits. I’ll respond to his insurmountable, jaundiced prejudice.

It seems that the fact that a young child who happened to be black not only wasn’t bothered in the least that Santa was white but also the little boy enjoyed his experience. Actually according to the Encyclopedia Britannica Santa is based on the traditions associated with St. Nicholas, a 4th century Christian saint. Maybe this is why Santa is white. But I digress. The little boy, much to the chagrin of Sails, smiled ear-to-ear and thoroughly enjoyed himself as he interacted with Santa.

Sails wrote: “I wondered, in a country where we have an African-American president in Barack Obama and where the largest city just elected Bill de Blasio mayor with an African-American wife and racially mixed children, why have we yet to integrate our holidays or their characters?”

I would say the facts that he shared above make the case that it matters not a whit what color Santa is or isn’t. If it mattered, we wouldn’t have Obama in the White House or a mayor of New York with a black wife. Thankfully not everyone is a racialist like Sails is.

Sails wrote: “As I sat there contemplating, I wondered if Santa was African-American, would white families wait for hours to get a picture with him? Would they want their children sitting on the lap of a black Santa? And would that be a picture to add to the family scrapbook or in a frame on the fireplace? I asked myself why, in 2013, does it seem American traditions and customs are only for white Americans? Why are we being left out?”

Can this man actually be this disgustingly narrow-minded? If children wait from hours to years to get an autograph and their picture taken with their favorite sports star of color, why wouldn’t they wait in line to sit on Santa’s lap if Santa (the elf) were black, yellow, or brown? If children and adults (both male and female) have photos of themselves with their favorite celebrity of color on their desks, mantles, scrapbooks, etc., why wouldn’t they save the photo of themselves on Santa’s lap if Santa were black? Or doesn’t that fit the construct Sails is trying to foment? Maybe if Sails viewed himself as an American, he wouldn’t feel left out. Of course, I submit that he should take solace in knowing that Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan no doubt feel as he does.

Sails wrote: “Then I thought about Trayvon Martin, shot down in Sanford, Fla., after walking to the corner store for snacks. I thought about the two African-American young people racially profiled while shopping at Barneys in New York. I thought about Renisha McBride, shot to death while seeking help after a car accident in suburban Detroit. I thought about the millions of black boys and girls who are confined to the ghettos of America, segregated into poor schools, receiving a second-class education. I thought about the governments across the country reinventing ways to stifle the black vote in state/local elections. I thought about the biggest films of the year with African-Americans in lead roles as butlers and slaves.”

He’s going all out now. You don’t see this much crap around a sewage disposal plant. Nice try, but Martin wasn’t a cherubic little boy out for a Zero Bar. He was a thug wannabe who would be alive today if he hadn’t decided to attack someone from behind who just happened to have the great equalizer and used it. And if people (black people specifically) weren’t doing the “thug nasty thang,” storeowners and police wouldn’t feel a need to watch those who display a certain behavioral pattern in certain areas. Or is Sails going to argue that black crime statistics are incorrect?

Sails seems to overlook the fact that many blacks live in substandard surroundings based on life choices they made that led to same. As Dr. Walter Williams wrote several years ago, the best way not to be poor (and end up in a slum) is to not have children before you can afford them. I add that includes not having multiple children out of wedlock with no job, no education, and no way to provide for them. Dr. Williams said the best way not to be poor was to finish school and learn a marketable trade. I say the signature guarantee for poverty is to have no marketable educational skills, no marketable linguistic skills, no marketable social skills, and no marketable employment skills. Is Sails prepared to blame that on someone else? Whose fault is it that black women in massively disproportionate numbers have children (that they choose not to murder by abortion in just as massively disproportionate numbers) out of wedlock which leads to a high level of dysfunctional homes? Whose fault is it that black families disproportionately place less premium on education than they do football and basketball?

Is Sails prepared to argue the findings of Abigail Thernstrom and Stephan Thernstrom who wrote in the early 2000s that studies showed even middle and upper middle class blacks placed less focus on family educational pursuits than white families did? Schools are free, and libraries are free (complete with computers). Why aren’t black families taking advantage of them? Instead of spending hours and hours dribbling a ball, why not borrow a free language tape from the free library and learn a second language? Or is it easier to blame a nebulous system for not doing the job of the parents? Why doesn’t he blame Obama’s Secretary of Education who disallowed vouchers for children in under-performing schools?

He laments that Renisha McBride was shot to death in suburban Detroit while seeking help after an auto accident. I lament that Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom were kidnapped as they were leaving a restaurant. They were raped, sodomized, tortured, and murdered. I am saddened for the family of two foreign visitors who wandered into a predominantly black neighborhood and were murdered and robbed in the middle of the street. To this day I agonize for the families of Rodney Andrews and James Nemorin, two NYPD Detectives who were murdered execution style as they worked undercover to rid the streets in New York of guns in the hands of black and Hispanic gangs.

And let Sails bring forth his empirical proof that blacks are being denied the right to vote. I submit that not only is his cosmological view monochromatic, but he suffers from duplicitous dementia, or he would recall the New Black Panther Party members brandishing nightsticks and intimidating whites at the polls in Philadelphia, PA in 2008.

Sails wrote: “Oh, it makes sense why there aren’t many black Santas.” Because to white America, we’re not seen as jolly and many of our men are murdered before they have a chance to grow old.”

He’s right. Blacks often are murdered before they have a chance to grow old. Statistics show that approximately 8,000 blacks are murdered annually by other blacks. Beyond that, statistics show that more blacks are murdered by abortion every two and one-half days than were lynched and murdered from slavery through Jim Crow. White Americans may not see blacks as jolly, but I can say this: rational Americans of every description see most blacks as their own worst enemy.

Sails wrote: “We as African-Americans are bombarded by images of our inferiority, subservience and/or are excluded from mainstream America all together unless we’re entertainers, athletes or housewives. And when we do create things that depict our culture in a positive light, it is seen as out of the ordinary, crazy and/or lacking humility. It seems that many white Americans have yet to come to terms with the foundational understanding of equity in humanity.”

I say that the images of inferiority stem from those who put ethnicity over nationality. Blacks cannot have it both ways. They cannot self-segregate and demand exclusivity of segregative language and still be mainstream. Modernity hasn’t avoided blacks; most blacks have avoided modernity. By securing themselves to the same, self-limiting mindset that Sails is espousing they are avoiding modernity. I cannot speak to the environment he resides in, but I’ve traveled the world over, and I can say that there is no place I was not treated like everyone else.

Sails concludes: “What would the holiday season be like if Charlie Brown invited some of his black friends to Thanksgiving dinner? What would Christmas be like if “Home Alone” featured a young black kid outsmarting robbers trying to ransack his parents’ $1.5 million home? What would America be like if there were more black Santas in malls? … I don’t know. The way the year has shaped up, I’m not sure if we will. But it starts with you. Would you place your children on a black Santa’s lap? If not, why? If so, then what are you going to do to ensure that there are more black (Latino, Asian, Native American, etc.) Santas in our malls at holiday time?”

My thought is, who cares? Why in the name of sanity should a person of color feel diminished because a Home Alone movie hasn’t been released with a little boy of color in the lead role? What about Ving Rhames playing Kojak, Blair Underwood playing Ironside, and Will Smith playing Jim West? Does that count for anything to Sails?

As for placing a child on a black Santa’s lap, the question that begs an answer is, would Sails place his child on a white Santa’s lap? I have more confidence in people of America than Sails. I believe the majority of people would place their children on the Santa’s lap regardless of Santa’s color. Who cares what Sails think as long as he kept it to himself?