The Color of Santa

Ladies, Gentlemen, children of all ages…

I regret to inform all those who thought Santa must be white that he is a fictional character.  Of course, the Bigger Picture will be shown; our modern day fictional Santa Claus is based on a real historical figure.  The premise of this article?  He wasn’t white.

Saint Nick is based on a historical figure known as Nikolaos of Myra or Sanctus Nicolaus (Latin) and he lived from 15 March 270 to 6 December 343.  He was from Greece, but only by the way of political boundary. He was born in Patara, which is in the Antalya Province, modern day Turkey.  This means that he isn’t white, at least by today’s standards anyway. In fact he would look like an old Middle-Eastern fellow with white hair, among the ethnicity that hasn’t been considered a part of the white conglomerate since 9/11.  He had a reputation for secret gift-giving, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out in the open (hence, the stuffed sock and boot hanging) and thus became the model for modern Santa Claus.

The reason why this is even brought up, is due to a prominent Fox News anchor truly insisting that Santa Claus is just white… just as the Easter Bunny is just oviparous.

Megyn Kelly of Fox News made what she clearly thought was an important interjection on her show concerning a black blogger on the notion of Santa’s ethnicity:

“And by the way, 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.

Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn’t mean it has to change.  You know, I mean, Jesus was a white man too.  He was a historical figure; that’s a verifiable fact – as is Santa, I want you kids watching to know that.”

Pot calling kettle?  Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn’t mean it has to change.  And this statement alone is the very reason why this article exists.

The irony of Megyn Kelly’s idiotball last week is that while she was lambasting an Afro-American essayist who had argued that a white Santa was a flawed notion by modern standards by telling her that “just because something makes you uncomfortable doesn’t mean it has to change” — the fact is, it is Megyn Kelly and white conservatives alike who apparently NEED Santa to be white — precisely for a level of comfort, that is.  Which is why they changed him so as to make him such, even though many of the earliest depictions of him (as the feature picture clearly illustrates) is more closely to the logical and historical truth.  It is she who represents those who change things to make them comfortable to the point at which they accept the change and deviation from the reality, as some sort of truth.

Which brings us to the far more important point: why do white people apparently require white heroes, icons and saviors?  And why do they need to act strange when ethnicities other than white question that, and wish for their own representation?  The defense of white defaultness of a fictional character is telling.  It speaks of a socio-psychological compulsiveness that needs to be honestly addressed.  Not merely stated, but brought to question.  Why is it necessary for a fictional character to be white? and here’s the bigger picture — can white people of America see past race?