Back in September, Newsweek featured an article titled “Even Babies Discriminate“. Mandy beat me to the punch and blogged about it. However, what I wanted to blog about could wait, until now.
Towards the end of the article, we learn that teachers in a rural Ohio school read a version of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas in which Santa is black. They introduced the concept of Santa as a black man. At the school Christmas party, Santa showed up, and yes, he was black.
The problem is, Santa isn’t black. You know why?
Santa Claus isn’t real.
I love ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. I love Christmas in general. I watched Frosty the Snowman three times tonight. None of that changes the fact that Santa Claus is a fictional character. We don’t “do” Santa in our house. Jack is told that he is “pretend”, like the Disney Princesses and Lightning McQueen. Does he understand that? I don’t know. But I know he won’t be getting any presents from Santa, and that we do not encourage the Santa myth at all.
Now, I know that other parents like pretending Santa is real, and that’s OK, I suppose. My beef, and the reason for writing this post, is that a school was essentially teaching kids that Santa is real. Not only that, but they were teaching kids that this fictional character is black. So, then, the kids grow up, find out Santa Claus is a sham, and these kids who were so happy to learn that Santa is brown like them are doubly upset. Not only did adults lead them on about Santa, they got the children’s hopes up, offering a false role model. Because to a lot of kids, Santa Claus is what it’s about. Even I enjoyed the Desperate Housewives bit in which Felicity Huffman’s character threatened to call Santa’s cell phone if her kids wouldn’t behave.
Maybe I’m taking the whole thing too seriously. However, I’d sooner a school teach that Jesus wasn’t white than that Santa exists and is black. If they had stopped with the story and allowed the children to ponder and brain storm “what other characters could be black?” I’d likely dismiss that portion of the article. They could have read the Jump at the Sun versions of the fairy tale classics for crying out loud!
I know, I know. Bah humbug!
I read this and it brings up so many thoughts. I get the whole Santa isn’t real but what most children grow up and learn is that it was their parents who made the sacrifices and playing Santa for them all along. For those who grow up in brown houses their Santa is indeed their brown mommy or daddy. I don’t know that black children grow up and are doubly upset as much as they learn how blessed they are to have parents who try and grant them their hearts desires.
Interestingly enough I adopted to children from Ethiopia. They know little about Santa or the American traditions; however after they were introduced to the idea of Santa (not by me) my children had a question, “Will our Santa be brown like us or will he be yellow (their word for white). I told them that the Santa that came to our house would be brown like us.
In a year or two when they discover that Santa is not real we will have a good laugh about it but they won’t believe that a benevolent white man swoops down and gives them gives when it is their mother that works hard to provide for them. By the way Christmas trees aren’t real either, they are just pine trees decorated one time a year to bring smiles to the face of many.
Merry Christmas
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