What if the Macys employee looks in line and sees an atheist kid? Do they bring out the atheist Santa? Or what about a libertarian Santa, who only gives out Ayn Rand books?
But seriously, I’ve been to a few malls here in the DC area that only offer African American Santas. I’ve also seen a number of houses that will have an African American Santa outdoor display of some kind set up. I don’t know how kids or parents reconcile the more omnipresent Caucasian Santa with this other depiction, though.
Clement Clark Moore gives a physical description (profiles the dude) in his poem "The Night Before Christmas.
I thought the same Santa traveled all around the world in a single night and didn’t switch identities for cultures who didn’t already have their own legend of him.
But in the service of PC I soon expect a Black Simon Legree whuppin’ a bunch of White folks sometime in the near future. After all, this year I attended a college production of Bram Stoker’s Dracula" where a number of cast members were dark skinned and Professor Van Helsing was Asian!
The authors couldn’t possibly have been right. Could’ve happened.
Last year for our school Christmas party, the school decided a person in our class would play Santa. The teacher insisted that it be one of our black students - wanting to buck the white Santa trend, I suppose. The guy we chose made a great Santa.
In a play, that is referred to as “color blind casting”. It can be done for several reasons, ranging from artistic choices to really just a practical matter. Those are the actors they have on hand. There aren’t that many plays that are written for a Star Trek style rainbow coalition. So what? You limit your choice of plays? Or you do the best you can where you are with what you have.
I once saw an excellent production of A Christmas Carol where the Ghost of Christmas Present was Jamaican. His accent was a really good match for the jolly heartiness of the character.
Seriously, there’s nothing about Santa that requires him to be white. Gimme a bouquet of Santas in all the colors of the rainbow! The more flavors of Santa the better! More Santa is never a bad thing!
Sorry, I’m not understanding why this is “PC”. Dark-skinned and Asian students need acting experience just as much as their white classmates do. It would be horrible if they weren’t cast for these parts simply because the casting director is an idiot who can’t see past skin color.
When my mother told me Santa was a black guy, she was being 100% truthful. My daddy was Santa in our house.
This.
I think Tethered Kite may be confusing Political Correctness with PractiCality.
Also, beyond mentioning cheeks “like roses” and a nose “like a cherry”, the poem attributed to Clement Clarke Moore never actually describes Santa’s skin colour.
(In fact, if we accepted the description given in *The Night Before Christmas *as the standard, parents would be taking their children to the mall to meet. . .
Even as a kid, I could tell when the store Santa was sometimes a woman in a Santa suit. That was really creepy. If there are no men available for the job, then don’t bother.
