Megyn Kelly went viral when she declared Santa Claus “just is white,” but a decade later the idea of what St. Nick can look like has only expanded.
Aisha Harris had no idea of the uproar she would create when she recommended the Christmas Penguin.
Ten years ago, the writer and journalist published a lighthearted viral essay titled “Santa Claus Should Not Be a White Man Anymore,” in which she questioned the ubiquity of white Santa imagery.
“America is less and less white, but a melanin-deficient Santa remains the default in commercials, mall casting calls, and movies,” Harris wrote. “Isn’t it time that our image of Santa better serve all the children he delights each Christmas?” In fact, she suggests, a Christmas Penguin can represent the holiday instead of a person.
The backlash was swift, especially after anchor Megyn Kelly responded to the piece on her Fox News show “The Kelly File.” “This is so ridiculous, yet another person claiming it’s racist to have a white Santa,” Kelly said. “And by the way, for all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white.”
The part they left out with the Megyn Kelly rant was that she said that Jesus was white too. You know, Jesus, the middle-eastern Jew.
Racist fanfic cannon is pretty wild.
You know, Jesus, the middle-eastern Jew.
I know it’s really popular these days to pretend Jesus for sure looked like a modern middle Eastern person, but it would be more accurate to say that we didn’t know what he looked like given the variety in how people in 1st century Judea might have looked.
For example, one of the dead sea scrolls claimed Noah was a redhead.
2 Kings 5:27 talked about how there was a subpopulation who had ancestrally transmitted skin as white as snow:
Therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and to your descendants forever." So he went out from his presence a leper, like snow.
In fact, the biblical leprosy may have actually been skin cancer - the extensive focus on skin checks would have made more sense for a paler skinned population such as redheads who have 10-100x the melanoma risk of people without those genes.
It’s worth pointing out this all has little to do with the concept of race, given that in antiquity a number of prominent redheads appeared to be prehistory populations from North Africa - so you could have had African ancestry but redhead appearance for people in the Southern Levant.
There’s even the only extant sample of 1st century CE Jewish hair so far:
One of the more fascinating finds in this tomb, one that has not received much attention, was the preservation of a sample of Jewish male hair. The hair was lice-free, and was trimmed or cut evenly, probably indicating that the family buried in this tomb practiced good hygiene and grooming. The length of the hair was medium to short, averaging 3-4 inches. The color was reddish.
You had the Nazirite population, some of whom were designated as such from birth, where the vows were taken by the sacrifice of a cow with entirely red hair and one of the prohibitions was not being allowed to cut one’s hair.
A population described as having unusually light skin in Lamentations 4:7. And with the tradition of John being a Nazirite from birth and the later tradition of James the brother of Jesus also being a lifelong Nazirite, it’s an increasingly muddied picture given our relative ignorance about the unwritten characteristics or traditions of that area and time.
TL;DR: So it’s one of these popular but inaccurate pictures of antiquity. There were likely a variety of different appearances in that area in antiquity, and the only real conclusion about Jesus being “a middle Eastern Jew in the 1st century” is that it’s an insufficient amount of information to extrapolate any kind of accurate visual depiction without additional information.
Your argument is fair and nuanced. Her claim, however, was not:
“Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn’t mean it has to change,” Kelly said. “Jesus was a white man, too. It’s like we have, he’s a historical figure that’s a verifiable fact, as is Santa, I just want kids to know that. How do you revise it in the middle of the legacy in the story and change Santa from white to black?”
Agreed, Kelly is a nutjob. It’s just a pet peeve when I see the common reactionary response that often misrepresents our understanding of history and propagates misinformation, so I try to provide a bit more accurate context when I see it.
Understood. As I said, you have a fair and nuanced argument. And the context is appreciated, so thank you.
Ah you must mean Jesus, the anti-establishment hippie anarchist preacher leading a grassroots community resisting Roman occupying forces, who was also anti woke and pro corporate interest and pro tax cuts for the rich and openly advocated for income inequality
Well Jesus is also in the land of mythical beings so why not… 🤣
The quote for anyone wondering:
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 — but my point is: How do you revise it, in the middle of the legacy of the story, and change Santa from white to black?
This was in response to someone defending a black Santa since Santa is a fictional character.
That kind of nonsense is to be expected from the far right. But TBF you’ll also sometimes see people on the left describe Israel as a white colonial state and Israelis as white, especially now during the whole Gaza thing, despite a clear majority of Israelis having (relatively recent) middle-eastern roots. Eg. Ben-Gvir, the controversial Israeli Minister of National Security and far right nationalist, has Iraqi and Kurdish ancestry.
Modern day Israelis are not historical Israelites. They looked more like Palestinians do today.
Bibi Netanyahu is paler than my white ass.
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Netenyahu is Ashkenazi. Ignoring the fact that Ashkenazi Jews invariably and historically weren’t seen as white, they’re a minority in Israel and have been for a while now.
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Most Israelis have middle-eastern or north african ancestry. Wikipedia:
- There’s plenty of evidence to suggest Jews and Palestinians are genetically closely related. Pubmed:
- Back when Israel was founded, a majority of Israelis were Ashkenazi. That hasn’t been true for a long time. Many (if not most) modern day Israelis look very similar to modern day Palestinians. It’s one of the reasons the Israeli security services traditionally found it easy to infiltrate Palestinian organisations:
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🎅🏿
Wow that’s an emoji now? I added a custom black Santa to my discord server years ago because there wasn’t one then
Since most phone apps nowadays use the same set of emojis and just generally come with a skin tone selection for all of them that’s not an issue anymore.
🎅🏿
I totally missed this controversy. Black Santa was a thing long before that.
I don’t think normal people care what Megyn Kelly has to say about anything.
Penguins are from the South Pole. There are no penguins in the North Pole.
There are some fish though probably.
Auks it is.
Ah yes, Megyn “pepper spray is a food product” Kelly.
I’d expect people from the North Pole to be more likely Inuit than anything else. Amirite?
The only Santa I’ll recognize is a drunk German!
Especially if he brings me some St. Bernardus Christmas Ale… yummy.
Next up on Across The Santa-Verse…
Santa Noir And The Case Of Missing Elves
I fully expect this movie soon based on where DC and Marvel are heading.
Oh I’d watch that
we need Spidey-Santa
I don’t think race or gender swapping existing characters is that shocking to anyone anymore. So what fuss would there be lol? It’s no longer edgy at all.
Santa the Penguin? Sounds dumb as fuck
I mean it would have an easier time sliding down chimneys but how is it supposed to carry a sack of toys without thumbs?
Kowalski! Analysis!
I think the character is white, though. Some people are. Doesn’t really matter. Blade is black, I enjoyed the first film.
Santa Claus isn’t really a character, though. He’s a mythical figure. No one owns a trademark or copyright of Santa Claus. It would be like saying the tooth fairy is white. There are common depictions of Santa Claus, like the Coca Cola Santa, but those are just adaptations of a myth.
Blade, on the other hand, is an actual character, owned by Marvel. So Marvel decides what is canonical with regard to the character.
Genuine question, is being black an integral parto of the story of Blade? Never read the comic, saw the movie and don’t remember if it was. Kinda different of other characters, like Black Panther where being black is an essential part of the characters background. Going back to Santa, he’s based on a white guy, but the current cultural character of santa is so disconnected from him that it barely matters who the guy was. The character is a representation of Christmas, and Christmas is celebrated by basically everyone everywhere, so it was just a matter of time until local adaptations of Santa popped up.
The actual reason as given by one of the creators was that they were trying to diversify their characters by adding a black character when the vast, vast majority of characters at the time were white. It just happened that this character was the theme they were working on at the time.
It fits his theme visually, since he can be in the sun (Daywalker) and the pasty white vamps cannot. But that is just coincidence. Since the vast majority of superheroes still lean towards white due to keeping a lot of legacy characters around, it is important for Blade to stay black because he is part of an under represented race/ethnicity group.
All that said, Santa being white and Blade being black is a meaningless comparison. Santa brings gifts to all children and having multiple representations that fit different groups is a positive. Changing Blade erases an early example of a non-white superhero, which is a negative.
I agree that it would be stupid of Marvel to change Blade to a white guy (and that Marvel would never do it), but it would be theoretically possible given that he’s a fictional character - just like Santa Claus. Making black Santas hurts nobody. Well, except racists who see any black representation as injurious to their fragile white ego.
Changed my mind, Santa is Chinese now. Or like, Southeast Asian, let’s go with Southeast Asian.
And people could have Southeast Asian Santas while others have black Santas and still others have white Santas. Nobody (except the racists) is saying that Santa has to be ONE ethnicity and can’t be any others. Just because one family has a black Santa doesn’t mean EVERY Santa needs to be black.
Thanks for your answer. Legacy characters that are not a white cis male usually have a story or plot related reason of why they’re not a white guy, because if the background didn’t mattered they just made him a white guy.
It’s hard to say. The historical person, St Nicholas of Myra, was probably of a lighter complexion, given he was a native of Greece.
However, in traditional Catholic art, he is depicted as anywhere from pale-skinned to dark-skinned depending on the location of the images (Bari in particular has many paintings of him with darker skin, possibly to show that they were cool enough to be able to attract a ‘foreign’ saint).
So given that even the person who is the origin of ‘Santa’ is depicted with many different skin tones, I’d say Santa can be whatever skin color people want him to be.
Santa white as fuck mate. Just a fat white guy in Lapland. Baron Samedi, less so. Although he does wear whiteface a lot of the time.
Do you mean St Nick, the dude from southern Turkey? He probably was not too white.
