Fox News pundit Megyn Kelly insisted that non-white boys and girls throughout the world face reality: Santa is and only ever will be white.
“For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white. Santa is what he is. I wanted to get that straight.”
How does she know this to be so?
“I mean, Jesus was a white man too. He was a historical figure. That’s a verifiable fact.”
Oh dear.
So it’s not enough for go after children for daring to think that St. Nick is anything less than a WASP, Jesus is white, too? Despite the fact that the social construct for whiteness did not appear until many hundreds and hundreds of years after Jesus’s historically or religiously accepted birth date?
Since her unscripted commentary on how children are supposed envision Jesus and Santa Claus, Kelly has been getting a great deal of criticism, and with good reason.
Proving that there is no cure for stupid, #Fox News' #MegynKelly declares Jesus and Santa were white http://t.co/eOADgODlR0
— AllAmericanGirl (@Mama3Cubs) December 13, 2013
That last tweet was a clip from the legendary White Christmas, not to be confused with Megyn Kelly's White Jesus or White Santa.
— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) December 13, 2013
To be fair, if Megyn Kelly knew what Jesus actually looked like she'd never have called him white. She'd have called him a terrorist.
— Cindy Lou Jew (@OhNoSheTwitnt) December 13, 2013
First, given the ethnic origins of both Santa and Jesus, as one writer delicately put it, “weren’t the kind of white that would have passed muster with a segregated 1950s golf club.”
Second, it’s likely Kelly is basing her assumptions on artwork that regularly portrays Jesus and Santa as the whitest of whites. Artistic license as a verifiable fact? What has the world of news punditry come to?
Perhaps there is a lesson in this after all: Christmas is for everyone. It’s not the sole property of individuals seeking protect their versions of holiday tradition. Typically by insisting that the interpretation of beliefs should have stayed in the 1950s with themselves and their mindsets. Megyn Kelly is welcome to her “white” Santa Claus, “white” Jesus, and “white” Christmas. Since the spirit of the holiday is outside her grasp, it’s a moot point to try and take the racially exclusionary aspect away from her as well.
Megyn Kelly Will Address 'White Santa' Controversy Tonight on Her Show http://t.co/QwuK6sO2gi
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) December 13, 2013
Image: Megyn Kelly’s Twitter