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Santa’s White Privilege | FrontPage Magazine
By Daniel Greenfield On December 13, 2013
The left accuses capitalism of commercializing holidays. Meanwhile the left politicizes holidays.
Thanksgiving and Columbus Day are celebrations of genocide. The Fourth of July is a reminder that America was founded by rich white men who didn’t want to pay taxes. Memorial Day is perfect for anti-war statements and Mother’s Day is for denouncing the heteronormative family. Valentine’s Day is an occasion to protest rape and the patriarchy and Halloween is a time to lecture students about cultural appropriation and politically incorrect costumes that offend minorities.
The optimist would hope that the left would take a month or two off toward the end of the year. But every Chanukah brings with it articles about how the holiday is really a nationalistic campaign against multiculturalism and no Christmas would be complete without a national conversation about Santa’s whiteness.
Over at Slate, Aisha Harris, its resident expert on being offended by racist things in pop culture, suggested replacing old white Santa with a penguin of no specific color. Replacing Santa with a beady-eyed penguin would remove the need to have Santas of every race, color and creed, not to mention gender identity and sexual orientation.
It’s easier than finding a Maori transgender gay Santa in a wheelchair to really terrify the kids.
The penguin solution won’t work for all holidays. Replacing Jesus with a penguin will raise all sorts of theological issues and turning George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King into penguins will add a whole new twist to history.
But if we’re going to “penguinify” our way out of every holiday to avoid excluding anyone… we might as well start breaking out the penguin masks.
What is the charge against Santa? He’s a white male. He’s not a member of some KKK lodge in the North Pole and doesn’t burn frozen crosses on tundra. It is his whiteness that is offensive.
As Aisha Harris tells it, she grew up feeling hurt and ashamed because her father dressing up as Santa didn’t match the white store Santas… [Oh my!]
-go to link-
Thanksgiving and Columbus Day are celebrations of genocide. The Fourth of July is a reminder that America was founded by rich white men who didn’t want to pay taxes. Memorial Day is perfect for anti-war statements and Mother’s Day is for denouncing the heteronormative family. Valentine’s Day is an occasion to protest rape and the patriarchy and Halloween is a time to lecture students about cultural appropriation and politically incorrect costumes that offend minorities.
The optimist would hope that the left would take a month or two off toward the end of the year. But every Chanukah brings with it articles about how the holiday is really a nationalistic campaign against multiculturalism and no Christmas would be complete without a national conversation about Santa’s whiteness.
Over at Slate, Aisha Harris, its resident expert on being offended by racist things in pop culture, suggested replacing old white Santa with a penguin of no specific color. Replacing Santa with a beady-eyed penguin would remove the need to have Santas of every race, color and creed, not to mention gender identity and sexual orientation.
It’s easier than finding a Maori transgender gay Santa in a wheelchair to really terrify the kids.
The penguin solution won’t work for all holidays. Replacing Jesus with a penguin will raise all sorts of theological issues and turning George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King into penguins will add a whole new twist to history.
But if we’re going to “penguinify” our way out of every holiday to avoid excluding anyone… we might as well start breaking out the penguin masks.
What is the charge against Santa? He’s a white male. He’s not a member of some KKK lodge in the North Pole and doesn’t burn frozen crosses on tundra. It is his whiteness that is offensive.
As Aisha Harris tells it, she grew up feeling hurt and ashamed because her father dressing up as Santa didn’t match the white store Santas… [Oh my!]
-go to link-
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