The difference between "Santa is white" and "Jesus is white"

[Donald Ian Rankin]

Saying "Santa Claus is white" is like saying "Superman is white" or "Oliver Twist is white"*. I'm not sure why anyone would want to make an issue of it, and I don't see anything wrong with depicting black versions of fictional characters traditionally portrayed as white, but it's basically factually correct.

Saying "Jesus was white" is like saying "Martin Luther King was white" or "Spinoza was white". He wasn't, and claiming that he was is either ignorant or racist or both, and claiming it was a joke doesn't cut much ice.


*Well, more or less. Santa has some roots in other fictional entities who may well not have been. But by "Santa Claus", Americans nowadays pretty consistently and specifically mean the Coca Cola advert from the 1930s, not any of the other incarnations of Midwinter goodwill.

[tularetom]

1. Well, the Santa most of us grew up with is indeed white

but I've only been alive since 1941 and Santa obviously goes back a lot further than that. All I knew as a kid was that he looked an awful lot like my granddad.

Whether the historical figure that Santa Claus is based on was white isn't entirely clear to me.

But I'm pretty sure that Jesus was not "white", not in the northern European, blond haired blue eyed sense of the word anyway. He may have been Caucasian but he sure isn't what Megyn Kelly would call white.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

2. Only by about 10 years, arguably.

It depends what you mean by "Santa Claus" (in the same way that Hamlet the fictional character predates Hamlet the play), but the character (or at least, the depiction of the character) most people mean when they say Santa Claus was invented as a Coca Cola advert in the 1930s, only about 10 years before you were born. On the other hand, use of the *name* Santa Claus for the spirit of Christmas, and some of his properties, are older, and some of the characteristics ascribed to him are probably more recent.

But I think it's fairly fair to say that the modern character of Santa Claus dates back to Coca Cola in 1930.

On edit: it appears that I'm wrong, and it's actually about 15 years older than that. So some of my other claims may be inaccurate as well, I'm afraid.

[xfundy]

8. Of course Jesus is white!

Just look at the pictures in the bible!!!1!

[Cleita]

3. Nordic Santa was the one referred to as a 'right jolly old elf' in the poem,

"Twas The Night Before Christmas" although he is never called Santa Claus in the poem. He was, however, the Santa most of us grew up with and the one the media and movies adopted as Santa. This Santa is pure fiction. Although the poem calls him St. Nicholas and St. Nick, he bears no resemblance to the historical St. Nicholas.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/25/twas-the-night-before-christmas_n_801194.html

[Thor_MN]

4. The analogy has a few problems...

Martin Luther King and Baruch Spinoza are historically documented people. There is no historical documentation of Jesus,

[rgbecker]

5. Just to understand: Are you saying Jewish people aren't white?

What proof do you have that Jesus wasn't white? Are Arabs not white? Are middle easterners not white? When an middle eastern immigrant in the US fills out a census form, what term does he use.

Just wondering.

That said, I think the issue with our friend Meghan Kelly's comment is that she is assigning her racial preference to a couple of mythical characters or if not mythical, at least characters of unknown racial makeup. Kelly seems to think she is in charge of these myths, and wants every black person in the world to know it.

[xfundy]

7. "White" and "Black" are constructs.

As is "race," an idea invented a little over 100 years ago so that some people could consider themselves superior to others.

In the early 1900s, Irish and Italians weren't considered "white."

[Donald Ian Rankin]

11. Yes, I'm saying that "Jewish" and "white" are distinct ethnic identities.

What terms people put on census forms is up to them; they should use the one(s) they identify as, or just tick "prefer not to disclose" if they don't think it's anyone else's business.

But the only two senses in which I think it's worth talking about "what race/ethnicity are you" (outside of a medical or pathological context - sickle-cell and Tey-Sachs and so on) are "what do identify as?" and "how do other people treat you?"

And for the both those purposes, Jewish and white were certainly completely distinct until relatively recently, and arguably still are (although arguably not, for the last 50 years).

[xfundy]

6. Superman is Jewish.

Most don't realize that. His originators were, at least.

[rgbecker]

9. xfundy. Your insight on this foolishness speaks clearly.

Reading your posts make me grateful for the DU and you.

[Nonhlanhla]

10. Historical Jesus research points to a brown skinned Jesus

Research on what a typical man of Jesus time and place would have looked like point to a brown skinned man with dark hair. Let's just say a guy who would probably be asked for his documents in, say, Arizona.

[DebJ]

12. Scientific reconstruction of St Nick see pics at link

http://procroyalsoc.blogspot.com/2007/12/anthropology-update-visage-of-saint.html