So…

All Santas and Jesus figures must be White, eh?

This, according to a goofball by the name of Megyn Kelly who appears on a network named after a bushy-tailed animal.  Adding a link would only help her clueless cause, so I will not.

I will start by saying: I’m still confused as to how Santa and Jesus end up in the same sentence and wavelength, unless you are 5 years old.

We’ll move past that, as well as historical theories about  the actual appearance of Jesus who was most likely not some blue-eyed, blonde-maned man we could today mistake for a hipster. (Thanks for handling that, Atlantic.)

That’s a debate for another day.  Let’s look through it into why Kelly focuses on these two figures right before the holidays.

It boils down into her likely belief that White is right.  In her mind (wherever it is hiding), benevolent, beloved figures in our society should be portrayed as fair-skinned because anything else  is just uncivilized….

People like her are why my mother did not buy White dolls for my sister and me.  Toni Kyles did not make this call to be in any way bigoted or prevent my sister and I from living the Benetton dream.  We grew up in a predominantly Irish-Catholic neighborhood and she wanted to re-affirm our beauty and let us see that gorgeous Barbies could be chocolate-skinned with black hair just like ours.

Clowns like Kelly are the reason that the same mom painstakingly brushed bronze nail polish onto the faces on our birthday cake toppers, Christmas ornaments and even greeting cards.  It is also the reason she wrote a letter to several retailers who had taken to only selling brown dolls during the holidays.  “My daughters are Black all year long,” my mother wrote in her beautiful cursive script, “And if you cannot sell these dolls all year long, I will not support them during this season and nor will any of my friends and family.”

As a result of my mother’s efforts, we did not grow up believing that White was the only thing you could aspire to be…that blue or green contacts, blonde locks and lighter, ashy-looking makeup would make us prettier than our peers.  We never wavered in our knowledge that we– me, a mocha shade and my sister, a butter pecan hue– were just as cute and special as anyone we would happen to meet on our street and beyond.  And even when some of our non-Black besties questioned the hue of our dolls or asked if we’d prefer to play with their “real” Barbies, we proudly responded that ours were as lovely as theirs, maybe even lovelier because we took special care with their hairstyling and miniature designer clothes.  (Yes, my Day-to-Night Barbie did rock some Oscar de la Renta in her day. Werk.)

But back to the matter.

I also grew up believing that there would be a time when my family’s progressive thinking would be the norm…that society would eventually embrace the notion that diversity in mainstream images is important.  Makes sense, right? For example, sticking to Santa.  So kids have no issue believing he has flying reindeer but would balk if he happened to be a similar shade to his preferred hot chocolate?  It’s reasonable to think he is dropping off presents worldwide, but if he happened to pull those presents out with a hand that was more onyx than azure, that would boggle the mind?

Unfortunately, incidents like this latest Santa/Jesus foolishness and online uproar about colorblind casting in films like Hunger Games, Thor and Superman, make it clear that we are not there yet.

And truth be told, we might never arrive if we continue to give airtime, electrons and attention to sadly delusional talking heads like Kelly.  Clearly, from her high perch in the anchor’s chair, she cannot see the increasingly brown racial makeup of the America she claims to represent.