Another "Just Kidding" Moment About Racism on Fox

Unless you just popped in from Mars (greetings and salutations if you have), then you must be aware of the kerfuffle over Megyn Kelly at Fox News saying that of course Santa Claus and Jesus are white and you'd be crazy to suggest otherwise. This was in response to an article at Slate.com by Aisha Harris that argues having only white Santas perpetuates a "white-as-default" culture that can have a negative effect on non-white families.

Now, as a white guy, I have never given this much thought. Which is at the same time the benefit of being a white male in current-day America and the curse of being completely clueless about how other people perceive what we may consider "normal". The goal is to recognize that what I experience in this country is not what most people experience, and to be empathetic and to try and see things from other points of view. I really sucked at this when I was younger but I like to think I have gotten better at this as I have aged. Which is the long way of saying that Ms. Harris has a completely legitimate point. And while she couched it in a tongue-in-cheek suggestion we turn our symbol of Christmas into a penguin, it's a point worth looking at and discussing.

Unless you are on Fox. Enter Megyn Kelly:

"By the way, for all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white but this person is just arguing that maybe we should also have a black Santa. Santa is what he is and just so you know, we are debating this because someone wrote about it, kids."

....

"Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn't mean it has to change...Jesus was a white man, too. He was a historical figure. That's a verifiable fact -- as is Santa. I just want the kids watching to know that. My point is, how do you just revise it in the middle of the legacy of the story and change Santa from white to black?"

As Jesus himself said, "Suffer little children to come unto me...so that I may use them to shield my blatant racism." Or something like that.

It's obvious that Kelly does not like this idea of a multi-ethnic Santa, or a penguin Santa, or any Santa that isn't a fat white guy. And then she throws in Jesus for good measure because there is no way that the Lord and Savior of Man could possibly be some dusky-skinned fellow who would get pulled over in Arizona or look like some immigrant. And that's a fact, people! You know, like the fact that St. Nicholas was born in what's now modern-day Turkey. Or that Jesus and his mother came from what are predominantly Arab areas of the modern-day West Bank (Bethlehem) and northern Israel (Nazareth) respectively. So...that "fact" about being white? Not so much a fact as much as a cultural bias.

So there was much push-back from this racist baiting bullshit on Fox. And after a brief time away from the screen (or as Fox called it, "a sick day"), Kelly was back to tell us we're all just a bunch of humorless douchebags who can't take a joke.

“Humor is what we try to bring to this show, but that’s lost on the humorless,” Kelly said on “The Kelly File.” “This would be funny if it were not so telling about our society, in particular, the knee-jerk instinct by so many to race-bait and to assume the worst in people, especially people employed by the very powerful Fox News Channel.”

....

“We continually see St. Nick as a white man in modern-day America,” Kelly continued. “Should that change? Well, that debate got lost because so many couldn’t get past the fact that I acknowledged, as Harris did, that the most commonly depicted image of Santa, does, in fact, have white skin.”

That emphasis is mine and it's key because Kelly completely misrepresents what she said. She didn't "acknowledge" that Santa is white. She "asserted" that Santa is white. Again, her initial statement:

"By the way, for all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white but this person is just arguing that maybe we should also have a black Santa. Santa is what he is and just so you know, we are debating this because someone wrote about it, kids."

Or to put it another way: "Santa is white but we have to reinforce that because someone dared to question it. Oh, and so is Jesus."

The initial defense of a racist comment is to always say it's a joke, that it's the other person making it such an issue. Which is exactly what Fox and Kelly are doing here. And to make it clear, I am not saying Kelly is a racist. I am saying what she said is racist. Being who she is, and where she works, I sincerely doubt she was self-aware enough to realize what she actually said while she said it.

But to then double-down on it...well, maybe I'm wrong about her intent after all.