Teacher to student: You can't be Santa -- you're black!

(CNN) -- Ho ho -- huh?

The family of an African-American high school student in New Mexico says he's crushed after a teacher questioned why he was wearing Santa garb during a school holiday dress-up day last week, CNN affiliate KOAT reported.

The teacher told Christopher Rougier, a freshman at Cleveland High School, that he couldn't be Santa because Santa is white.

Teacher to student: You can't be Santa -- you're black!

Video for this story can be found here

This whole 'Santa' is white deal is getting way out of hand...
Look if you want to know what race good ole Saint Nic is, ask any kid who stayed up late on Christmas Eve to catch Santa putting presents under the tree...

They'll tell ya Santa look's just like Mommy or Daddy or sometimes both and sometimes mommy slaps Santa for being fresh... trust me I've seen it happen
Heck, my personal Santa used to cuss a lot as he swizzled heavily rumed eggnog and skinned his knuckles while trying to put our new bikes together...

Look Santa is an Ideal, a hope and wish wrapped up in an easy to market package of a jolly old fat man..
"Hey, I'm fat and old..."... Revere Me...

We all have notions of what our personal Santa's should look like and they are as unique as each and every child's imaginings...

So stop with BS about Santa having to be white... he is all things to all people and comes in every race color and creed and if you don't like that I'll call up my personal Santa and have him kick your Santa's butt!

Edit to add...

Of course this story is not about Santa... Teacher's are there to teach, to educate to help our children learn grow and reach for their dreams... So a black kids wants to be dress up as Santa why not?... As far as I see saying no to the kid was teaching the wrong message

reply to post by HardCorps


Ok well santa is white but I also see your point. But as far as I am aware anyone can dress as they want. However a popular misconseption is that the elves would be white skinned. Actually folk tales tends to put fairy folk as being slightly green tinged. Also if you find the elves project: a scientist records sightings: says that most scottish sightings gives the fairy folk/elves as having brown skin.

So Santa may be white but the elves aren't.

I don't know. I put on a Santa hat last week and all the ladies at the bars wanted to sit on my lap and whisper in my ear.

I don't even look the part. Santa is a mindset. You just have to be giving, jolly, and have a lap open to all the good little ladies of drinking age. Take these tips and become your own Santa.

Don't use the trademarked ho ho ho, especially when you are entertaining three members of the opposite sex. It just isn't classy, you know?

The teacher is a complete idiot, and I would be concern for those she is teaching.

Your right OP, Santa comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors.

But I actually starred you for this:

So stop with BS about Santa having to be white... he is all things to all people and comes in every race color and creed and if you don't like that I'll call up my personal Santa and have him kick your Santa's butt!

Cause I like your badass version of Santa!

Let a white kid play MLK in a play in a black school then we can talk. until then santa is white.

If the guy really said that it is stupid. National newsworthy? you be the judge.

Pretty sure this all started by some black congresswomen? saying why cant we have a black santa

A teenage boy is "crushed" he can't be Santa? This article is a bit slanted.

reply to post by tinner07


ATS EVERYBODY ATS


Close this thread, because I'm telling you it's going nowhere good. Either close the thread or other users moderate by making Christmas related jokes. This is a discussion that gets nowhere and reveals the ugly side of this site.

reply to post by HardCorps


Santa is a made up character, who says he's white? Coca cola adverts????
He doesnt exist so he can be any colour he wants.
santa is white my arse!

werewolf99
reply to post by HardCorps

 

Ok well santa is white

How can someone THAT DOESNT EXIST be a set race? I dont get it? He could be pink for all I know or care!

werewolf99
reply to post by HardCorps

 

Ok well santa is white but I also see your point.

I think you started off on the wrong foot.
Your post should have started with: "Ok well Santa is imaginary so I see your point," and left race and conflicted tradition out of it.

-Peace-

reply to post by TheOneElectric


The thing is Santa is supposed to be a character do you not think the kiddies will notice if Santa became chinese or black or a woman or maybe a thin chinese woman????

Also why do people find the need to change characters race? He has to be some race is he is a character. Without a character Santa would not be real enough for any films or christmas stuff.

You do realise that saint Nicholas was a real guy and partly santa is about him. What is we made a film and said Robert Johnson was white. We had a white guy playing him, are you saying that nobody would complain.

Sants is white he also is fat, and lives in the North pole.

I don't live in the north pole, should I complain that Santa should be english?

Instead why not create a different character based around a good black man. Create a character based around Nelson Mandella. Just proceed as you do with a magical creation. You idealise him, add fantasy, add plenty of information from folktales from africa; which there are many and what do you have?

Mandella or whatever name you give him:
A character who spent time imprisoned in a magical prison, and when he got out wanted to make the world better for small children by giving gifts and feeding the poor.


# I could write a whole book about the above created magical character if I though enough people would read about a black good magical character from a white guy.

TheOneElectric
[This is a discussion that gets nowhere and reveals the ugly side of this site.

It thread like this that lets you see members true colours .

So keep it can be every educational and eye opening..........

werewolf99


Sants is white he also is fat, and lives in the North pole.

So under that logic only Canadians, Norwegians, Finnish and Russian can play him, cause you know the charaters from the artic region......

What a silly thing in my view. The teacher is wrong and sounds like he got tagged hard somewhere here. If he hadn't before national news, he sure has by now, I'm sure.

Megyn Kelly ought to be issuing an apology. Period. I mention her because the OP story credits her and her story for what got this all rolling for national thinking, and I'd tend to agree. I hadn't even thought to actually look at Kelly as a racist..until I saw her own words and I'd missed this whole show.

She wasn't motivated by racial fear or loathing, she said. "In fact, it was something far less sinister: A lifetime of exposure to the very same commercials, mall casting calls, and movies Harris references in her piece."

That, by text book definition to my understanding of it, is Cultural Racism. Defined and made clear...even if she didn't think closely about what she was actually describing about herself there.

Same thing with the teacher tho. Santa is white? Really?? Well.. MY Santa is White. He sure is... I'm thinking people in Africa or other racially different regions don't look high and low for a white guy before permitting anyone to play Santa. Geeze...

What a way to make a kid feel like dirt, after a "News woman" turned a whole nation to an aspect of something that destroys the "reason for the season" and that whole "goodwill" sentiment. Way to go for them both in this story and gee.. Merry Christmas.

reply to post by Eryiedes


Shaft is a fictional character and is black. I shaft was white he wouldn't be shaft. I understand and accept this. You just cannot have a character with any realism and no traits, and yes if a character has traits then people will not have them and some people will. Without realism fiction doesn't work: in Santa's case this means him having a set of traits.
Think about it why is Sants fat, because it makes him work as a character if not he would be perfect and therefore would have no realism and wouldn't be popular. Folktales survive for a reason. Yes there are changes but if you take away traits from the character do not be surprised if christmas dies out.

Realism is important. I don't expect everyone to undersyand it, but in fiction there needs to be some realism and character traits. If santa was reduced to a no trait archetype then the whole tradition would die out.

reply to post by HardCorps



Since Santa is a magic man, he can be any nationality he wants. When a white man plays Santa, he is Santa. When a black student plays Santa, there is Santa. If a woman or girl wants to play Santa, she is Santa. When a Pez flip top plays Santa, there he is in all his plastic glory.

Much ado about nothing, except for a teacher who should be apologizing to a pupil she disrespected.

reply to post by werewolf99


That's a crap example.
Guess what?
The Honeymooners were white.
Hollywood rebooted them as black.
And I say "so what?".
Just admit you're a actually closet racist and move on.

-Peace-

Look I say Santa is an Idea and not a person
but



Russian icon depicting St Nicholas with scenes from his life. Late 1400s or early 1500s. National Museum, Stockholm.

Humm... looks more brown than white to me ... and since his bones lay in the Italian town of Bari ... quite some distance from the North Pole I'd say Madison avenue has a lot of splaning to do Lucy

reply to post by Aleister


It is just politically correct bull#. Characters have traits if you take character traits from a character then it would die. The tradition of gift giving would die without the character of santa claus. What is all this about african countries looking for a white santa: these countries are not christian, christians are in the minority in these countries. Did you really believe the live aid stuff "Do they know it's christmans time again?" No they don't.

Like I said anyone can dreww as they want it is their choice.
But think how it would work in context of films, folktales, etc with a sants with no traits, who looked like nothing or eveyrthing and in terms of chraracter had no traits, he wasn't fat etc.....

How would that work in context if a tale? It wouldn't it would die out or transfer sants into a sort of creature and not a man or something scary.