Thanks again, Megyn Kelly, Fox News’ provocateur. We really needed to be told that the melanin-imbued can’t be Santa Claus. Presumably, just like gun-control adherents aren’t entitled to debate NRA patriots. One of those immutable laws.
But the Santa flap did, of course, what it intended. It ignited ever-more controversy–and probably ginned up ratings. It is what it is–the polarizing business of partisan, conflict-driven cable TV politics. What a societal cyst.
But the eminently contrived incident did get me to reflect back on a previous incarnation and what was a teachable moment. I was a recent Penn State grad who was teaching English at Delhaas High in Bristol Township, Pennsylvania, a lower middle-class, steel-mill community outside Philadelphia. Right across the Delaware River from Trenton, N.J. Demographically, we were about 70 percent white, 30 percent black. We had our share of racial friction.
The last day before the Christmas holiday break there was always a series of assemblies by class–10th through 12th. The band played traditional fare and there was a Santa Claus who gave out gifts–a couple that were meaningful and even moving, but most were of the have-some-fun-at-the-expense-of-teachers-and-administrators variety. Ho-Ho-Badda-Bing. The students loved it, and truth be told, so did staff. Well, most of them.
And Santa, come to think of it, was a black guy.
He was actually Cleveland Smith, a 6’6″ former power forward at Philadelphia College of Textiles & Science (now Philadelphia University), who was one of two permanent subs at Delhaas. Every student knew him. He was popular, funny and bigger than everybody else. He had a stage presence that commanded as well as entertained.
Cleveland Smith was Santa to a bunch of black and white kids a lot closer to a blackboard jungle than college-prep incubator. His persona mattered, not his pigmentation. Everyone–except a couple of notoriously boring, humor-challenged teachers–left that auditorium in a good mood. Nobody thought of color other than the jolly, fat guy looked great in red and had worked his holiday magic again. That’s what mattered.