Overview

Santa Claus is White is a statement made by Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly in response to Slate writer Aisha Harris's op-ed article titled "Santa Claus Should Not Be a White Man Anymore." Kelly's remark, which essentially dismissed Harris's article as a revisionist attempt from the left-wing blogosphere, was subsequently met with punchlines from the late-night pundit circles and criticism of race-baiting.

Background

On December 10th, 2013, Slate^[1] published a column by writer Aisha Harris titled “Santa Claus Should Not Be a White Man Anymore,” which argued that Santa Claus should be depicted as a penguin rather than the traditional image of an “old white male.” On the following day, Fox News anchorMegyn Kelly discussed the article on her program The Kelly File, during which she argued vehemently against against the idea of an image makeover for the mythical figure and claimed that both Santa Claus and Jesus were White (shown below).

"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."
"But Santa is what he is, and just so you know, we’re just debating this because someone wrote about it."

Notable Developments

On December 11th, The Daily Show host Jon Stewart criticized Kelly's assertion that Santa was a white man and pointed out that the historical figure Jesus was of Middle Eastern descent (shown below, left). On the following day, the left-wing political news blog Crooks and Liars^[2] published an article about Kelly's statements, which Redditor BurtonDesque subsequently submitted to the /r/atheism^[3] subreddit. In the first five days, the post gained over 3,500 up votes and 890 comments. Also on December 12th, The Young Turks YouTube channel uploaded a video pointing out the Turkish origins of the Santa Claus mythical character (shown below, right).

On December 13th, Kelly addressed her statements about Santa's race, claiming that it was a tongue-in-cheek comment meant to be a joke (shown below, left). On December 16th, The Daily Show broadcast a follow-up segment, which mocked Kelly's claim that her statements about Santa's race was just a joke (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References