My White Son Believes Santa is Black. Why Doesn’t Yours?
Tags: BlackLivesMatter, Racial Justice, Black And White, Blacksanta

I’m a biracial Black woman. Growing up, my (Black) mother always went above and beyond to make Christmas special for my siblings and I. But what always stood out as the most special part was that it was the one time of year our tiny extended family was able to get together. My grandma would travel over 18 hours on a Greyhound bus to be with us (“because if the Lord wanted us to fly, He would have given us wings”), my Uncle Dave would leave the peace of his bachelor apartment to bring us scratch tickets and join us for dinner, and if we were really lucky, my Uncle Will with his Will Smith-like charisma would make an appearance. Those faces, those bodies, all skilled at balancing a meal on their lap (because who actually eats at a dining table?!) meant Christmas.

You know when you have to come to grips with those realities that crush you? Mine was realizing that my son would never experience that. My Uncles both passed in their mid 50s of cancer (how our medical system fails Black men is a post for another day), and while my grandmother did once get to hold my son, she left us at age 95. When I started to think about how I wanted my son to think about the Christmas season, I knew a celebration of Blackness and Black people needed to be central to his experience.

My son was 2 years old when we accidentally ended up double booked to see Santa. The first visit was to see the jolly old St. Nick you can find in any mall. Little T was inconsolable. The second visit of the day was to see a Haitian Santa. He sat with me, but he played it cool. ‘I’ve got one year to figure out how to explain the presence of white Santa and Black Santa,’ I texted a group of my college friends. Elizabeth immediately replied: “I have two words for you: Santa’s Husband.” I ordered the book on Amazon, a tale about the real Santa being a Black man who is married to a white man. Santa often sends his hubby out to do the public appearances, so most kids think that the husband is the real Santa. But only some kids know the truth. Bingo.

At Macy’s NYC Santaland, you can find Real Santa by asking to meet “Mr. Claus.”

Real Santa in our house means the guy with the melanin. Not his fair skinned hubby. Little T knows most children don’t know the secret, so he keeps it under wraps at school. We drive across state lines when necessary to make sure he can tell the Real Santa his Christmas wish. He lights up when he sees him, believing he will get the one toy he asked for because he got to tell the Real Deal. That moment where he lights up seeing a Black Santa I’m sure is how I looked seeing my Uncles walk through the door. It means so much to me that we can give him this one piece of his family story.

But our decision to raise our white son with a Black holiday icon had another impact. The research tells us that white children start to reason about behaviors based on race at age 2 and express racial in-group preferences at ages 4 and 5. I always knew this, and it terrified me. We live in a predominantly white town. He attends a Spanish immersion preschool that is evenly split Latinx/White, but our time before his graduation to public elementary school is counting down. He has meaningful relationships with a number of Black people… but they are ALL women. I worried about him growing up to be one of those white boys who saw and immediately criminalized black men. How will he know that those men could have been his Uncles?!

Pre-COVID we spent a lot of time walking around Boston. Little T was 3.5 when he saw a Black man with some facial hair, and froze. I noticed his reaction, his stare, and I felt absolute dread. Then he slowly gestured for me to bend down so he could whisper to me. “Mama, do you think that’s him?! Do you think that’s Real Santa?!” He was star struck. I laughed and said we should ask him. The guy kept a straight face when asked and said no, he wasn’t the Big Guy, but he would be happy to send him a message. Little T was delighted. “Tell him I’ve been doing good listening,” he told the guy.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the ‘Black Santa Directory’ Facebook group hooked us up with The Black Santa-Houston for a virtual session.

This all started as a way to give my white child a tie to my racial identity and his family story. I hadn’t thought about how the story could disrupt the water of white supremacy that he will wade in his entire life. It made me wonder: what if all white kids who celebrate Christmas were told that Santa is a Black man who has the power to decide if they are naughty or nice, whether they receive a prized gift or a lump of coal? What if he became the omnipresent authority parents everywhere warn about — don’t make me call Santa! — the one they are quick to try and impress? What if we conditioned our white children to see Black men as powerful, kind, accessible, and yes, magical?

What if…

Our Santa is Black. And if you think that is a radical statement, ask yourself why.

Our Santa is Black. Why isn’t yours?