Father Christmas is ‘too white’ and has no right to judge if children are naughty or nice, says woke museum
Father Christmas has been dragged into the culture wars after a museum declared the festive icon is ‘too white’ and should stop sitting in judgment over children’s behaviour.
In a startling intervention ahead of Christmas, Brighton and Hove Museums argued Father Christmas must be ‘decolonised’ in the name of diversity, claiming his traditional role reinforces damaging ideas about power, authority and Western superiority.
The claims appeared in a blog post published on the museum’s website, which suggested Santa’s familiar naughty-and-nice routine promotes a ‘Western binary’ and casts the bearded gift-giver as a global moral judge.
‘For many children, the story of Santa Claus is as much a part of Christmas as gifts and Christmas dinner,’ the post said.
‘But the tale of a white, Western Santa who judges all children’s behaviour has problems.’
Museum chiefs went further, questioning Santa’s right to assess children across different cultures and traditions.
‘As he visits each nation he determines if the children deserve presents based on being ‘naughty’ or ‘nice’,’ the blog added.
‘But who decided Santa should be the judge of children’s behaviour in every community? How can he assess, for example, Indigenous children practising their own cultural traditions?
‘Told like this, the story presents Santa as the ultimate authority of all societies. This asks us to accept colonial assumptions of cultural superiority.’
Parents, the museum urged, should actively ‘challenge the colonial gaze’ by abandoning the idea of Father Christmas ‘rewarding children based on a Western binary of ‘naughty/nice’.’
‘Focus on bringing joy to kids of all backgrounds rather than judging them,’ the post advised.
Instead, families were encouraged to reinvent Santa as a symbol of ‘cultural exchange’, rather than discipline.
‘Have Santa learn about different cultures rather than judge them,’ it recommended.
‘Stories could show him experiencing their traditions. Emphasise cultural exchange rather than assessment.’
Even Santa’s workshop was not spared scrutiny, with the museum suggesting the man in red should abandon his traditional leadership role.
‘Include people from around the world in Santa’s workshop. This acknowledges global input. Put Santa to work in the factory alongside the elves. This shows him and the elves as equal.’
And in a further twist, the blog floated the idea of replacing Father Christmas altogether.
Alternatively, Santa could become ‘Mother Christmas’.
‘An inclusive adaptation could include many Santas from different regions,’ the document said.
‘Include some Mother Christmases. Patriarchy and colonialism went hand in hand. Show the next generation that men don’t have to be in charge.’
The post concluded: ‘The goal is moving away from a colonial narrative of dominance. Instead, tell a story that emphasises cultural diversity, exchange and respect.’
The suggestions wee met with derision, with critics branding the document ‘laughable’ and accusing the museum of competing for the title of ‘Grinch of the year’.
[…]
Alka Sehgal Cuthbert, director of Don’t Divide Us, was equally scathing.
‘The idea that Santa Claus needs to be decolonised is laughable. It also shows that there are no limits to what ideologues in cultural institutions… will go to in seeking to rupture our sense of belonging to a common past and culture.
‘This playing at faux radical, anti-West politics by museums is boring, tedious and intellectually vacuous. This isn’t culture, it’s playpen politics which should not be getting public funding or official endorsement from witless museums.
The Daily Mail: continue reading
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Only a city like Brighton would ‘decolonise’ Santa
Trust the wokest borough in the land to take Father Christmas and make him a symbol of the West’s ‘cultural superiority’
The man of the month is… well, a man, for starters, and dripping in white-bearded privilege. He insists on being driven by female reindeers (none of whom are ever given a clear career path, let alone a promotion) and runs a sweatshop of elves (he point-blank refuses to call them “little people”, despite his HR head’s repeated pleas).
He steadfastly supports deforestation, wrapping his merchandise in tree corpses decade after decade, and excludes Muslims and Jews from his gift-giving schedule. Then there’s his flying regimen.
Kris “Air miles” Kringle has never made any attempt to offset his frankly grotesque carbon footprint. And if all that weren’t “problematic” enough, there’s the bald fact that he breaks into millions of homes a year… and watches children sleep. How, we laughingly ask, has this walking lawsuit been allowed to keep his job for over 1,700 years?
Yesterday, the smile froze on my face as I read the headline “Santa deemed ‘too white and judgmental”. Surely, this was a spoof?
But then I scanned to the words “Brighton and Hove” and knew without a shadow of a doubt that it wasn’t. Only the wokest borough in the land could have produced a piece of writing like the blog on Brighton and Hove Museums’ website. As a satire, it would be award-winning. As a po-faced post, it’s beyond tragic.
“For many children, the story of Santa Claus is as much a part of Christmas as gifts and Christmas dinner,” the blog begins. “But the tale of a white, Western Santa who judges all children’s behaviour has problems.”
You can guess at least some of the contents of the word salad that ensues. There’s a deeply concerning “colonial narrative of dominance” that is being reinforced by old Saint Nick, apparently. Far from being the embodiment of generosity, kindness and cheer across generations and cultures, he represents everything that is most noxious about the “patriarchy”, reinforcing damaging ideas about power and “colonial assumptions of cultural superiority”.
It would help if he could at least “include people from around the world in Santa’s workshop. This acknowledges global input,” the blog states with such seriousness that I actually start to wonder whether anyone has told the writer, you know, about Santa not being real. “Put Santa to work in the factory alongside the elves,” it goes on. “This shows him and the elves as equal.”
Even the sharpest satirist would have failed to imagine the next part, however. “As he visits each nation, he determines if the children deserve presents based on being ‘naughty’ or ‘nice’,” the blog points out. “But who decided Santa should be the judge of children’s behaviour in every community? How can he assess, for example, Indigenous children practising their own cultural traditions?”
This notion of “rewarding children based on a Western binary of naughty/nice” must be stopped, the blog concludes, with the focus now firmly “on bringing joy to kids of all backgrounds rather than judging them”.
Now I’ve heard a lot of bilge over the past five years – and I mean the kind of bilge that takes your breath away, renders you temporarily mute. I’ve read about how birds and exercise are racist. I’ve been told that worrying about microplastics in the water is transphobic and that manholes are misogynistic, and I once, to my shame, followed a long-running debate about the sexist depiction of the green M&M to its conclusion (her high-heels were replaced with trainers).
But the idea that there is a “Western binary of naughty/nice”? That right and wrong being two separate things is bad and damaging to children in some way? This is next-level stuff.
The Telegraph: continue reading
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