Timing, timing, timing.
The indispensable Charles P. Pierce draws our attention to Our Nation’s Capital’s Newspaper of Record and the piece found therein today on the stirring intellect of that paragon of right wing media, Megyn Kelly.
As Mr. Pierce points out, The Washington Post’s editors might have wished for a slightly different news hook for the ritual tongue bath offered Ms. Kelly:
Unfortunately for the Post, which must have spent hours turning a fire hose on the reporter when he was done, Kelly marked the occasion by having some interesting things to say about Santa…and Jesus
Kelly, it seems was all bent out of shape by a piece over at Slate by Aisha Harris, who wrote:
When I was a kid, I knew two different Santa Clauses. The first had a fat belly, rosy cheeks, a long white beard, and skin as pink as bubble gum. He was omnipresent, visiting my pre-school and the local mall, visible in all of my favorite Christmas specials.
Then there was the Santa in my family’s household, in the form of ornaments, cards, and holiday figurines. A near-carbon copy of the first one—big belly, rosy cheeks, long white beard: check, check, check. But his skin was as dark as mine.
Seeing two different Santas was bewildering. Eventually I asked my father what Santa really looked like. Was he brown, like us? Or was he really a white guy?
…
Two decades later, America is less and less white, but a melanin-deficient Santa remains the default in commercials, mall casting calls, and movies. Isn’t it time that our image of Santa better serve all the children he delights each Christmas?
Yes, it is. And so I propose that America abandon Santa-as-fat-old-white-man and create a new symbol of Christmas cheer. From here on out, Santa Claus should be a penguin.
OK, that’s funny, and cute, and hardly the stuff of high dudgeon to most of us. But as Charles knows very well, Fox News folks are not most people. And I’d have to say that “interesting” is only one word I can imagine to describe what Megyn Kelly had to say about Harris’s pro-penguin subversion:
…”For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white,” Kelly said. “But this person is just arguing that maybe we should also have a black Santa. But Santa is what he is…Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn’t mean it has to change, you know?” she added. “I mean, Jesus was a white man too. He was a historical figure, that’s a verifiable fact, as is Santa – I just want the kids watching to know that.”
Oh, my sweet FSM. Verifiable facts at Fox are … not like the ones those with even a by-the-fingernail grasp on reality can recognize.
Which, to my pleasure, Harris was delighted to point out:
Santa isn’t real.
I’ll be fine if no one else jumps on board the penguin train and Santa remains a white man. But if you’re seriously emphatic that he is white and must remain white, there’s a good chance that your view of the rest of the world is just as limited and unimaginative. I mean, we are talking about a magical man who slides down your chimney every Christmas Eve. Just so we’re clear.
MikeJ
If Santa must be white, is Richard Cohen sickened when black people sing, “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”?
Yatsuno
Santa should be a pengie, because pengies rule. I can definitely get behind the Santa Pengie movement.
Anoniminous
crash goes another fond memory from my childhood.
Next you’re going to tell me Bubble-Butt girl isn’t real either and I’ll have to wander into the desert, weeping.
BGinCHI
Man, Megyn Kelly is really going to be sad when she finds out Santa isn’t real.
But then again she probably won’t, since as a Fox employee she doesn’t have any relationship to reality.
Oops, forgot the spoiler alert.
Mark-NC
Jesus was from the Middle East so he’s not White either.
Yatsuno
@MikeJ: Anything but solid white Christian males is sickening to Cohen. This includes himself of course.
Yatsuno
@MikeJ: Anything but solid white Christian males is sickening to Cohen. This includes himself of course.
Chyron HR
May your holidays be full of peng-win. Allahu Akbar.
BGinCHI
@Anoniminous: Santa is Real, but only in the Lacanian sense.
Don’t even get Zizek started on that if you see him at a party. Trust me.
Yatsuno
Aaaaaand FYWP.
BGinCHI
@Chyron HR: Penguin comes from pen+gwyn, which in Welsh is “white head.”
Discuss.
Tom Levenson
@BGinCHI: On this, I trust you with my life.
MikeJ
@Mark-NC:
And St. Nicholas was from Turkey, which would get him a “random” security check every time he tried to fly in the US.
RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual
I think we can add little miss Megyn to Tbogg’s tag “Shut up dumb lady.”
Currently that tag applies to Sarah Palin.
Roger Moore
Unfortunately, penguins are from the wrong pole. I suggest Santa be a polar bear instead.
The Red Pen
I thought I’d come up with some knee-slapping comments on this from Free Republic, but like most of the rest of the Internet, they are happy to accept that 1) Jesus was not really white and 2) Saint Nicholas of Smyrna was like a swarthy fellow as well.
I can, however offer this shitfest for your morbid entertainment.
BGinCHI
@Tom Levenson: His beard contains multitudes, is all I’m saying.
Also, if you encounter him on a bus, do not mention Schelling. Not even if your stop is coming up next.
Anoniminous
@BGinCHI:
Given:
He’s making a list,
Checking it twice;
Gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.
And
He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
Santa is Real in the Orwellian sense.
Ben Cisco
When one is paid to be a moron, a college education becomes irrelevant and invisible.
The only surprising thing about this would have occurred had Kelly NOT lost her sh*t.
She serves no useful purpose whatsoever save as an example of what NOT to be in life.
Wonder what she thinks of the Easter Bunny…
kindness
It is verifiable.
Bill O’Riley will verify that Jesus was white (and Irish).
maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor
Hey, in Miracle on 34th Street, the UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE delivered letters to SANTA to KRIS KRINGLE. Kringle was REAL, and WHITE, and REALLY WHITE, DAMMIT! AHHHHHHhhhh…
cmorenc
The notion that Jesus and the Disciples were swarthy middle eastern folks rather than displaced early northern Europeans is too cognitive-dissonant for Megan Kelley’s mind to grasp without traumatic damage to her concept of herself and her ethnic background. It’s her brain’s way of protecting itself from suffering PWTSD (post-wasp traumatic stress disorder).
The Other Bob
OT – Hawaii Health Official who Ok’d Obama Birth Cert. Dead in Plane Crash
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013312120089
Cannot wait for the next birther nonsense.
Rosalita
@Mark-NC:
This! Fking morons.
MariedeGournay
@BGinCHI: Thank you for nearly causing me to shoot tea out my nose and the fond remembrance of my grad exams. Made my day.
Patrick
Goodness. If its not the terrorist fistbump, now they think Santa Claus is real. It is just more evidence that these people, the baggers, the 27% don’t live on the same planet as the rest of us.
ranchandsyrup
Oliver Willis had a doozy of a twitter convo with a seriously deluded lady last night on this topic.
BGinCHI
@MariedeGournay: And for once I was being serious.
dedc79
In her defense, Karl Rove was probably off camera screaming into her ear piece that the jury is still out and we shouldn’t jump to declaring that Santa isn’t real.
C.V. Danes
Many religious people — especially those who get their news primarily from Fox — inhabit a world of magic called “God’s will” and live their lives according to a spell book called “the bible,” which contains the words of a magical man whom they refer to as “God.”
Magic is already a way of life for these people. Just so we’re clear.
scav
We now have a multi-front war on Christmas going, with the “reason for the season” Mandatory 100% Christianist observants going to the mat over the skin color of the (once arch-enemy to the season) commercial interloper, all the while objecting to the charity and kindness exemplified by the purportedly historical figures behind both, neither of which would be typically described as Caucasian on the channel unless gunning down kids and girlfriends in Florida. Makes sense in a world where Putin, the ex-KGB agent, seems to be the ideal combination of Homo-Hating Church-State-Supportive Free-Market-No-Taxes candidate for “Center-right” Repubs
Roger Moore
@MikeJ:
Not really. He was from the area that’s Turkey today, but that was before the modern day Turks moved there. Nicholas himself was an ethnic Greek, many of whom are perfectly capable of getting through the airport today without excessive scrutiny. Saying he should be portrayed like a modern Turk is kind of like the people who think Cleopatra should be shown as black because she was from Egypt, even though she was also an ethnic Greek.
jl
@Ben Cisco:
” Wonder what she thinks of the Easter Bunny…”
The Easter Bunny is White, just like Santa Claus (the real one, not that weird 4th century Turkish dude) and Jesus. Everyone knows that.
Any spots don’t count.
Next Question.
BGinCHI
@ranchandsyrup: I like the part where Jesus just lost it on her.
Money shot of money shots.
C.V. Danes
@cmorenc:
That, and the fact that his face only ever appears on white toast…
Just sayin’
Certified Mutant Enemy
@jl:
Also, Jesus spoke English, not some yucky Semitic language.
Karmus
As someone happily using open-source/libre software for a long time, Santa has been a (Linux) penguin to me for years. I give back where I can, but no way I could have afforded all the goodies I have used.
Also: Jesus was a white man?
ranchandsyrup
@BGinCHI: Could not stop laughing. I’ve heard the phrasing, “Jesus came over me” but I had not heard “Jesus came all over me”.
Central Planning
@Roger Moore:
Now that’s just going to blow their minds. Fur that makes them look white, yet their skin is black? Inconceivable!
BGinCHI
@ranchandsyrup: All the benefits of being a nun but none of the drawbacks. You don’t have to study or anything!
MomSense
@ranchandsyrup:
Oh my!
C.V. Danes
@Roger Moore:
Since the Canadians are now claiming the North Pole, shouldn’t we consider him to be a canuck?
rea
To unbelievers like many of those present, Jesus was a quasi-historical character who lived in 1st Century CE Palestine. He was a Jew, and therefore white, to the extent that Jews count as white nowdays.
But if you believe Jesus is the son of God, then he has no race–he’s of all races. He’s not bound to an earthly body,except by his own will.
And, that homeless black man living in a cardboard box under the overpass–that’s Jesus. He says so quite clearly in the Bible.
Or consider the lesson of the Santa Maria de Guadalupe. She’s the mother of God. She’s also Native American–she chose to appear to Juan Diego in that form in 1531 as a message to the people of the New World that Christianity wasn’t just for whites.
Sometimes I wish these alleged Christians would be a bit more Christian.
Fred
Now let’s get this straight!
Santa is magic and can be any color or shape he wants to be any time or place. When he slides down your chimney he will be just the color/race that you want him to be and bring you just what you want*. I used to clean chimneys and now live near the North Pole so I have the inside scoop on this. Trust me.
*Bill O’Reiley, Rush Linbaugh, Paul Ryan, etc. all get lumps of coal ’cause they think global warming is fine as well as hungry kids.
jl
@Roger Moore: Well, certainly, people with ethnic Greek heritage from Turkey and Egypt are easy to distinguish from the other kinds to ethnicities and would have no problem.
Not sure why you are injecting extraneous pedantry (and since I do that too, I think I can spot it) to confuse what I think is an obvious point: Kelly is talking nonsense.
Edit: Though I will admit that I am struggling with this ‘Santa is not real’ idea that some commenters are bringing up.
Baud
Anyone remember that episode of Good Times when J.J. painted Black Jesus?
Good times.
Petorado
The one thing you need to know about conservatives is they will not let you fuck with their mythologies. Santa’s white. Jesus is a WASP. The only president better that GW Bush is Ronald Reagan. Tax cuts for the rich fix everything. Now ya know.
Rosalita
@ranchandsyrup: holy shit (pun intended?)
“Found the Ark? Where? Why doesn’t anyone tell me these things?”
scav
@Roger Moore: Sorta depends. Remember the authentically from the Caucaus Caucasians with bombs media treatment to the the honorary pure as snow white-boy honors awarded The Zimm. They always seem to make binary racial calls in complicated situations in self-serving propaganda-friendly Internal-Logical-consistency-bedamned ways.
Fred
@C.V. Danes: The real Jesus only appears on whole grain rye toast. Everybody knows that.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Fred:
Blasphemer!
ranchandsyrup
@Rosalita: Apparently it’s a secret!?
@BGinCHI: Oh my lulz.
BGinCHI
@ranchandsyrup: Do you think these people watch reruns of All in the Family and think: now THAT’S an American patriot….hey why are they laughing?
AnotherBruce
Unicorns only have one horn. Don’t try to tell me any different, I’m not going to put up with any crap about this!
gogol's wife
Every year at this time I recommend John Waters’s Christmas album. It has an incredible earworm in it, “Santa Claus Is a Black Man.”
C.V. Danes
@Rosalita:
Well, the Nazis did, then their faces got melted off, and now it’s in a giant government warehouse somewhere.
ranchandsyrup
@BGinCHI: That laughter was from a laugh track placed there by the Hollywood Jewish Cabal and the hippies and not the studio audience.
Amir Khalid
Not too long ago, we had a discussion in these threads about the idea of a black actor playing James Bond, suggested by none other than Daniel Craig. It’s been a long time since Britain was an exclusively white nation; for instance, no one there or abroad was ever put off by the multiracial enrollment at Hogwarts. Yet some people did insist the black Bond idea wouldn’t fly.
This seems another instance of the same subconscious bias. People have in their heads a picture of a Santa Claus (i.e. the mythical dispenser of Christmas presents, not the historical Saint Nicholas) who is white. So when they see a nonwhite man in a Santa suit they’re all like, “Nope, that ain’t him.” I myself have never seen a white Santa in person, so I don’t have that unstated expectation in me.
C.V. Danes
@Fred:
That’s what the liberals want you to believe ;-)
MikeJ
Punchline to an old joke: “Well first of all, She’s black.”
jl
@AnotherBruce: Unicorns are White too. Very important to remember that. That is the essential feature of All Good Things, Warm and Nice Things, and Legitimate Cultural Icons of Goodness, whether real or not, which is a minor issue. I can see why Kelly is frustrated with certain types of people who just cannot seem to accept that.
/snark
What is not snark is that I am aghast that this wild claims that Santa, Easter Bunny and Unicorns are not real. Evil people lurk in these BJ threads. I hope no innocent children are allowed to read this family blog.
les
@Ben Cisco:
Well, it’s white…
hildebrand
@Amir Khalid: In a similar vein, I was kind of hoping that Idris Elba would be named as the next Doctor Who.
Elizabelle
Coincidentally, before clicking on BJ for updates, I was reading Dan Zak’s loopy profile of Megyn Kelly in the Bezos WaPost.
Exceedingly strange.
Wondering if he’s going for performance art?
Kelly sounds very non-self aware, despite the fervent tongue bathing.
Belafon
My youngest is in the third grade, and the third grade is when I break it to my kids that Santa isn’t real. I will do it like I did for my other kids, by taking him out to help with shopping for a Santa gift for one of the others, in this case for his oldest brother who has been off at college (we pick him up at the airport tomorrow). I talk about what Santa actually means. My oldest was like “I figured”, but my middle took a while. I’m not entirely sure how my youngest will accept it; his favorite Christmas movie is the Polar Express. My wife hasn’t been real helpful in this regard, but she’s not the one who has to break it to them.
Amir Khalid
Oh, by the way, the Turkish people I’ve met all looked white to me.
Elizabelle
Now, onto Megyn Kelly’s on air persona:
OK. Leading the charge against Obamacare, but not an “admitted opinionator.” All righty.
“The viewers can smell a phony a mile away.”
People, this is the FOX audience she and Ailes are describing.
The clown car clapping contingent.
Samuel Knight
Like others said above, Kelly claimed that people had to accept the “fact” that both Santa and Jesus were “white”. But since Jesus and St Nicholas were from what’s now Israel and Turkey respectively, both almost certainly looked Middle Eastern.
They did not look like northern Europeans for the simple reason is that they weren’t northern europeans.
Pathetic puff piece, right along with the suck up piece from last week about dreamy Ryan.
Amir Khalid
@jl:
No, they’re not.
MikeJ
@Amir Khalid: Your average Fox news viewer would say all these people look vaguely “ethnic”, therefore terrorist.
Note there’s a guy with a white beard in there. Santa?
Belafon
@Amir Khalid: I can’t watch the video, but is that the newer Clash of the Titans?
schrodinger's cat
Santie Pawz is real and is a kitteh. STN.
Elizabelle
Now, onto the service journalist Kelly provides:
So, she channels the ugliest emotions of her audience. To validate them. While masquerading as a skeptical truth-teller. Although a Grace Kelly-looking one with a Barbara Stanwyck voice. Got it.
Villago Delenda Est
@C.V. Danes:
Oh, please. These people are Muggle to the core.
jl
@Amir Khalid: Oh fer Gawds sake. Pink is honorary White. Everyone knows that. And unicorns that are dancing on clouds cannot be real unicorns anyway. You cannot dance on clouds, that is a pretend fantasy, it’s not real. Yeebus.
Jennifer
Who says Santa isn’t black? Megyn Kelly has obviously never been to Target, at least not the one near my house.
schrodinger's cat
Patron saint of Republicans and Scrooge Democrats, has returned
Ash Can
Head, meet desk. Repeatedly.
@rea: While I personally agree with most of what you said, remember that there are Jewish people of all colors. Religion, not race. And it’s abundantly clear what Megyn Kelly, Professional Ignoramus and Shill, means by what she said.
linda
Ummmm, does she know he is based on the Bishop of Myrna in Asia Minor, who would nowadays be profiled as a potential terrorist? That’s who the original St. Nicholas was.
NotMax
Will Santorum’s next sappy mega-flop film be 12 Years An Elf?
Amir Khalid
@Belafon:
No. But it’s a song about unicorns.
Belafon
@Amir Khalid: Ok. Well, I got my magical horses wrong anyway.
gogol's wife
@Elizabelle:
GAAAAH! THERE IS NO RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN THIS “PERSON” AND BARBARA STANWYCK!
Elizabelle
Now: onto interviewing style:
the Conster
@ranchandsyrup:
That’s probably one of the morans on Twitter this summer congratulating America for turning 2013 on the 4th of July, and who didn’t know the Titanic was a real thing until they found it.
schrodinger's cat
What else can one expect from a Faux News blonde.
BGinCHI
@Elizabelle: Clearly this woman has belief problems.
Mike E
Awesome photo btw.
Elizabelle
@BGinCHI:
Yesh.
It’s the lucidity we’re seeing.
Without a Teleprompter, yet.
Interrobang
I have a friend who’s half Greek Cypriot and half Scottish, of the red-haired, blue-eyed type. He himself looks disturbingly like Osama bin Laden, to the point where I and a bunch of his friends I don’t actually know all joked that he could go out for Hallowe’en as OBL but probably shouldn’t because he’d get arrested, and enough so that he has gotten hassled by the cops for taking pictures of things in the DC area (where he lives, and is a semi-pro photographer). I wouldn’t describe him as black, but his skin is much darker than mine, and he has those giant luminous Mediterranean brown eyes.
I’m basically of the opinion that Jesus was not a real person, for complicated reasons to do with secular history I’m not going to go into, but I’m willing to bet that a Greek guy living in Turkey and any given Judean guy looked more like my friend than the Haddon Sundblom Santa or the standard stereotypical Robert Redford Jesus image. Which is to say, not really white, unless you have a much broader definition of “white” than I’d ascribe to anybody working for Faux News.
Davis X. Machina
Santa may not be real but Sasquatch Isreal.
schrodinger's cat
@Interrobang: My friend did go as OBL for a Halloween party in WV. I am not sure whether he was just pulling my leg.
MattF
@schrodinger’s cat: Hmm. You should probably go find some sympathetic female to tell you the awful truth about ‘blondes’.
hells littlest angel
I agree with Megyn Kelly. But you know what REALLY ticks ME off?
Blacula.
chopper
next she’s going to tell us Blacula was a white guy. pshh.
BGinCHI
@hells littlest angel: She has an expose coming out on Count Chocula. Should be huge.
RSR
Looks like Krampus has another stop to make this year.
Elizabelle
Dan Zak’s WaPost blog about his Megyn Kelly profile:
How did he not get around to that? It’s what she is, in a nutshell. Despite presenting herself as a non-political skeptic and straight-shooting journalist, not one of Fox’s “opinionators”.
A little late for Mr. Zak to wake up.
hells littlest angel
@BGinCHI: Not to mention Frankenberry, an obvious attempt to recruit kids into the gay lifestyle.
BGinCHI
@hells littlest angel: I assumed that character was the love child of Obama and the Senator from MN.
Now I know.
BruceFromOhio
@Anoniminous: So, Santa is the TSA, or the NSA? Or Both?
Count me as a penguin believer, the little bastards are cute as all get out.
Mike in NC
OT: News report just out that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un had an uncle executed. He can scratch that guy off his Christmas shopping list!
Roger Moore
@jl:
I’m responding to their pedantry about Saint Nicholas actually being Turkish with some more detailed pedantry about why he actually wasn’t. There’s no pedantry worse than inaccurate pedantry.
schrodinger's cat
Do we need Dr Kitteh for a second opinion?
boatboy_srq
@Roger Moore: In that case, he’s still white. Not sure if that fixes anything.
boatboy_srq
@Anoniminous: Whodathunk he works for the NSA.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
Or at least not all of them.
kdaug
@rea:
Nominally a lurker nowadays, but this one put the brakes on. The Mother of God? Who, praytell, was the Father?
I can get onboard with the “GOD! Not just for white people!” thing. Seems self-evident when you’re trying to colonize new continents.
But now we have a lineage? Who were the Mother of God’s parents?
Roger Moore
@Belafon:
That’s odd, because every time I see your handle, I tend to mentally read it as Bellerophon, who certainly could tell his magical horses apart.
Roger Moore
@BruceFromOhio:
Well, you can’t spell Santa without TSA, and you can’t spell it without NSA, either. You decide.
kc
All of this energy expended on Slate trollery vs. Fox dumbassery.
Ugh.
BGinCHI
@kc: Agreed. Let’s move on to Politifact.
Dumbest fuckers in the world?
Yes.
Jay C
Yeah, but as long as he’s a magical WHITE man, it’s all OK!
Somebody Else has the “Magic Negro” franchise sewn up…
kdaug
@jl:
The casket is empty – abandon ye all hope. They ran off with the money, and left us with the rope.
Tommy
They airbrushed her.
It is such a farce I don’t even know where to start.
I heard her comments about Santa being white. Saw the video. As the Slate author said, he isn’t real.
I don’t have any kids myself, but I got a niece. Love her. I bet Santa could be purple, have a third hand growing out of his forehead, wear a tacky suit, and if he/she brought toys, it would be all good.
Suffern ACE
Personally, I blame Harris for this. She is a liberal writing for slate. Her conclusion should have been to arrive at the position that Santa was actual white and liberals had better be concerned about that. She totally went in the bushes with her conclusion. How does a penguin Santa support the status quo? it doesn’t. This is not where Slate analysis is supposed to take you.
Belafon
@Roger Moore: I got it from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. He was part of a group of druids that used giant rocks as part of computer.
Elizabelle
Those be good looking penguin chicks, molting or not.
Great photo.
scav
@kdaug: One thing we can be fairly sure of: Megyn Kelly wasn’t protecting any innocent children from ebil ebil mere reality with her fact-based fact-free-verse on-screen defense of marketing stereotypes. What are the current viewing demographics chez faux? We might extend the second descriptor to cover those solidly in their second childhood, but in no damned non-goateed universe are those viewers deemed innocents.
catclub
@Belafon: Mine did handwriting analysis:
“Mom, why do you and Santa have the same handwriting?”
Captain C
@ranchandsyrup: “I’m gonna man up all over myself!” /Book of Mormon
Jebediah, RBG
@ranchandsyrup:
The “pictures of Jesus” thing had me thinking she had to be pulling legs. Then I thought about what I was just forced to spend the last half-hour doing at work and I am reconsidering – maybe it is possible to be that dumb.
Tommy
@catclub: that is pretty funny. Very funny. I was slow on the uptake.
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI: FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING BASTARD!!!!!!1111!!!!
West of the Cascades
@rea:
But … God is white (Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling is proof!), so Jesus must have been white, too. It’s white people all the way down (or up, as the case may be).
TopClimber
Please can’t we all be reasonable and embrace the “Third Way” solution here.
Santa starts out White when he is on his sleigh. When he slides down the chimney he encounters soot and becomes black. After he disburses his presents he enjoys a snack that includes the ultimate biracial symbol, oreos.
In my religion he regains his whiteness when he gets back on his sleigh and encounters snow while traveling to his next stop.
Why is this so hard to understand?
BGinCHI
@Omnes Omnibus: You are still mad at me about the Easter Bunny thing, aren’t you.
Get down here and I’ll take you to Eataly to make up for it.
gbear
Someone at LGF posted the best twitter comment about white Jesus so far (warning: link to LGF).
Heliopause
In truth Jesus was half Holy Ghost, so unless somebody knows the color of the Holy Ghost’s skin we can’t really say what Jesus might have looked like. I have no information on Holy Ghost genetics but I would assume that its traits are quite dominant, as we can infer from all the fantastic miracles Jesus was able to perform.
The canonical Gospels have next to nothing to say about the physical appearance of Jesus. One can perhaps infer something about what he looked like from the absence of any stories of people being surprised at his appearance, though with the Jesus story such inferences are always problematic.
So that leaves us with a mother who presumably had a skin tone common to the time and place and a father who looked like a ghost. If the Holy Ghost looks more like Casper then we have a whiter Jesus, if the Holy Ghost looks more like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come then we have a blacker Jesus. One possible clue is that in the Book of Acts the Holy Spirit appears in the form of a flame, which suggests that Jesus may have looked like Carrot Top.
Hope this helps.
Amir Khalid
@Heliopause:
Well, it makes about as much sense as anything else that’s been said on this topic.
Southern Beale
I hate to break it to everyone but there is no Santa Claus.
Ash Can
@kdaug: The father was the Holy Spirit. Mary is referred to as the Mother of God because she gave birth to a member of the Trinity. Her parents were Joachim and Ann. That’s the story from the dogmatic standpoint.
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI:
That too.
Also, Santa is supposed vist all the children of the world in one night bearing gifts in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer. This is always explained by saying it’s magic. Why isn’t he magically able to appear to children as a member of their race? It seems a harmless enough notion.
Amir Khalid
@Southern Beale:
Yeah, we know.
Ash Can
@Heliopause:
I am so stealing this.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ash Can:
I know those guys; they live down the street. That bastard Joachim needs to return my cordless drill. Sonofabitch.
scav
@West of the Cascades: Another sign of miraculous power is that there is pictoral proof that Mama The Virg. had a fashion sense and actual wardrobe from one point five plus centuries in advance of all those other frumpy married mamas around her. That boy sure loved his mother. Hard to explain why he made her give birth in the overbooked motel garage or cave though.
Mike in NC
Growing up I saw plenty of images of Jesus with blond hair and blue eyes, and I’m pretty sure he spoke English with a bit of a Southern drawl. Think Brad Pitt (though he was played in a movie by Jeffrey Hunter).
apocalipstick
@maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor: AHHHHHHhhhh…
Horror or orgasm?
fuckwit
@Amir Khalid: I think a black Bond would be fucking bad-ass. May I nominate Samuel L. Jackson? Hmm, maybe too old, and too American. There are tons of talented young black actors who could do it, and actually, it should be someone British, public school educated, with proper RP too. Aaand… instead of West Indian or African in origin, an East Indian Bond might be even better. Bond goes out for a curry, speaks Pashto and Hindi, and kicks ass. So many possibilities. If the Bond franchise continues for another generation, I expect to see Bonds of more diverse ethnic background, for sure.
schrodinger's cat
@fuckwit: Remember Dr Bashir’s Bond in DS9, that was a hilarious episode.
fuckwit
@Rosalita: Yeah, really. If he actually existed as a historical person, he was obviously and undeniably JEWISH. And looked… Jewish! How is that so fucking hard to understand?
These fairy tales are so annoying. After reading “THe Gervais Principle” (all 30k words of it) last night, now I’m even more ruined for religion and the media, and even ruined for politics too. All those things– religion, politics, media– seem like a fairy tale for the Clueless, that nobody who understands the reality of how the world really works should pay any attention to.
schrodinger's cat
@fuckwit: Our Man Bashir, Star Trek has been there and done that.
Omnes Omnibus
@fuckwit: They’ve gone non-canonical already by using a blond.
Suffern ACE
@gbear: umm. No. He actually had four appeals and a plea bargain.
Amir Khalid
@fuckwit:
And it’s not like Bond’s ancestry is set in stone and never to be changed. He’s part Scottish only because Ian Fleming was so impressed with Sean Connery’s portrayal that he wrote it into his later books.
Pogonip
@kdaug: Ann and Joachim.
schrodinger's cat
Frankly, I don’t see the appeal of Bond movies, the ones I have seen I have found extremely tiresome. I have seen a couple with Sean Connery and one with Moore, and not on the big screen.
ETA: Making Bond not white will not make it any less cheesy.
Ash Can
@Omnes Omnibus: Joe Arimathea hangs out at the neighborhood garage. Next time I’m there I’ll tell him to put a boot up his brother’s ass.
Sad_Dem
@Heliopause: You’re forgetting that Jesus was a god who could do whatever, like disappear from the middle of a crowd (John 10:39). In Ms. Kelly’s defense, arguably he was so white he was invisible, unless he was standing in front of an elephant while invisible, in which case he looked gray.
kdaug
@scav:
Ah, there’s the rub. Which side of the mirror (mirror)?
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: It’s like the Three Stooges, either they strike a chord in you or they don’t. OTOH the later Connery and all the Moore versions are too arch for my taste. Early Connery, the current Craigs, the Lazenby, and the two Daltons are all at least decent. I am not really a fan of Brosnan in general – further, both Brosnan and Moore were far too old when they first got the part. I may have put too much thought into this.
kdaug
@Heliopause:
Me like. Ginger Jesus.
Trollhattan
@jl:
All y’all fuckers are the reason I don’t let my kid read this place. Okay, y’all and the FPers.
Despite all my parental efforts, she wants a “FEED” T.
Omnes Omnibus
@Heliopause: @kdaug:
Or this.
Villago Delenda Est
@fuckwit:
Yeah, but did “Jewish” 2000 years ago look like “Jewish” over the past say 200 years? A lot of American Jews are descended from medieval converts to Judaism, who were steppe peoples.
kdaug
@Trollhattan: I say this, not as an endorsement or means of encouragement, but simple point-in-fact:
My “FEED” shirt is the most commented-upon bit of attire that I own.
Do with this what you will.
aimai
@Jay C: Obviously if white people forage and black people loot then a white santa brings you toys and a black santa would be a burglar. Come on people, get with the program.
Trollhattan
@aimai:
John Waters cleared it all up for me with this, from his Christmas album.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XT-lJaAfCo&feature=kp
cokane
Only problem with Harris’ piece is that penguins don’t live in the north pole. I’m cool with a polar bear Santa though.
Trollhattan
@Trollhattan:
ETA (The song, not whatever that youtube thing is)
schrodinger's cat
@kdaug: Is he as cute as Gingerbatch?
A Humble Lurker
@RSR:
Ah, the Austrian Christmas monster, yes. I love that guy.
LanceThruster
The Grinch isn’t real but he’s still green.
Just sayin’.
scav
@cokane: With the transportation and housing technologies available to Santa.2, I don’t think penguins should prove an issue. Santa.1 took over lodgings from Santa.prototype who was mostly First Nations / Sami influenced and the Elves just appeared out of the blue with no papers/permits whatever and they’ve refused to provide DNA for testing ever since. And after juggling all the bio/genetic permits it took to hardwire the headlamp/turn signal onto Rudolph, adding alternative polar orientations to the mix is nothing.
Quinerly
I clicked on that $35.00 Amazon Jesus Toaster while holed up in the Charleston, W Va Motel 6 last night with my dog (my stop while driving from St. Louis to my mom in Eastern NC) and now I can’t get away from the ad for it on any BJ posting. It did get me thinking that Jesus seems to only appear on white bread/toast (perhaps “Wonder Bread” but that is never mentioned)….never on a bagel, a tortilla, or your more exotic marbled rye. Am I on to something?
JustRuss
@Anoniminous:
You can’t spell Santa without NSA.
Has Colbert already riffed on “Everyone knows Santa is white!”, or is that coming up tonite?
MaximumMary
Also, Santa Claus used to be Father Christmas, and dressed in a long green robe. The current jolly, white, dressed in red Santa was only one of many images of Saint Nick, until Coca-Cola came along and started using him to sell the idea of drinking Coke in the winter.
Seriously.
Keith G
@ranchandsyrup: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Had a long day at work, but the Willis link had me laughing so much I know my neighbors heard me
Priceless.
scav
@Quinerly: Appearing on Tortillas since at least 1977, and that’s just north of the border. link. Less sure about Marbled Rye, let alone Pumpernickel, I must admit — is he still miffed at Luther? Henry VIII might explain the paucity of Crumpet sightings . . . .
Omnes Omnibus
@Keith G: Go read the lady’s regular twitter feed. She’s special.
Link: https://twitter.com/Karey1975
mclaren
No, actually Jesus wasn’t white.
Source: “No, Jesus wasn’t a white dude,” salon.com, 18 March 2013.
Current Western depictions of Jesus portray him as a European noble of the Renaissance, with the hairstyle and grooming and features you’d expect from that time and that place. In short, it’s all bullshit.
But then, we’re talking about organized religion, so that statement is redundant.
Yatsuno
@Roger Moore: Uhh…you know she sprouted wings right?
JustRuss
@Elizabelle:
Has anybody told Dan Zak that both of those things can’t be true? Even someone with Megyn Kelly’s superpowers can’t responsibly cover a story while leading a crusade against it.
g
Did anyone tell Megyn that Jesus wasn’t white, either?
Pogonip
@fuckwit: Megan Kelly to Jesus: Funny–you DO look Jewish!
PaulW
Santa is real.
It’s Fox Not-News that’s fake.
/rimshot
Villago Delenda Est
The cure for stupid is brain removal.
MaryRC
@The Other Bob: Trump has already gone there.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/411247268763676673
Although … in all fairness I have no idea whether this is the real Trump or a parody. Somehow the twitter name “RealDonaldTrump” suggests just the opposite.
Omnes Omnibus
@MaryRC: If this ends up becoming a repeat of the Roxanne Wars, I will not be happy.
Regnad Kcin
@les: He’s white
rea
@kdaug: “The Mother of God? Who, praytell, was the Father?”
Madre de Dios! Here I am, a good atheist, and I wind up explaining Christian theology on Balloon Juice. Most Christians believe that God is the Trinity–the Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. Mary was the mother of Jesus, hence in a sense the mother of god. And La Virgen de Guadalupe is, in the famous miraculous image that was first revealed 482 years ago today, pregnant.
scav
We can arrange a BJ knowledge swap. Basic background on the Trinity and Immaculate Conception for similar on Rhetorical techniques and subtext. We’ll add it to the international trade in invective, football terms, grammatical niceties, pet grooming tips and generalized memishness.
WereBear
@Elizabelle: …. Let’s put aside the thorny topic of Jesus Christ’s ethnicity, the absurdity of debating Santa Claus on primetime, and the ridicule and allegations that such a segment invites upon a TV host.
WereBear
@Ash Can: O’Jesus.
Jamey
Wow, would it kill you to issue a spoiler alert in the subject line or before the lede?
SiubhanDuinne
@Mike in NC:
Well, really, don’t we all have relatives we’d like to see executed just before Christmas? Some people are just too hard to shop for.
SiubhanDuinne
@kdaug:
Just like My Zelda.
SiubhanDuinne
@Heliopause:
So, a Muggle then.
SiubhanDuinne
@Southern Beale:
Bad News Thursday.
SiubhanDuinne
@Pogonip:
Sittin’ in a tree….
SiubhanDuinne
@MaximumMary:
My stepmother, a well-known pinup artist in her day, worked for years in the Chicago studios of Haddon Sundblom, the artist who created the definitive Coca-Cola “Santa” we all recognize today.
schrodinger's cat
You know who else was white? Tunch. I miss the big fella.
Death Panel Truck
@C.V. Danes:
A dark image of Jesus on white toast is a message to white people: “Hey, whiteys – I’m black, Daddamnit!”
Platonicspoof
@fuckwit:
Thanks for triggering my curiosity.
Link here to part 6, if Others are interested:
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/05/16/the-gervais-principle-vi-children-of-an-absent-god/
Part 1 may seem simplistic and too much about ‘The Office’, but has enough good lines that I jumped ahead to Part 6 and the comments, and it developed more depth and universality.
But then there’s almost four years between parts 1 and 6.
Paul in KY
@MikeJ: Yes.
Paul in KY
@The Red Pen: That says it all when Free Republicers can’t even defend that.
Paul in KY
@kdaug: The God of the universe that preceded our own, silly.
Hunter
And Jesus probably looked more like a Mooslim than Megan Kelly’s ideal himbo.
ladybug
@Hunter:
I get (and agree with) the underlying point you’re making, but just a friendly PSA that there’s not a typical “Muslim” look or a typical “Christian” look or what have you.
Now if you meant that people like Megan Kelly probably assume that all Muslims look alike-I would venture that you’re right about that. ;)
As for Turkey, it’s an incredibly diverse country, with a lot of different ethnic influences. But, most people I saw in Turkey probably wouldn’t have any issue hailing a cab.
A number of Turks are themselves decedents of the mujajir (refugees) from Albania, Bosnia, other parts of Eastern Europe and the Caucus who ended up in Turkey after the Ottoman Empire fell.
xian
@scav: also grateful dead trivia