Draft:Black Santa

Black Santas are representations of Santa Claus that portray him with a darker human skin colour than most depictions of Santa. This is often done to intentionally challenge notions of race in myth, and to increase cultural depictions of historically disadvantaged people such as those of the African diaspora.

Predecessors

• alternate depictions of a usually non-Black Christmas-related character
  • Cristos Negros of Central America and Mexico
  • Black Madonna
• Zwarte Piet — Christmas-related depiction of a Black character or caricature

Reception

In 2013, Megyn Kelly criticised art of Black Santas. This led to a skit on Saturday Night Live.

Computer encoding

• 🎅🏿 Father Christmas: Dark Skin Tone is a zero-width joined sequence of Unicode characters which combine to form an emoji icon.

See also

• Apprendi v. New Jersey
• Santa Claus is a Black Man

Bibliography

• Santa stories: Children's inquiry about race during picturebook read-aloud
• If Santa wuz Black: The domestication of a white myth