Daily Beast staff writer Jamelle Bouie says Fox News host Megyn Kelly's controversial declaration that Santa Claus is white reflected a bad attitude.
"If I have a problem, it was with the attitude of the comment, just the idea that it was somehow ridiculous that someone might conceive Santa Claus as a non-white man," Bouie told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.
"I mean, first and foremost, Santa Claus is not real, and second, Santa Claus is an amalgamation of made-up myths and people, and so when you have a character like that, it's sort of flexible how you want to present him."
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Last week, Kelly ignited a firestorm when she said that both Santa Claus and Jesus Christ are white, in response to an essay by Slate writer Aisha Harris that said "Santa Claus Should Not Be a White Man Anymore."
Bouie said it is important to allow different interpretations of Santa Claus because "children of color, whether it be black or Latino or Asian, have very, very few representatives of themselves for anything positive.
"In the broad range of fictional characters for children, very few are people of color,'' he said.
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