In 2021 when a Black Santa appeared at the ‘Santa Experience’ in the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, there as an uproar on social media over the decision to give African American and former army veteran Larry “Santa Larry” Jefferson the job. The outrage was over what was seen as cultural appropriation of a ‘white’ traditional character, Santa. The mall owner said in an interview he wanted a “Santa to be for everyone, period”.
One of the most vile comments reported on DiversityInc was from someone calling the decision an “atrocity” and highlighted that “Santa Claus was a German character from centuries ago when blacks were eating each other in Africa”.
Well, Santa was not German and cannibalism has been practiced across Europe in different periods, but let’s leave that for another time.
Thankfully the Trumpist rise of white supremacy has been dulled – a little. Last week the Mississippi masthead the Clarion Ledger heralded the the new Black Santa and journalist Joshua Williams writes: “In a world where white Santas are the default, Jackson’s Black Santa defies the stereotypes and gives children and adults in other communities a rare opportunity to see a well-known Christmas legend that looks like them.” He’s correct.
As an atheist Orthodox, (yes, you can be that), I’ll point out that the original Santa was a Greek bishop; Basil the Great or the Bishop of St Nicholas, (Santa Claus), who was also ordained the Bishop of Caesarea in Asia Minor, modern Turkey.
Santa wasn’t jolly at all. He insistied on rigid clerical discipline and ex-communicated those involved in prostitution, slavery and human trafficking in Cappadocia, Asia Minor, (now Turkey).
Santa, or Basil the Great, (we love the epithet Great), was a Asia Minor Greek fellow, more than likely, olive in complexion, tough, serious and very thin.
The rotund jolly and Anglo-Germani Santa didn’t appear until the 19th Century and the red-coated one was a later Coca Cola version.
The Christianised Huns incorporated their pagan god Wodan or Odin, known aslo as Jólnir, (meaning Yule figure), with the Greek Bishop of Nicholas.
Basil the Great attended school in 352 CE in Caesarea, Constantinople, and then Athens where he met Gregory Nazianzen – later canonised as St Gregory – and other senior Byzantine figures who were also later canonised.
The Eastern Orthodox Church made saints of Basil’s siblings — it was a good Greek family business. Bishop Basil opened a school of oratory in Caesarea and practiced law. Being a lawyer even then was a Greek aspiration.
He later became a monk, founded a monastery in Pontus, (modern Turkey), which he directed for a time. He wrote a famous monastic rule (don’t know which) which according to Catholic On Line “has proved the most lasting of those in the East”.
Basil would secretly gift poor unmarried women so they could build a dowry sufficient to marry out of poverty.
He was made Bishop of Caesarea in 370 and became a scholar, lawyer, an orator, statesman and was revered for his anti-poverty stance, He was a rather sombre religious socialist.
He aided victims of drought, pestilence and famine. As a clerical reformer he enforcied the learning of science, philosophy, and literature on his clergy.
He was not jolly at all and insisted on rigid clerical discipline and excommunicated those involved in prostitution, slavery, and human trafficking in Cappadocia.
His feast day is January 2 and Orthodox celebrates Christmas traditionally on January 7, the Epiphany, the day of lights, Foton, my name day, as part of the Julian calendar.
The Ethiopians, a most ancient Orthodox Christian people, (just after the Greeks), also celebrate on the 7 January and their gift giving is by Yágena Abãt one of the Ethiopean Magi, or wise men who brought gifts to that infant Jewish baby, Jesus.
Here lies the problem with anxieties over cultural appropriation. I don’t mind the Coca Cola Santa; I grew up with him in Australia.
And I don’t mind St Basil. As a kid in Greece, I knew it meant two periods of gift giving, December 25 and January 7.
The years of naive deconstructionism among those who fain horror at a non-Mexican wearing a sombrero need to at least know something about history.
The rationale that has empowered intolerance on the new left has empowered greater bigotry on the right.
The failure of educational institutions to teach history has opened the space for colonisation by the alt-right. Attacking someone for wearing a sombrero because they are not Mexican reflects historical simplicity.
The sombrero, originally from Mongolia, was brought into Hungary, Romania by Roma, then into Spain, and then by the Spanish into Mexico. It is no more Mexican than chorizo or rice and beans.
History is not static, culture is not static, art is not static, food-ways are not static, and religions are not static.
The most ancient representations of Buddha are found in the Hellenistic Greco-Bactrian kingdom (250 BC- 130 BC) in today’s Afghanistan. Hellenistic culture spread from there into the Indian subcontinent with the establishment of the Indo-Greek kingdom (180 BC-10 BC), which defined the cannon of Indian Buddhist and later Mogul Islamic art.
Santa Claus, St Basil, Father Xmas, can be any colour. If you obsess over cultural appropriation, then I want him back as a tough and swarthy Greek. Now have a courambie and a melomacarono for me.