Touré: Forget Santa; Obama Is the ‘Benevolent Black Man’ Who Gives Gifts to Kids

"And you kind of shouldn't want Santa to be white, because then you have to wonder if the elves who seem to work for him for life are kind of like slaves, and you know how weird that would be. But the insistence that he's not black, and can't be black, strikes me as an attempt to perpetuate white supremacy, and a positive whiteness is somehow normal, and central, while blackness is other, or different. So many black kids know how Aisha Harris felt as a child when she craved icons that told her she belonged, that she was not an outsider. Why rob her of that? Besides, the way you know that Santa isn't white is because race is fictional. It’s not a biological reality. It’s a sociopolitical construct, insisting on the immutability of the race of someone who's able to fly tells me you're afraid of something. Afraid, perhaps, of a black man being a deep part of childhood. But you do know, there is already a generous, benevolent black man in your children's lives who lives in a place that some people think is magical, who has given something to each and every American, whether they have been naughty, or nice. You know who I’m talking about.”