I was walking through Wal-Mart today, scaring little kids with the karaoke machine and stuff when I stumbled upon something that made me almost spit-up this morning’s strawberry Poptarts; an African-American Santa Claus. Now, it was the idea of a brown man in red togs and a white beard that bewildered me, I’d seen this stuff before, but never before had I realized that I didn’t like this. Nothing against the black community or anything, but Santa is just a white guy. I could use for proof the fact that he’s always been portrayed as Caucasian in books, merchandise, Coca-Cola, etc, or I could throw in the true origin of Santa, with the real St. Nicholas and all. Either way, Santa Claus, St. Nick, Kris Kringle, Father Christmas, is white.

Frankly, I think it's both derogitory and disrespectful to change the ethnicity of Santa Claus. Many people don't know the true story behind him, so here's a brief history lesson. St. Nicholas was caucasian, and had he been anything else, his situation would have been different.

Anyways, so then I started thinking; what if I switched the ethnicities of other iconic characters? Perhaps this could further stress my point that the culture of fictional characters IS important, or maybe it could just open up further opportunities for marketing schemes. Any way you look at it, here we go:

First, there's good ol' Aunt Jemima. Auntie J has brought warm breakfast syrup to people for ages in her familar brown bottle, however, like Santa, it's time for a change. I'm not entirely sure what white syrup would taste like, but at least she'll appeal to a broader market.

 

And how about if good ol' Lucky the Leprachaun were suddenly asian? Would he be pimping out them Lucky Charms anymore? I think not!

 

 

Ok, I would have more, but you would be surprised how much of a lack of non-white spokesmodels and iconic characters there are in our market. Sad, huh? I suggest you write a letter to your congressman.