Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”
Ah, Christmas. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, as the song goes. It should be a time of peace on earth, good will toward men, when we gather close to loved ones and celebrate our blessings and the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. But of course, the woke Grinches never sleep, never stop, and never take a holiday, which is why they harass us about politics at the Thanksgiving dinner table, and even Christmastime is not safe from their neo-Marxist fanaticism.
In one of the most inane projects ever undertaken by the cultural Marxists who are determined to socially engineer a joyless, utopian future based on racial revenge, Brighton and Hove Museums, located on the southern coast of England, are now featuring on their website a page titled, “Decolonising Father Christmas.”
Written by the museum’s Joint Head of Culture Change, Simone LaCorbinière, the blog post addresses the troubling issue everyone wrestles with each Christmas season: the problematic tale of a white, Western Santa who judges all children’s behavior.
LaCorbinière begins by explaining helpfully that “challenging accepted narratives” is the point of her Culture Change project. One would think that museums should be about preserving art and historical artifacts for future generations to experience, understand, and appreciate, but as the woke Left see it, the point of a museum should be to “re-evaluate,” “re-examine.” and “re-interpret.” And by “re-interpret,” they mean deconstruct and destroy, because they are brimming with jealousy and hate for Eurocentric civilization.
She goes on to discuss how to “update” the story of Father Christmas for “modern audiences.” First of all, his determination of which children get presents based on who was naughty or nice “asks us to accept colonial assumptions of cultural superiority. It doesn’t recognise the complex realities colonised people face.” After all, “who decided Santa should be the judge of children’s behaviour in every community? How can he assess, for example, Indigenous children practicing their own cultural traditions?”
LaCorbinière relates her own experience of “many Santa storybooks of my youth,” in which “other cultures appeared simply as backdrops for Santa’s adventure. There might be a flag, and illustrations of children in their national costume, but we learned nothing about those places and people”:
This perpetuates the harmful ‘colonial gaze’. Non-Western cultures are ‘othered’. It says that the coloniser has the power to judge all people. And it ignores many communities’ histories and traditions. Telling the story like this teaches new generations that the coloniser knows best.
Hang on, because it gets even more absurd as LaCorbinière blasts capitalist slave-driver Santa for oppressing his altitude-challenged employees at the North Pole:
And what do we say by having an old white man supervise the elves’ work? Is it something entirely innocent – elves are magical, mythical beings completely separate from the real world – or is there more to it? Are they representative of other groups? How do they reinforce how marginalised groups view not only ‘father figures’ but also themselves?
Mythical maybe, but elves are identifiably different to what is often presented as ‘normal’, which is white, male and non-disabled. And in the stories, the ‘different’ ones make the toys and the white, non-disabled man supervises them.
Elves aren’t white, male, and non-disabled? As I fondly recall from the classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer TV special of my childhood, there are both boy and girl elves, and none is disabled. The only one who is different is the white, male, non-disabled kid who bizarrely dreams of being a dentist.
Anyway, LaCorbinière concludes with a whole sleigh-full of suggestions for eradicating the whiteness from a White Christmas. Here are a few:
- Have Santa learn about different cultures rather than judge them. Stories could show him experiencing their traditions. Emphasise cultural exchange rather than assessment.
- Remove Santa rewarding children based on a Western binary of ‘naughty/nice.’ Focus on bringing joy to kids of all backgrounds rather than judging them.
- Include people from around the world in Santa’s workshop. This acknowledges global input.
- Put Santa to work in the factory alongside the elves. This shows him and the elves as equal.
They’re not equal. He is the boss, and he has the hardest job of anyone at the North Pole: piloting a team of flying reindeer to every rooftop in the world, delivering a bag of presents down the chimney and back up again in the space of a single night. Can any of the elves do that? No. That’s why Santa makes the big bucks and runs the show.
More from the genius anti-colonialist LaCorbinière:
- Have Santa be a more diverse character who celebrates cultural exchange. Avoid promoting one culture’s dominance. An inclusive adaptation could include many Santas from different regions.
Let’s get real: if any other culture had a better Christmas tradition than Santa, the West would have adopted it long ago because we’re all about meritocracy. But they don’t, and kids all over the world love Santa. It’s only miserable woke scolds like LaCorbinière who resent him.
And predictably, LaCorbinière had to slip in a jab at the patriarchy: “Include some Mother Christmases. Patriarchy and colonialism went hand in hand. Show the next generation that men don’t have to be in charge.” I seriously doubt that Mrs. Claus is eager to break the glass ceiling of Santa’s workshop and take over. I suspect she is just fine with the arrangement she and Santa already have.
This joy-destroying Culture Change initiative was granted an eyebrow-raising £900,000 of taxpayer cash in October. Senior Tory MP Sir Alec Shelbrooke called it “the worst possible use of taxpayer funds” and observed that, “At a time of goodwill and festive cheer, it seems woke do-gooders would rather everybody was miserable.”
Indeed. It’s impossible for normal human beings to comprehend what it must be like inside the obsessively discontented brains of the woke, like Simone LaCorbinière. Imagine Christmastime rolling around, and instead of enjoying the season – the caroling, the glittering decorations, the children’s expectation and sense of magic, the joy of giving – all you can think about is deconstructing that tradition, perverting it into something racist and oppressive, and then harassing white people about it. It would be hilariously pathetic if these Scrooges weren’t so demonically driven to impose their “Bah, humbug!” worldview on the rest of us at all costs.
Here at the Freedom Center, we wish a Merry Christmas to all, and as Tiny Tim put it, “God bless us, every one!”
Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior.
