Fox News, Santa Claus is coming to town. And I think he gives the same amount of presents, whether black or white.

We’ve likely seen it already but just in case you haven’t, here is the viral video of the week, courtesy of Fox News Entertainment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4NVZA0HeVE

“Santa…is just WHITE! Come on, why do you have to argue about this? He’s white and can’t be anything else!”

Mister Jon Stewart did a better job of mocking Kelly on his program:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqXKaBUYgx0

But I’ll give it a shot.

Kelly later issued a statement after the internet unleashed a massive backlash on her for her asinine comments:

“Outraged? Well, this would be funny if it were not so telling about our society. In the particular the knee jerk instinct by so many to race bait and to assume the worst in people, especially people employed by the very powerful FOX News Channel.”

http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/12/16/megyn-kelly-addresses-white-santa-comments

She accused people of “race baiting” which is undoubtedly an issue that is quite unfortunate. However she seemingly is not aware of the fact that she BROUGHT IT UP!

Why feel the need to clarify to kids all around the world that Santa isn’t black? Do little kids care? I know when I was a kid, all I cared about was if Santa gave me my presents. And if he never gave them to me, I would have hated him equally, regardless of the color of his skin. I’d even argue that most children don’t even care what color skin you are. That is, until they watch silly programs like Fox News and it is made clear to them that it DOES matter.

So it’s clear to see what this is; a blatant attempt to generate controversy and interest in their own news channel. There might have been a time where they tried to shy away from sounding silly, but I think that time has long passed us by. This is a classic attempt at generating “interest” in their program, whether it be legitimate interest or simply pity. But it worked. They got their attention and the internet is still buzzing.

However despite her silly (I know I’m using that word a lot) comments, she did have a point. Perhaps society IS too prone to accusing people of being racists. Who does like being called a racist? It’s a very insulting and disrespectful thing to call somebody, and it is thrown around way too often. I understand by now that racial issues are something that will probably stick around as long as human beings exist; it’s simply the cold, hard truth. Unfortunate, yes. But like all problems, while they may remain, they can be suppressed to a certain extent. But not if society as a whole learns to combat these issues as a whole. I do realize how tough that sounds, because really, when has humanity as a whole ever banded together and united for a common cause? There will always be outliers.

However, it never hurts to try. Let’s stop accusing people of being racists. Let’s stop bringing race into matters that don’t need to involve it in the first place. Let’s not ignore race completely as it is an important part of who we are, and an important part of the fabric of our being, but let’s stop disrespecting our own races and each others races and ignore people who do. Otherwise, the end result will be the same: silly news channels including race in a very silly manner in a pitiful attempt to have a video go viral.

Now as someone who is not black, it seems almost inappropriate for me to discuss this issue because I have had no experience dealing with the word. I am, however, aware of the weight that the word holds in the eyes of black Americans and the long, painful history behind it. As looked-down upon as the word is though, it seems to be a polarizing issue among black Americans; some believe it is absolutely unacceptable for anyone to say it, black or non-black, and some believe it is perfectly fine when black people are using it.

What spawned this discussion in my mind is a few weeks ago, NBA player Matt Barnes got into a scuffle with Serge Ibaka, another player on the opposing team. Here is a video of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7MdUpa8ETQ

Barnes comes to the defense of his teammate, Blake Griffin, and gets an ejection. Later after the game was over, Barnes posted the following message on Twitter (which he deleted quickly after):

@Matt_Barnes22 Love my teammates like family, but I’m DONE standing up for these *****s! All this shit does is cost me money

The censored word, as you can guess, is the n-word. And later Barnes issued an apology.

Should he have had to apologize though? Let’s take away the fact that he is an NBA player and he needs to watch his mouth anyway, as do the rest of the players, if it was just anyone that said this, would it have come under such scrutiny for him using the word? Here, Charles Barkley discusses the use of the n-word with his TNT crew:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5teRxMqaPQ

What Barkley basically said was, Barnes was wrong to tweet it publicly, but he uses it all the time with his friends and it is really just a word. “White America doesn’t dictate how me and Shaq speak to each other.” He may have a point, the intent  of using the word amongst friends may not be malicious and just friendly, and most of the time I would argue that it is, but according to NBA legend Isiah Thomas, it should not be used at ALL.

http://www.vladtv.com/video/178750/isiah-thomas-grant-hill-continue-debate-over-n-word-use/

Thomas lists the dictionary definition of the word and says to be using the word in the first place would be demeaning to black people, regardless of the intent in which it is being used.

So what do you guys think? Should the intent be taken into account when using the word since the word been tossed around so much that it has basically lost a lot of its impact, or should the historical struggle surrounding the word never be forgotten and “abolish” the word, so to speak?

I haven’t blogged a whole lot before, but it isn’t exactly something completely alien to me. I thought since I’ve been given the opportunity to create a blog, to make the topic something which I think needs to be addressed and discussed: the seemingly everlasting issues of racism and prejudice.

Many, if not most people are of the opinion that racism has decreased drastically within modern day society. For the sake of preserving the maximum level of relevancy, I will talk about the United States. There seems to be a notion amongst many that racism has no reason to exist within this country. It is understandable why one may share such an opinion. After all, the United States in particular has had a long, grueling, difficult battle against open displays of racism, such as segregation of schools and other public facilities, slavery, etc. Admittedly, our country has made great strides in combating racism and giving all races the opportunity to live equally prosperous lives. However, is it nearly enough? I don’t think so.

Racism is still alive and well. We may not have states where black people are being forced to the backs of buses or are being forced to drink from segregated water fountains, but racism does not start with these open displays of prejudice, the foundation of a racist person is inside their heart. So this begs the question: can we really stop people from being ignorant, or racist, or prejudiced?

It would be a very difficult task to attempt, for the simple fact that there is no guaranteed way for one to change how somebody feels about a sensitive topic such as racism. A perfect example is the recent controversial comments made towards the newly-crowned Miss America, Nina Davuluri. Ms. Davuluri is an Indian-American, born and raised in the United States, however after her win, she had more than a few comments made towards her, calling her a “terrorist” and several geniuses commented “ARAB people winning Miss AMERICA? What is going on?!” Now some degree of justice was done to these people, as their tweets and twitter accounts were publicly displayed by sites like buzzfeed.com and so many of them were forced to delete their accounts, make them private or apologize. Some were not so apologetic and kept their accounts up; seemingly an act of defiance. Despite thousands of angry tweets, many of these people were unfazed and held strong to their beliefs, which goes to show you how difficult it is to force a change of heart. It seems as if there is no way…

…Or is there? Let me back up for a second. Did I just say people commented on the ridiculousness of an Arab woman winning Miss America? I did, and these are quotes by real people with, unfortunately, real twitter accounts. One quote from this buzzfeed article quoting a twitter user: “How the fuck does a foreigner win miss America? She is a Arab! #idiots.” Maybe they glossed over the fact that Indians are not Arabs, and that they are nowhere near the same thing, but I am pretty sure a decent education would have prevented them from saying something ignorant like that. Would it have stopped them from saying something stupid? Probably not, but the stupidity would probably be less apparent. Perhaps the key to defeating ignorance is a good education? Stay in school, guys.

Despite what I just said, racism rolls on and on. Who knows if the person sitting across from you, or even next to you, on the train is a closet racist who so happens to have a problem with who you are? There’s no radar for that. Maybe we’re better off without one.