Jon Stewart Blasts Fox's 'White Santa' Debate: 'There Is So Much Crazy Going On Here'
On last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart yet again took on the defining fight of our epoch: the War on Christmas. But this was "War on Christmas: 'S#@t's Getting Weird' Edition."
Before making his way to Megyn Kelly's now-infamous assurance that Santa Claus is both very real and very white, he highlighted a less publicized Fox News segment, during which Gretchen Carlson blasted Seinfeld's "Festivus" holiday and took issue with a six-foot "Festivus pole" at the Florida State Capital. "Who gives a f---?" Stewart responded. "It's Florida. You're lucky there's not a stripper named Christmas swinging on it."
But he saved his sharpest venom for Fox's bizarre insistence to children (in response to a Slate piece that children almost certainly weren't reading) that Santa Claus is definitely white.
The Slate writer "seems to have real pain of having grown up with this image of a white Santa," the Fox host told her viewers. "But just because it makes you uncomfortable doesn't mean it has to change." Stewart fired back, "Actually, I think that's the official slogan of oppression: 'Just because it makes you uncomfortable... doesn't mean it has to change.'" Or Arby's:
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Stewart was most outraged by Fox's claim that "you can't take facts and try and change them to try and fit some kind of political agenda," which is essentially what the network does each day. But he went on to point out that St. Nicholas, the fourth-century model for Santa Claus, was actually a dark-skinned man from Greece (or modern-day Turkey) who probably didn't live in the North Pole or drive a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer:
Stewart also lost his cool over Fox's assertion that Jesus was white: "You do know Jesus wasn't born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, right?"
Finally, Stewart was joined by "senior Christmas historical accuracy correspondent" Jessica Williams, who explained that Santa could not possibly be black: "It's Miracle on 34th Street, not Miracle on 134th Street," she told the host.
Plus, a "swarthy, Turkish Santa would make people very uncomfortable." And so Williams deftly summed up historically ignorant racism to the show's viewers by flipping Kelly's slogan on its head: "Megyn said if I feel uncomfortable, there's no need to change it. If white people feel uncomfortable, then we have to change it!"
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This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/2013/12/jon-stewart-on-fox-white-santa-debate/356112/
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