white Santa
I'M TOO OLD, and so are my children, to set out cookies and milk for you. But I’m still hopeful enough to write you another letter.
Last year, with all the earnestness I could muster, I asked you for a white people intervention—many white progressive and evangelical Christians in the same room for a cleansing flood of white tears, some deep breathing and healing prayer, and time to plan to dismantle white supremacy from the inside.
But I have not received word that an intervention took place. I assume invitations to it went out or it got canceled, postponed, or taken over by the announcement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement. (Was that supposed to be a Christmas-in-summer gift?)
“Bubble living” might be delusional, but it expresses deep and serious yearnings.
Take “Champagne music” maker Lawrence Welk. His music variety show on ABC was built on perpetuating the squareness of a prewar world being challenged by postwar change.
My father was still watching Welk reruns 40 years after it ceased production in 1971. They reminded him of a world long supplanted.