黒三太（メモ） - Living, Loving, Thinking, Again

愚図愚図していたら、もうクリスマスの跫が近づいてきた。

Brian Wheeler “The secret history of black Santas” http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38231159

米国ではミネソタ州にある「米国最大のショッピング・モール」、「モール・オヴ・アメリカ」*1が創業以来初めて黒人のサンタ・クロース *2を雇ったことが話題になっているらしい。人種差別的なリアクションも含めて。しかし、「黒人のサンタ・クロース」には少なくとも20世紀初頭以来の伝統があり、その歴史は一面ではレイシズムとの闘いの歴史でもあった。
先ず、米国文化における白人的な要素としてのサンタ・クロース；

In the overheated post-election atmosphere, Santa Claus is seen by some as another cherished cultural institution under attack by the forces of political correctness. The traditional image of Santa, as a jolly, rotund, and white, character is deeply embedded in American culture.
"Going to a department store, sitting on Santa's lap, all of that, is very central to a certain kind of post-war, white middle-class identity," says Prof Victoria Wolcott*3, a history professor at the University of Buffalo, who writes about segregation.
"To challenge that, by having a Santa Claus of colour, disturbs people."
It appears to have been disturbing people for more than a century, judging from local newspaper reports about "negro Santas", which tend to veer from an amused "whatever next" tone to examples of flat-out racism.

現在わかっているうちで最古の「黒いサンタ・クロース」は1901年、ニュージャージー州ブルームフィールド；

"A negro Santa Claus went down a chimney head first and landed on the fire," A 1901 news report, from Bloomfield, New Jersey, read. "The surprised occupants of the room flogged him."
Other reports from the time tell of Christmas parties enlivened by "black-face" Santas, singing "negro melodies".

1915年、ヴァージニア州；

In 1915, a gushing account of President Wilson's honeymoon at a Virginia resort included a description of a festive party "presided over by a dusky Santa Claus", with a large "gaily decorated" Christmas tree.
"Before [the tree] disported 15 negroes, whose antics and musical efforts kept the President and everybody else almost convulsed with laughter."

1919年、ピッツバーグ；

Four years later, the Pittsburgh Daily Post carried a report about the "the first negro Santa ever put on the streets of any city". He had been hired by the Volunteers of America in response to "appeals from poor coloured children", the newspaper added.

1936年、紐育のハーレムに登場；

But the real breakthrough for black Santas came in 1936, when tap-dancing legend Bill "Bojangles" Robinson*4 became Harlem's "first negro Santa Claus" at an annual Christmas Eve party for underprivileged children.

　
白人の都市郊外への移動との関係。都心部のデパートの顧客に占める黒人の比率が増えた；

In 1943, one of Harlem's biggest department stores, Blumstein's, hired its first black Santa Claus. It was followed, in 1946, by a store in Chicago.
As white people moved out to the suburbs, and began shopping at the giant new malls that were being built there, it made economic sense for downtown department store owners to tailor the Christmas shopping experience to their now mainly black customers.

1960年代。公民権運動以降の「黒人サンタ・クロース」；

By the 1960s, Santa had been recruited by the civil rights movement, which was starting to use economic boycotts as a weapon in the fight for racial equality.
In 1969, Santa Claus was described as "one of the established symbols of racism" by a civil rights leader, in a dispute with Shillittoes, a Cincinnati department store, that refused to hire a black Father Christmas.
The store owner's Fred Lazarus III said: "This has nothing to do with equality of employment. It just doesn't fit the symbol as kids have known it."
But the Rev Otis Moss Jr, a regional director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, hit back, saying: "If a department store cannot conceive of a black man as Santa Claus for 30 days, it most assuredly cannot conceive of his being president or vice president for 365 days."
The store caved in and hired a black Santa the following year, something that began happening with increasing frequency across the country in the early 1970s, including at Macy's flagship New York store.
One department store in Brooklyn even set up rival black-and-white Santas, separated by a low partition, to enable people to make their choice.

「サンタ・クロース」そのものの歴史については、例えば、葛野浩昭『サンタクロースの大旅行』をマークしておく。