Thanksgiving hasn’t even come yet and one Black man in North Little Rock, Ark., has already been on the receiving end of racism over Christmas decorations displayed in front of his home.
THV11 reports that three-year Lakewood resident Chris Kennedy said he received a letter in the mail on Tuesday afternoon that was purported to be from the Lakewood Property Owners Association. The letter appears to have been authored by a salty and fragile white person pretending to be a very angry “Santa Clause” offended by Kennedy’s displaying of a Black Santa decoration in his front yard.
From THV 11:
The letter reads in full:
“Please remove your negro Santa Clause yard decoration. You should not try to deceive children into believing that I am a negro. I am a Caucasian white man to you and have been for the past 600 years. Your being jealous of my race is no excuse for your dishonesty.
Besides that, you are making yourself the laughing stock of the neighborhood.”
The letter also included a photo of a white Santa, with two thumbs down.
Don’t get me wrong: Santa Claus couldn’t possibly be Black because the way racial profiling is set up, no Black man is getting away with mass breaking and entering every year even if he is leaving gifts instead of stealing shit. Also, Santa could totally be a racist. Imagine Santa’s hat was all-white and didn’t have the puffy white ball at the end. It would look just like...You know what? I’m going to go ahead and move on from this.
Kennedy said he was pretty sure the letter didn’t actually come from the homeowners association because the LPOA logo wasn’t right.
“I saw that something was coming from the Lakewood Property Owners Association, but I thought it was kind of odd,” he told THV11.
Evan Blake, the LPOA executive director, confirmed to reporters that the association had nothing to do with the letter.
“We reached out to him and gave him a membership just to kind of show him that we do want him in the neighborhood,” Blake said. “We don’t want the people that wrote that letter in the neighborhood. That’s what we don’t want.”
Kennedy said that after he posted the letter he received to social media, his neighbors and others have been showing him plenty of holiday love.
“Our neighbors have been awesome,” he said. “People have dropped off cookies and notes and I’ve gotten messages from Facebook.”
He also said someone left a sign in his yard that reads, “Love your neighbor, y’all.”
As for whatever bigoted Grinch sent him the letter, Kennedy has a simple message.
“If I’m a laughing stock by trying to provide joy to other families’ children down the street going to school by having out a Santa Claus and decorating for Christmas, so be it,” he said.
Did I mention that it’s not even Thanksgiving yet?