Chris Kennedy black Santa on North Little Rock, Arkansas front lawn leads to anonymous racist letter demanding he remove decoration. A community responds.
When other people try to tell you which way is up. Even in your own front lawn.
An Arkansas man who put up an 8ft black Santa on his front lawn has told of receiving a ‘racist letter’ in which an anonymous person ordered him to remove the decoration and for him and his family to move out of the neighborhood.
Chris Kennedy of Lakewood, North Little Rock said he has been putting up the 8-foot-tall inflatable outside his home for three years, Fox16 reports.
‘I’ve done this every year and haven’t had any issues,’ Kennedy said.
But on Tuesday, he received a letter claiming that his decoration was making him the ‘laughing stock’ of the neighborhood.
‘Please remove your negro Santa.’
‘Please remove your negro Santa. You should not try to deceive children into believing that I am a negro,’ said the letter, which is signed only as Santa Claus, THV11 reported.
‘I am caucasian (white man to you) and have been for 600 years. You being jealous of my race is no excuse for dishonesty,’ the letter continued, failing to capitalize Caucasian, though the term is a proper noun.
The letter goes on to tell Kennedy, who is black, that he should move ‘to a neighborhood out east with the rest of your racist kind.’
Kennedy said the anonymous letter left him ‘extremely angry,’ though he doesn’t plan to take down the St. Nick decoration.
‘The children love it and that’s what Christmas is about, it’s about children,’ Kennedy said, while saying other neighbors telling him it’s the letter writer who ought to move out of the neighborhood.
Since Kennedy posted the letter on social media, he said there’s been support coming from all over the neighborhood.
‘Our neighbors have been awesome. People have dropped off cookies and notes and I’ve gotten messages from Facebook,’ Kennedy added.
